26/05/2026
We noticed!!
Sherbert Bombs (and Choo Choo Bars) were deleted in 2024, and the entire company shut down.
It’s was the end of an era for the family business that gave Australia one of its most iconic lollies, the Sherbet Bomb. Lagoon also had the rights to the Choo Choo bar in recent years.
Other products made by Lagoon included Sherbet Cocktails, Lemon Sherbets, Fruity Acids, Chewy Mints, Eucalyptus Drops and Barley Sugars.
Lagoon Confectionery, a Melbourne institution, quietly wrapped up production in 2024 as the family sold its 95-year-old business. Sadly there was no national goodbye. Just another little piece of Aussie childhood disappearing from the lolly aisle.
For Tina Finlayson, the third generation of the family business, it was more than just a factory. It was where she grew up. She still remembers sitting around the table with her grandfather, wrapping Sherbet Bombs by hand.
“It’s bittersweet, for sure,” she said. “This factory has been in our family for generations, and it’s where I grew up. But the time has come to move on.”
The story goes all the way back to 1929, when Bob’s parents started the business after being laid off from the Allen’s lolly factory during the Depression. They had met while working at Allen’s, then decided to have a crack at making their own confectionery from a shed behind their house.
The Sherbet Bomb came from a simple idea: they wanted to make a fizzy lolly. And somehow, from that little backyard shed, they created something that would end up in corner stores, milk bars and lolly bags all over Australia for generations.
Back in the early days, wholesalers would pull up in vans, load up the confectionery, then sell it on to shops and milk bars. Every lolly had to be wrapped by hand. Bob started helping out as a teenager, learning everything from cooking syrups to forming and shaping the sweets.
For decades, Sherbet Bombs were one of those lollies that just felt permanently Australian. The paper wrapper. The hard outside. That fizzy sherbet hit in the middle. The kind of thing you bought with pocket money after school, usually from a glass jar at the local deli or milk bar. They became increasingly difficult to find over the past 10 years, however.
Lolly Shops have been selling the final supply of Sherbert Bombs made in the factory that closed down for the last 2 years, and most have now run out stock (they had a long use-by date).
And now, quietly, they’re gone.
Another classic Aussie lolly has slipped into memory. Not with a bang, but with one last fizzy little pop.
Darrell Lea purchased the brand, it appears to have done nothing with both Sherbert Bombs and Choo Choo Bars and sold off the land the factory was on, and both products have been deleted for 2 years now.
