> How or why does a candy company decide to electronics? That's the mystery I need an answer to.
A few years ago, Haribo was in a serious crisis [1] - they didn't catch up on competition when it comes to new trends such as vegan candy, and a few years prior they had dismissed their marketing face Thomas Gottschank [2]. The closure of the Saxony plant also seriously soured relations with local politicians [3]. Some of all of that is attributed to the death of Hans Riegel in 2013 [4].
I don't have any particular insights into Haribo, but what I do know is that (especially struggling) brands tend to go towards making money off of the brand by licensing out rights... some of such deals tend to go well for everyone involved (see e.g. anything Lego touches), some run okay-ish (e.g. that's how you end with a "CAT" rugged phone made by Bullitt [5] - the things were rugged, but the performance was abysmal), and some end up in a massive clusterfuck like the Haribo batteries.
It is just a generic battery you can buy e.g. in South Korea (for about $10 to $15) and some company got the license from Haribo to slap their branding on it through some crowdfunding project.
It doesn't seem like it was Haribo that started it off, but rather the company HK DC GLOBAL got a license to use the Haribo branding to market the powerbank through this crowdfund:
That would be incredibly dangerous. Infants and small children would get used to the sight of adults eating batteries and before long, one would end up swallowing an actual battery and get seriously injured.
