Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

Cafosa 07/07/2022

Filed under: Mergers & Acquisitions — Joan Mestres @ 12:38 PM
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Some days ago the Brazilian gum base producer Sweet Gum (I posted about them in the past) reached an agreement to acquire the leading gum base supplier world-wide, Cafosa, from Mars. The deal is pending approval from the Authorities, so probably we will hear an official communication about this matter once it is completed.

Cafosa, which is part of Mars, was showing red figures for the last years. Negative financial results, loss of customers and poor performance might be some of the reasons (among others) that led Mars to take this move.

I look forward to see how this changes the game in the gum base sector. I worked for 12 years in Cafosa and I have seen the changes and transformation of the company from a family-owned Catalan SME (Mr Carulla founded the company within the General de Confiteria -later Joyco- Group) to being absorbed by Wrigley and later being part of Mars. Now starts a new era within an environment that has been hit by the Covid19 pandemic and with a decline of chewing gum consumption in many countries.

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ISM 2023 14/06/2022

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 9:13 PM
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The news of the day is that next edition of ISM will take place, instead of last weekend in January as it has always been, on 23-25th April 2023.

I personally do not understand the reasons given by the organization, which mentions the current exceptional situation regarding availability raw materials, logistic pressures, increasing prices, etc… I do not know how postponing the exhibition from January to April will make any difference…. but probably I am missing some bit of information..

 

Mondelez – Goodbye to chewing gum? 01/06/2022

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 1:00 PM
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I was shocked a few days ago when I read the news that Mondelez (Number 2 chewing gum producer worldwide) is planning to divest its gum business. If this finally comes true, it can be one of the largest and most important moves in the chewing gum industry in this XXI century so far.

According to the press release the company only consider this option in developed markets, while they plan to keep the business in the rest. This clearly seems a result of the Covid19 pandemic, which resulted on decrease in chewing gum sales (not only for Mondelez but for almost everybody, I’d say).

Who can be ready to take this business? The first name that came to my mind is Ferrero. The Italian company has been trying to enter the chewing gum market without much success so far (their “TicTac Gum” was withdrawn from the market) and would be an opportunity to take well-established, recognized brands such as Trident in their portfolio. Let’s see what the future brings to us!

I leave you here some articles on this

Foodingredients1st

Reuters

ProFoodWorld

 

DSM + FIRMENICH 31/05/2022

Filed under: Mergers & Acquisitions — Joan Mestres @ 5:37 PM
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Today in the news we can see about the merger of these two giants, which will result in an even larger company, active in the fields of nutrition, flavours and fragances.

You can read the article in Foodnavigator and also in Foodingredients1st

I am sure many chewing gum producers worldwide are using, or have used Firmenich flavours at some stage- I do not know how this will affect them on short and long term. I can just say that, personally, I do not think mergers are good news, generally speaking. For sure, the potential of the new company will be huge (I am thinking on R&D potential, production capabilities,…) and I can just hope that this will be for the benefit of the customers.

 

AFPI – Australia 28/02/2022

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 10:55 AM
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It is not usual to find chewing gums coming from Australia, but this one is even more unusual: Gum using mastic as gum base. This would go together with the current trend for natural gum bases (several posts earlier in this website) but unlike the natural gum base from chicle /sapodilla tree from Mexico, this product uses the resin from “Pistacia Genus”, a type of mastic gum.

Mastic gum is common in the Middle East, with examples in Turkey and Lebanon but this product made in Australia by Australian Food and Pharmaceutical Industries (AFPI) is different. It comes in flip top boxes and a range of flavours (original mastic, mint, cinnamon) and also a “Zero” version formulated only with mastic gum + beeswax and mint oil. Note that no sweetener is used. This gives a very special taste and texture to the product. There is even a version with probiotics (Organic Kombucha culture)!

All of them are labelled as “organic”.

Thank you to Dr Sharifi for his explanations and time during Gulfood/Dubai.

I invite you to visit their website at www.foodpharmaindu.com

 

Happygum – Austria 24/02/2022

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 4:50 PM
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Let me introduce the finalist to the “most innovative health, wellness and plant based product” during the recent Gulfood exhibition that took place in Dubai. I thank Dr Farkas for his time to explain the features of the product, which is in fact quite unique. Its benefits go around Lavender oil, but it is completed with vitamin B3, B5, B7 and Zinc. It claims to contribute “to functioning of mind, psyche and energy metabolism”.

