Where do I buy Deemint Certs Menta in/shipped to the US?

January 4, 2023 10:25 PM

I want to surprise my husband with some candies his late grandparents used to bring back from Mexico when they were snowbirds in Texas. Who sells them in the US or will ship to the US from a website I could actually trust putting my credit card info into? Here's a site in Mexico that sells them, but they won't ship to the US, and neither will Amazon Mexico, at least for this item. Help please!
posted by tubedogg to Shopping (6 answers total)

Best answer: Get in touch with Raquel's Candy 'n Confections in Los Angeles, they own mexicancandy.com.
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:13 PM on January 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Legally, Certs are discontinued in 2018 in the US because it contains partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil (aka "trans fat"), which has been disallowed by the FDA due to links to heart disease.
posted by kschang at 11:02 AM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You can try Alamo candy company:

https://www.alamocandy.com/store/

They might have them even if not on their page.
posted by Saucywench at 12:07 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for the store recommendations. I will follow up on those.

kschang, do we know if this is a case of a global conglomerate reusing a brand name for a possibly unrelated product (this candy is caramel or at least caramel-flavored versus it being a breath mint in the US) or if these are just caramel-flavored Certs? I found a picture of the bottom of the packaging with the ingredients list and it says it has hydrogenated vegetable oil, which to my understanding is not the same thing as what was banned in the US. (It also lists titanium (di?)oxide, which I know is a whole other can of worms, at least in the EU.)

I'm assuming if it does contain a banned ingredient, it can't be imported into the US, at least commercially?
posted by tubedogg at 3:45 PM on January 5, 2023

AFAIK, this is the ORIGINAL Certs formula, as it was always made by the same company Kraft Foods / Mondelez International "with Retsyn". Mondelez owns all the major brandnames, such as Cadbury, being an offshoot / successor of Kraft Foods after the split in 2012.

The FDA ban on partially hydrogenated oil was not limited to cottonseed oil.
posted by kschang at 12:15 PM on January 6, 2023

Deemint apparently was just a brand that's rarely seen in the US, but it was owned by Cadbury Schweppes Americas Confectionery, who's a part of Mondelez / Kraft all along.

Headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, Cadbury Schweppes Americas Confectionery is one of four regional operating units of Cadbury Schweppes plc—the world’s top confectionery company (and the only confectionery company to span chewing gum, confectionery and chocolate categories), and one of the world’s leading global beverage companies. Operating in 20 countries, Cadbury Schweppes Americas Confectionery develops, manufactures, and markets some of the best-loved chocolate, confectionery, cough and gum brands, including Bazooka®, Beldent®, Bubbaloo®, Bubba’s®, Bubblicious®, Cadbury®, Certs®, Chiclets®, Clorets®, Deemint®, Dentyne®, Halls®, Mantecol®, Sour Patch®, Swedish Fish®, and Trident®.

But it is very possible they used that brand on a different segment of the market. I just find the use of Certs in that context NOT on a breath mint to be a bit weird, as Certs was the oldest commercial breath mint in the US, IIRC.
posted by kschang at 12:24 PM on January 6, 2023