There aren’t many joys as pure and unadulterated as a tasty piece of candy. That feeling of bliss when all those simple carbs and deliciously sweet notes hit the tongue, most of which we first experience as children, fades away as we get older. Some of that is over health and diet concerns, of course, but also because most candy is flavored with artificial ingredients and developed in a lab.
A lot of those sweets also get made for an audience of kids, not the more sophisticated palates that we develop as we enter adulthood.
Mayssa Chehata saw a need for a candy that was low in sugar and carbs with more refined flavors that was more of a throwback to childhood without feeling overtly kid-centric. This led her to start Behave, a new candy brand that aims to deliver guilt-free sweets with more grown-up flavors.
The intrepid 28-year old founder and CEO, who brings a marketing and branding pedigree after stints at Uber, Soulcycle, and Daily Harvest, saw a market gap in the candy market. Adults aren’t necessarily devoid of healthy snacks, but most are aimed at wellness or performance and don’t scratch the itch that only sweet, sweet candy can.
Chehata brought in celebrity chef and sweets expert Elizabeth Falkner to develop from these evolved takes on the childhood favorite gummy bear from the ground up. Chef Falkner went beyond standard gummy fair with flavors such as lychee, passion fruit, and raspberry. Each bag contains 3g of sugar, 6g net carbs, and only 90 calories. The gummies are also naturally sweetened with monk fruit.
To achieve Behave’s visual look and packaging, Chehata developed it alongside food specialists Gander, who also worked with brand Magic Spoon, who make healthier versions of kids’ breakfast cereal. Gander uses eye-searing blocks of neon colors to evoke feelings of nostalgia for childhood candy. Bold typography serves as the only embellishment over the neon panels, save for a giant gummy bear. The wordmark is also crossed-out, a call to defying convention and guilt.
At its core, Behave is about redefining expectations and remodeling conventions. Yes, you can have a guilt-free gummy bear with the kind of unexpected flavor profiles millennials and Gen Z folks have come to expect. That attitude is clearly communicated visually and through the packaging, and wouldn’t look out sitting next to some mints on the counter of your favorite local coffee spot.
Although Behave is about gummy bear indulgence, maybe don’t put them on top of hot french fries. That might be just too defiant.
