Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

Chocolat Frey in North America. Sweet works/Oak Leaf 24/04/2014

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 12:01 PM
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The swiss company Chocolat Frey (I posted about it in the past) has recently acquired Sweetworks. I also posted about this American company which owns well-known brands such as Oak Leaf (located in Canada) and Niagara Chocolates.

The companies have chocolate production and this acquisition will be a direct way for the Swiss to enter the US market. However here we focus on gum, and Chocolat Frey is specialist in sugar free gum production (with own brands and for private label), while Oak Leaf is strong in gum balls (sugared). They are then in strong contrast with each other. It will be interesting to see how this synergy evolves in the future. Will Chocolat Frey coated pellets enter the US market in a stronger way and compete with the giants Wrigley and Mondelez? Are we going to see more sugar free gum balls? …

 

Sweets & Snacks Expo 2014 14/04/2014

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 11:33 AM
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You have another event to schedule in your agendas: Sweets & Snacks Expo 2014 in Chicago, from 20th until 22nd May.

It claims that there will be more than 620 exhibiting companies and participants will arrive from 90 countries. You will be able to find a wide arrange of novelties, key note sessions, etc.

 

 

FINI – Spain 11/04/2014

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 11:30 AM
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Not really big novelties this year for this Spanish company, with branch in Brazil.

Last year I mentioned very nice gum balls resembling tennis balls. They were in yellow (tradition color for a real tennis ball) and pink. This year they expanded the range to orange, green and blue balls. Very nice! i like them.

tennis balls fini

 

LUTTI – France 10/04/2014

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 11:31 AM
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Last year I mentioned (and posted pictures)  the Tube gum and the Tape gum that this French company is producing but here you have the spaghetti gum, with the brand “Bubblizz” which has fizzy effect.

 

spaghetti lutti

 

CHOCOLAT FREY – Switzerland 09/04/2014

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 11:31 AM
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The Swiss company was not presenting big launches this year. The most relevant is a Limited edition of their SKAI brand (sugar free drags packed in zip-bags) with “Chai Latte” flavor.

Then, CHOCOLAT FREY is giving a boost to their SMAJL brand with three different flavors: “Sweet Mint”, “Eucamenthol”, and “Dental” (with micro granules). They all claim the fact that the product does not contain aspartame.

 

frey skai                                            frey smajl

 

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.

 

PARS MINOO – Iran 07/04/2014

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 11:30 AM
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This Iranian company is the third year that exhibits in the fair. It is interesting because there are not many companies from Iran in the show.

PARS MINOO have a range of sugar free dragees presented in different flavors and packaging. There flip top boxes but also the traditional multipack of 10 drags and another multipack with 4 dragees. Some typical flavors are: Orange, Spearmint, Peppermint and Strawberry.

I thank Ms Sakhbaz for her time and explanations. You can learn more about this company checking www.minoogroup.com

 

parsminoo white

 

Energy gum 05/04/2014

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 11:26 AM
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A new energy gum has been launched in UK. It is named “RAW” and marketed by Navson, a mineral water company. They position this gum at lower price (18 pieces for 0,99 Pound; 1,2 Eur; 1,65 US$) than other competitors and do not use caffein (maybe the most obvious ingredient that comes to our mind when considering this product category). “RAW” contains Taurine and Vitamin B.

Other energy gums are mentioned in the article from confectionery news.com (link):

VIBE: 10 pieces per pack. 2 Pounds (=2,42 Eur, 3,32 US$)

L.A. FUEL: 7 gums per pack, 25 mg Taurine per gum, 100 mg caffeine per gum, 3,00 Eur per pack (=2,48 Pounds, 4,11 US$)

And other gums in the market:

DRIVE GUM: 10 gums per pack, 25 mg caffeine per gum, 2,8 Eur per pack (=2,31 Pounds, 3,84 US$)

C2 Energy Gum: 40 gums per pack (plastic bottle), caffeine, taurine and guarana (precise quantities do not appear in their web site). At 8990 chilean pesos (= 11,82 Eur, 9,77 Pounds, 16,19 US$)

 

 

Degradable chewing gum 04/04/2014

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 9:03 AM
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More news on this interesting topic have been published by confectionery news.com (see link).

Wrigley has filed a patent describing a new degradable gum. The way this is achieved is by formulating the gum base with “block polymers”. The company claims that the resulting product is more easily removed from surfaces such as sidewalks (in 20 seconds a high pressure hot water jet can remove more than 80% of the material)

According to wikipedia:

“Block copolymers comprise two or more homopolymer subunits linked by covalent bonds (4). The union of the homopolymer subunits may require an intermediate non-repeating subunit, known as a junction block. Block copolymers with two or three distinct blocks are called diblock copolymers and triblock copolymers, respectively.”

In this particular patent, the company uses polymers of at least 4 blocks composed of at east 2 different monomer systems.

The articles from confectionerynews.com mentions as well other companies that presented progresses on this controversial field of the chewing gum business (Mondelez, Revolymer, TNO, RSSL,  GumLink, Fertin Pharma, University College Cork) . I also posted in the past about those patents and inventions.

 

 

ZED CANDY- Ireland 03/04/2014

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 11:32 AM
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Last year I already posted about this Irish company (link), managed by Brendan Roantree. Not so many novelties this year, but I’d like to mention here the nice snooker balls, which display the number printed on the surface.

Although it is not gum, I liked very much this jawbreaker which was displayed in their booth, so I share it with you as well.

billar balls zed                                                                         jawbreaker zed