Fairs, market reports, new product development, etc. are not all in this life! There is also time for some funny stories around chewing gum. In the link you will see an article about Neolithic chewing gum (!). I wonder if they were already sticking it under the (stone) table…
http://www.derby.ac.uk/news/heres-a-story-to-get-your-teeth-into
Enjoy…
Wasabi KitKat (Nestlé) or Cheese Chocolate (Meiji-Japan) are only some of the amazing developments that we find in the Far East. You can see them following this link
http://www.confectionerynews.com/Formulation/Asian-innovation-Wasabi-Kit-Kats-and-cheese-chocolate © 2012 – William Reed Business Media SAS
But in our field of chewing gum two novelties are being described in the website above: A bubble gum launched by Lotte, in Korea and the appearance of “Stride”, by Mondelez in China.
Both can be considered oddities. The former because bubble gum is usually not the field where the innovation efforts focus, the later because the presence of Mondelez in the huge Chinese market is almost inexistent. Chinese market is (according to Euromonitor 2011) dominated by Wrigley (ca. 40% market share in value), followed at the distance by Orion, Lotte and Perfetti (all within the 3 to 5% bracket). Then various local players have much smaller shares. We will follow very closely how the launching of the “Stride” brand (already well-known in other countries) develops and if this really represents the disembark of Mondelez in the Chinese gum market.
There are not many news about ingredients for gum base. Basically because, as you know, this field of research is quite restricted and companies keep their own developments for themselves. However, yesterday, confectionerynews.com informed about a new resin from Wacker (Germany) which claims to improve many properties of the gum base. The name of this ingredient is “Capiva” and according to the article it reduces the processing time, improves the flavour release, increases the shelf life, reduces the stickiness and increases the elasticity.
I am happy that some of the research on gum base production is openly communicated and published. Usually, the general public can follow the developments on this field only by the patents that are being filed now and then, so this is like fresh air sneaking through. I hope it is not the last time and that the community can read more of these type of news.
Here is the link to the article:
© 2012 – William Reed Business Media SAS – All Rights Reserved
Last week I gave a presentation about Gum Technology in Leatherhead (UK). It was short (it usually happens to me that I extend too much when talking about chewing gum! ) but also very interesting and got very sharp questions from the audience, which is always challenging. I enjoyed it a lot and look forward to be there next year again.
Now comes a period when not many big events around chewing gum happen. One of them can be HiE (Health ingredients Europe), in Frankfurt, that is taking place just now, but the main next event will be ISM’13 by end of January (27th-30th) in Cologne, together with ProSweets.
http://www.ism-cologne.com/en/ism/home/index.php
http://www.prosweets.com/en/prosweets/home/index.php
Chewing Gum Consultant 