It comes in blister pack with 10 pieces in each sleeve.

Interesting product from an Austrian company (quite unique as well in the chewing gum industry) although produced outside the country. See their website www.happygum.info

 

HELIKON – Turkey 15/02/2022

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 10:00 AM
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This last ISM I discovered a company that is producing chewing gum in Turkey named Helikon Gida, however they advertise and appear under their brand name “NUNU”. The company is expert in tableting technology and the main products are compressed candies (see their website https://www.helikon.com.tr/). Surprisingly , the compressed chewing gum does not appear in the website, although I have samples of “Nunu Ciklet”, which claims to be Aspartame Free and sweetened with Stevia. It comes in zip pack pouches with 15 pieces inside and different flavours. The ones I have are with Mastic (very popular in Turkey) and another with Tutti Frutti. Thanks to Mr Yasar Acar for his time and explanations.

 

NTP BIOTECH- Italy 11/02/2022

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 11:00 AM
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When we talk about functional gum, one of the companies that offers a wider range of products is NTP Biotech, based on Italy. I visited their stand and thank Mr Pietro Porrini for his time.

This company produces gum by compression/tabletting and the results are excellent. They are specialists on the addition of functional ingredients in the formulation and I was surprised by the number of functionalities that they cover. The reason for that, is that the company is part of the group Sintal dietetics, specialist in food supplements (not only in gum, for which they have the brand GUMD’E) but also in capsules, liquid drops and other presentations. I already mentioned them in a post back in 2018 that you can find here.

NTP Biotech is open to private label production.

I got samples of the following chewing gums:

  • Body Drain
  • Tonus Gum
  • Energy Gum
  • Diet Plan
  • No Acid Gum
  • No Stress

In this type of product, obtaining a proper taste is a difficult task, because of the unpleasant taste of some of the active ingredients (typical example is the Caffeine in energy gum). So when this is achieved, the task of the formulating team must be praised!

 

Natural Gum – Continued 10/02/2022

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 10:48 AM
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A clear trend in recent years has been the use of natural gum base, from sapodilla trees in Mexico. Different companies have launched chewing gums formulated using only natural ingredients. The gum base is one of them but also the flavours and sweeteners are natural. Some of them use the claim “plastic free”.

I have talked in this website about natural gums in the past (The Humble, Endoca, Two Wise Chimps, BenBits, Simply gum, Chewsy,…) , so this is not new to us. I just want to introduce here three companies that were exhibiting in ISM:

TRUE GUM www.truegum.com

FOREST GUM www.forestgum.de

TREE GUM www.treegum.ch

Only the first one has the website in English. “True gum” has been in the market for quite a few years now and can be found in many supermarkets around Europe. Recently, it became part of The Humble group, a Swedish company that specializes in Oral Care products (not only gum) and offers its own natural gum as well.

Recently, we see also the well-known brand STIMOROL, by the giant Mondelez, also offering a natural version. This is available only in Denmark and Switzerland and it comes with 2 different flavours (Spearmint&Eucalyptus and Lemon&Ginger). I find quite interesting that one of the big names in the chewing gum industry has decided to take this way as well. Let’s see how this works in the market and… let’s see if other big names (Mars/Wrigley, Perfetti Van Melle, Lotte,…) decide to follow in the near future.

As this is a clear growing market segment, I wonder if the supply of natural gum base from the trees will be enough to cover the demand!!

 

Probiotic gum 09/02/2022

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product,Uncategorized — Joan Mestres @ 10:43 AM
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When we talk about functional gum, we must mention the PROBIOTIC launched by the Spanish company CHICKLES. I was amazed to discover it in ISM. I thank Mr Samuel Bonete for his detailed explanation at their stand. Developing a probiotic gum is something different from any other functional gum that we can find in the market, it is disruptive.

The gum contains Bifidobacterium Lactis (BFL1) and claims to reduce weight (it focuses on the waist in particular). In fact the well-documented website https://chicklesgum.com/en/chickles-gum-slimfit/ contains scientific evidence to support this claim. I invite you to visit it and learn about the properties of this innovative chewing gum.