Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

Chewing gum consultant 08/01/2013

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product,Production & Machinery,Research,Uncategorized — Joan Mestres @ 10:18 PM
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Happy New Year 2013!!!

As some people has been asking me recently about the type of consultancy that I offer, I’d like today to post about this issue.

 

By clicking on the “Who?” tab you can see a bit of my CV and there I explain about the services I provide, which are both in the technical and in the marketing fields, always involving chewing gum.

I’ve been doing international seminars for many years and I enjoy a lot the training aspect of my job. I took my first steps in the chewing gum world and learnt initially from Douglas Fritz. Doug is still a key reference in the chewing gum world and I want to express my appreciation and admiration from here. He also invited me to participate in his book “Formulation and Production of Chewing and Bubble Gum”, Kennedy’s Publications Ltd, London , UK.

I also participated a lot in the exciting area of New Product Development, working in many research centers and together with R&D Departments of important companies worldwide I participated in the creation of some of the chewing gums that are today in the market. I have experience both in formulation/ingredients  and also from the process/machinery point of view.

Finally, as I was for 8 years working in Sales, taking care of the commercial activity in 35 different countries around the world, I can look at the chewing gum world from the Marketing and Sales point of view. I like studying the trends of the market and keeping contact with all the players of the industry (ingredient suppliers, machinery suppliers, chewing gum manufacturers,…).

You can contact me in my e-mail: joanmestres@hotmail.com and I’ll be glad to answer your requests. Of course, if you want to send me information to be posted in this blog, I’d very much appreciate it as well!

I will be attending next ISM and ProSweets (Cologne, Germany 27th – 31th January) so I hope to see you there as well.

 

 

 

Stevia, Stevioside, Rebaudioside… and Chocotec 07/12/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 2:01 PM
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Almost everything, but not all is chewing gum in this world… there is also chocolate! So this week I attended Chocotec, a symposium organized by ZDS in Cologne.

Of course both worlds have some common features and I’d like to mention now about the new trend: Stevia, or better I should say “Streviol Glycosides”. This family of intense sweeteners includes Rebaudioside A, B, C, D, E and F, and also Stevioside, Steviolbioside, Rubusoside and Dulcoside A. This group of molecules have been approved by EU with the number E960 as long as they contain at least 95% of Steviol glycosides and a minimum of 75% of Stevioside and/or Rebaudioside A.

The origin of all those ingredients is the plant “Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni” which was first cultivated in Paraguay. Nowadays the main source of this plant is China.

Important, the maximum level allowed in chewing gum is 3300 mg/kg of Steviolequivalents or 5500 mg/kg as Stevioglycosides. And it cannot be combined with sugar! EU Commission Directive 1131/2011

Also important that it cannot be labelled with sentences as “Natural Sweeetener Stevia” or “Stevia-extract”.

I heard rumours that most probably we will see chewing gums with this sweetener being launched in the market by next year 2013…

 

Tax on chewing gum 03/12/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product,Research — Joan Mestres @ 9:33 PM
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A “deviation” form the issue of biodegradable chewing gum is the controversy about taxes applied to the product.

Some politicians claim that, as one can find chewing gum stuck everywhere on the streets, and this cost money to remove, then a tax should be imposed on the sale of gum. The money collected from this tax will be “supposedly” used to clean the streets. The issue was on the news some time ago in relation to Ireland and Wales. Now, two more news appeared recently with the same discussion, this time related to Mexico and Northern Ireland (see links from Confectionerynews.com below). As many of you may already know, Singapore is the only country where chewing gum is officially banned, except for those with health claims, which can be sold in pharmacies.

Wrigley is the strongest fighter against those policies and supports educational programs instead of taxes (which reach 50% on top of the retail price in case of Mexico!).

So I guess until nobody finds a successful biodegradable chewing gum (or should I say simply “degradable chewing gum”?), we will find these type of discussions here and there.

http://mobile.confectionerynews.com/Regulation-Safety/Chewing-gum-tax-proposed-in-Mexico

http://mobile.confectionerynews.com/Regulation-Safety/Chewing-gum-tax-calls-in-Northern-Ireland

 

Curiosity – old, old chewing gum… 22/11/2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Joan Mestres @ 7:22 PM

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…

 

New products in China and Korea 20/11/2012

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 2:31 PM
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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.

 

New gum base ingredient 16/11/2012

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 11:34 AM
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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:

http://www.confectionerynews.com/Formulation/Halve-processing-times-with-novel-gum-resin-says-Wacker/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=0%2FaKxp4dYMXLpipVB5%2FCo7cy%2FDtUWCBL

© 2012 – William Reed Business Media SAS – All Rights Reserved

 

Leatherhead 14/11/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 12:55 PM
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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

 

 

Sugar Confectionery course in ZDS 31/10/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 10:48 AM
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I gave a presentation on Chewing Gum Technology a couple of days ago in the German Confetionery School, ZDS, in Solingen. This lecture on chewing gum is part of the Sugar confectionery course that takes 4 weeks. I really enjoy these moments, as I can share what I know with others and most of the times I also learn news things from the comments and questions from the audience. This time, there were participants from very diverse origins, like Brazil, China, New Zealand, Austria, Argentina, Lebanon,… and they were very active and had very sharp questions. Thank you all!

 

Argentina 18/10/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 4:14 PM
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I was recently in Argentina, so I take this excuse to comment a bit on the gum market of this country.
It is a clear duopoly with Kraft/Cadbury holding 54% market share in value and the local player Arcor 42%. Not much room left for the others! Each of them have their very strong brands (Beldent and TopLine respectively) well established in the market since many years. Being sugar free brands, these are gaining market share each year to other sugared brands like Bubaloo or Bazooka (both Cadbury), which decrease, following the general world-wide trend. We can find another common trend also in Argentina: Increase of chewing gum and decrease of bubble gum, with functional gum being a strong driver for the increase.
While bubble gum accounts for 12400 T and only 714 Million Peso value, chewing gum represents 7400 T but 1300 Million Peso value!
Two specificities of this market are the high inflation rate (around 25%) and the increased legislation to protect the local economy by making imports more and more difficult. Both issues affect the chewing gum market. The perspectives are positive and some growth (2%) is expected.

 

Wrigley files a patent of fibre-containing chewing gum 03/10/2012

Filed under: New product,Research — Joan Mestres @ 10:35 AM
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Wrigley files a patent of fibre-containing chewing gum

I read in confectionerynews.com (see link attached) about this new patent that Wrigley has filed, claiming improved texture, flavour release and healthiness.