Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

Fleer – Spain 04/04/2024

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 10:17 AM
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I already talked about this company (founded Spanish but now under the American Tootsie Roll) in this blog.

What I find interesting is the broad range of products that they cover:

  • Chewing gum dragees under the brand CLIX. 12 flavours. Presented in individual flow packs and also in zipbags with 30 pieces each
  • Chewing gum sticks: 4 flavours, also under the brand CLIX
  • Functional chewing gum, CLIX PRO with vitamins and ginseng
  • Bubble gum chunks (cut&wrap) under the brand DUBBLE BUBBLE, one of the historical brands in the chewing gum industry. There is one side brand which is sugrafree, quite unusual for a bubble gum for children. Another line extension offers the pieces in the shape of a bear and still another is a tongue painter.
  • Bubble gum balls and melons

So this covers different formats, flavours and target markets.

They also launched a line of Cotton candy (“FLUFFY STUFF”), which is not gum but this could be a new development for the future, although the production of cotton candy gum is a real challenge!

www.fleer.es

 

FLEER – Spain . Gum for E-Gamers. CLIX PRO 24/05/2023

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 12:34 PM
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Today another novelty seen in ISM. A gum specially designed and directed to E-gamers. This is a growing segment of the market and the company Fleer has identified it as such, and presents their CLIX Pro, containing different Vitamins and also Green Tea and Ginseng.

CLIX is their well-established brand for their chewing gum, after many years, so they use the same umbrella to launch this very special product. It comes in blister with 10 pieces of coated gum www.clixpro.es

 

FLEER – Spain 08/04/2014

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 11:32 AM
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I wrote last year about this company, specialist in sugarfree chewing gums. This is the link to my previous post.

There are no revolutionary novelties this year. Mainly a new brand extension for the sat product: CLIX, which is named CLIX CRACK. This is a square dragee presented in individual flow pack which comes in different flavors: Watermelon, mint, spearmint ands strawberry.

This adds to other products of the “CLIX family”: CLIX 3D, CLIX ONE, CLIX PLUS (with -Aloe vera), 6 CLIX and CLIX JOYSTICK.

The company also produces bulk dosages for third parties and private label.

I thank Mr José Ramón Navarro for his explanations during the show.

 

FLEER – Spain 03/04/2013

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 6:15 PM
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The company FLEER ESPAÑOLA SA is a joint venture between Tootsie Roll and the Torrents family.

Dr Torrents (a pharmacist) entered the world of chewing gum back in 1960 when he developed a gum against motion sickness. You can read the history and more in their web-site www.fleer.es

The company is based near Barcelona and employs about 90 people. I thank Mr José Ramon Navarro for his time and explanation during ISM.

In fact, FLEER has very innovative and interesting products. Their main brand is CLIX (sugarfree gum  in dragee and tab presentation). New in ISM was the “JOYSTICK”, a stick in individual flow pack which comes under the CLIX brand umbrella. This presentation is not very common, so worth checking. Other branches of the CLIX brand are “CLIX 3D” or “6 CLIX STICK GUM” (a sleeve with 6 sticks inside).

Other brands are DUBLOOM (sugared bubble gum filled with liquid) and DUBU (melons and other shapes. I always found very nice the one that comes with the shape of a bear!). Of course, we also find the famous “DUBBLE BUBBLE”, a heritage from the original FLEER, in USA.

3D-Clix-Joystick-Menta-Azul_thumb                                               clix3d                                                    dubloom

 

Innovation in Chewing gum 02/08/2023

Filed under: General — Joan Mestres @ 9:29 AM
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I found this article in the Spanish magazine SweetPress/DulcesNoticias which discusses a very critical point in our industry: How we innovate, how we offer products that can be of interest to the consumer, how we evolve and adapt to the new trends and tastes. The articles includes the point of view of the main chewing gum companies in the Spanish market, such as Mondelez, Vidal, Chupa Chups (Perfetti), Wrigley/Mars, Fleer, Fini, etc… The options include flavours, packaging, functionality, promotional campaigns and also the use of brands (Trex, BangBang) used by General de Confiteria / Joyco in the past.

The Spanish chewing gum market is recovering fast after the Covid19 period. The article reports a 23,3% increase in volume (although it is not clear to me in which period).

Interestingly, there is no reference to natural gum, which is almost inexistent in the Spanish market in spite of being a strong trend in other European countries.

 

BAZOOKA CANDY BRANDS – USA 06/06/2018

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 10:09 AM
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TOPPS is a company founded in Brooklyn, NY in 1938. It is associated with baseball trade cards (and also other sport cards). However, it started in the gum industry not much later, in 1947, with the brand “BAZOOKA” to compete with Fleer’s “Dubble bubble”. Bazooka became a common name for bubble gum and I still use it sometimes to refer to the cut&wrap format. They also commercialized bubble gum baseball cards. These are a flat sheet of pink gum printed with some figures on it.

