Who Owns Candy Kittens?

Candy Kittens is owned by a German confectionery family. Companies House records Bastian Xaver Maria Fassin, resident in Germany, as holding 75% or more of Candy Kittens Limited since 29 November 2019 — the date Jamie Laing, the co-founder most people associate with the brand, ceased as a registered controller. Fassin is managing partner of Katjes International, which announced the majority purchase that same month. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns the Candy Kittens brand?

The company is CANDY KITTENS LIMITED (07917735), incorporated 20 January 2012 and registered at Broadstone Place, London.

Its sole active person with significant control is Mr Bastian Xaver Maria Fassin, country of residence Germany, holding 75% or more of both shares and voting rights, notified 29 November 2019.

The ceased entry is the one that changes the story: Mr James Robin Grant Laing, resident in the United Kingdom, held more than 25% but not more than 50% of shares and votes from 6 April 2016 until 29 November 2019. He is no longer a registered controller of the company he co-founded.

Parent company and ultimate owner

Above the company sits Katjes International, the investment arm of the German confectionery group Katjes, based in Emmerich am Rhein. Bastian Fassin is its managing partner and a member of the family behind the business.

There is a detail here worth pausing on, because it shows the PSC regime working as designed. Press coverage of the transaction named Katjes International as the buyer. The register names a person. The rules require companies to trace control past intermediate corporate holders to the individual who ultimately holds it — so Companies House records Fassin where the announcements record his firm.

That is the opposite of what happens on most pages on this site, where the register names a holding company and stops short of any human being. Here the register is more informative than the reporting.

Brand owner vs operating company

Candy Kittens Limited owns the brand and runs the business. Manufacturing is contracted out, as it is for most confectionery brands of this size — the company designs and sells the sweets rather than making them.

Jamie Laing and Ed Williams remain the brand’s public identity, and Laing has continued as its most visible figure. Being the face of a brand and being its owner are separate things, and this is one of the clearest examples on the site: the founder’s name sells the product, and the controlling interest is held abroad.

When the ownership changed

Candy Kittens was founded in 2012 by Jamie Laing, then appearing on Made in Chelsea, and Ed Williams. It began as a fashion-led sweet brand and became a vegan gourmet sweets business sold through the major supermarkets.

• 2012 — Candy Kittens Limited incorporated.
• August 2019 — Katjes International acquires a reported 25%.
• 29 November 2019 — the stake rises above half; the register records Fassin at 75% or more and Laing ceasing on the same day.

Note the gap between the two figures. Reporting described the November step as taking Katjes “above 50%”; the register records the resulting PSC band as 75% or more. Both can be true — press accounts describe the shares changing hands, while the PSC band reflects the controller’s total position including anything held before or alongside. Where the two differ, the band is the filed figure.

A staged purchase like this — a minority first, control four months later — is a common structure for founder-led brands, and the register captures only the step at which control passed.

Related brands in the same group

Katjes International owns a growing portfolio of European brands. In Britain the most significant is Graze, the snack box business, which it bought from Unilever in 2025 — so Candy Kittens and Graze now share an owner. It has also backed Nuud, the plastic-free chewing gum brand.

The German parent, Katjes, is best known domestically for liquorice and fruit gums and has built its strategy around vegetarian and vegan confectionery — which is why Candy Kittens, a vegan brand, fitted the group.

Candy Kittens is not connected to Haribo, its most obvious competitor and also German, nor to Swizzels, Bonds or the Mars and Mondelez confectionery businesses covered elsewhere on this site. Two German family confectioners owning competing British sweet brands is a coincidence of ownership, not a group.

Sources and verification

The company number, the 2012 incorporation, both PSC entries with their bands and the 29 November 2019 date come from Companies House for 07917735 and can be checked directly. The ownership here is register-verified, including the identity and country of residence of the controlling individual.

What the register does not establish is the corporate chain. It names Fassin, not Katjes International — so the connection between the two rests on Katjes’ own announcement of the acquisition and on trade press reporting, not on a UK filing. Nor does the register give a price: the value of either the 2019 transactions or the business today is not on the public record.

Companies House does not verify most filed information.