Learn more about TOPPS in their website

Coming back to the Bazooka, now this Division of Topps is called Bazooka Candy Brands and is specialist in “funny” candies/toys/seasonal products. I find all of them really interesting because move away from the traditional presentations and show a high level of innovation and “out-of-the-box” thinking. Some weeks ago, they launched the “Juicy Drop Gum”. This is a piece of cut&wrap (“Bazooka”!) which comes with a small bottle of sour gel. The idea is that the consumer (this is targeted to kids) pours some of this gel on the groove that the gum piece has on the top surface. Then it is chewed all together. Of course, this creates an explosive impact so it is intended for those looking for strong experiences (!).

This is a link to the youtube commercial 

This is a link to the information about the company

And this is a link to the website of Chewboom.com where it informs about the launch of the product

 

 

Do PIIGS chew gum? 12/09/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 8:49 PM
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Today I had the curiosity to check the Euromonitor figures for these European countries that suffer the current crisis in its most severe form. I’d like to share some of them with you (from smallest size market to largest). The data are from 2011.

PORTUGAL: 1318 Tons. Up 1% in value from 2010 but expected to stay at 0% growth until 2016 (the maximum range of Euromonitor’s study). The main brand is Trident and the market is largely dominated by Cadbury (63%), followed at distance by Wrigley (13%) and the local producer Lusiteca (4%).

IRELAND: 2130 T. Up 2% both in value and volume from 2010. Expected growth of 1% per year until 2016. The top brand is Extra and in this case the market is clearly dominated by Wrigley (86%), with some minor shares for Cadbury (3%), Zed Candy (1%), Tesco (0,6%), Adams (0,5%) and Topps (0,1%). A special note about the products from Zed Candy, which are very original and shocking.

GREECE: 3025 T. Down 9% in volume from 2010 and a decrease of 3% is expected in the studied period. Here the main brand is Trident and the market leader Cadbury with 59%. Then we find Wrigley (20%), Perfetti (13%), Elma SA (5,4%) and Sarsantis with 0,9%. This is clearly the country where we find the worse results, and it is as well where the economic situation seems to be the worse.

SPAIN: 13038 Ton in 2011 with 2% decrease in volume and value. However the expectations are more positive with a growth of 2%. Number one brand is Trident and here there is a tight fight for the largest market share, being Cadbury (43%) and Wrigley (42%). Then we find Perfetti (4,2%) and local producers such as Fleer (2,2%) and Damel (0,1%).

ITALY: with 18322 T is the largest market and one traditionally dominated by the local multinational Perffetti (94% market share!). Not much room left for the others, with only Wrigley accounting for a 2,3%. Number one brand is, of course, a Perfetti one: Vivident. The market has grown 2% in volume since 2010 and a small 1% growth is expected from now on.

We do not find many similarities, as each country has its own players, trends and dynamics. The only common trend that I found is also found in many other developed markets, which is the increase of sugarfree and functional products, that are keeping the market alive, in opposition to bubble gum and sugared gum which decreases more and more its presence. We can also look at the trend of smaller packages (which I discussed in a previous posting) and also some differences noticed at the point of sale, regarding the consideration of gum as impulse product.

 

ISM – Cologne 2012 08/03/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 4:19 PM
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Once again, I visited the confectionery fair in Cologne/Germany. It is always nice to see old friends, customers, competitors,… Always eager to learn what’s new and to see the changes in the market. This year I could find some new chewing gums (from Colombina, from Maghreb, …) together with some already known types. Interesting to note the revitalization of the “Cheiw” brand, from the Spanish company Damel. This was a top brand in the 70s and went through difficult times recently, but it seems that it is going up again, even if far from the golden times because now the Spanish market is clearly dominated by Wrigley and Cadbury (and always the interesting presence of Fleer with some market share). Also news from this market is the absence in the ISM Fair of the well-established firm “Fiesta”. It seems that the company is going through a restructuration process.
In terms of products I’d like to note the “Dr Look – Pelukloca” from Confiteca (Ecuador). This is a cotton gum presented in well-sealed plastic jars to avoid deformation and to ensure air-tightness. This (cotton gum) is a complex product to produce from the technological point of view, so it has always interested me. It is delicate and has always struggled to survive on the shelves of the different markets where is has been launched. I have seen it in USA, in Spain, in Korea but not in many more places.
Generally speaking, I found less exhibitors this year, with many empty spaces. It seems to me that the Fair is getting smaller and smaller (I do not know about the official figures of visitors). We already lost some years ago the presence of big names such as Wrigley, Cadbury, Perfetti and more recently Arcor and others. Lotte still keeping a relatively small booth (in relation to the size of the company). This year we missed the presence of companies from troubled countries like Egypt, Syria, Pakistan,… The Arab Spring left its effect in the fair.
Some comments around the fair said that there is not enough novelties or generation of business to justify a yearly fair and that it would be more interesting to have this type of show every two years.
However, the parallel event – Prosweets – seems to be taking off successfully. Last year we did not have Prosweets because we had Interpack Fair in Düsseldorf in May 2011 and the organizers decided that having Prosweets and Interpack in the same year would be too much. Wise decision!