Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

3D gum printing – Wacker (and Katjes, and ZDS) in ISM’17 14/02/2017

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 12:18 PM
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As I mentioned before, the 3D chewing gum printing has been one of the most interesting presentations of last ISM. Please, check the different links that are included in this post, as they will take you to really exciting information!

The company who developed it, WACKER, had the printer in their stand and generated a great exposure in the media for this. We all could see how a gum was “printed” in front of us. Of course the concept is only a prototype now, with no industrial application. But for sure there will be more and more development on this field.

 

3d-gum-wacker

The company KATJES already showed a 3D printed candy last ISM (2016) and this year they had long queues of people waiting in front of their stand to have the pictures of their faces transferred by the software of the Magic Candy Factory to a 3D print of them. They are planning to install such type of 3D-candy printers in amusement parks and other events.

3d-katjes

 

Another proof that the 3D era is coming, is that the German confectionery school (ZDS) has introduced this year for the first time a specific seminar: “International ZDS Congress for Additive Manufacturing and 3D-Food Printing for the Confectionery and Snack Industry”. This will take place in their premises in Solingen on 19-20th September.

 

Report ISM 2017 13/02/2017

Filed under: Market & Fairs,Production & Machinery — Joan Mestres @ 11:48 AM
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Once back from Cologne, I intend to develop during the next posts the highlights of what I saw there, always from the point of view of the chewing gum industry.

There are a few interesting news, but I would summarize then in 3 main lines:

  • 3D printing
  • Clean label and movement towards “natural”, “organic”, “healthy” claims
  • 2 new players with high quality products

On the other hand, ProSweets exhibition, which runs parallel to the ISM and where we can find the suppliers to the industry (machinery, ingredients, packaging, …), has been significantly smaller this year. The reason is that most of the machinery suppliers where not there exhibiting because this year in May there will be the 2017 Edition of INTERPACK, in Düsseldorf. This has been the traditional big show for the machinery suppliers, so it seems that keeping both (ProSweets and Interpack) in the same year was not convenient for them.

 

ISM 2017 23/01/2017

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 2:01 PM
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Getting ready to fly to Cologne next Sunday to visit (once more) the Confectionery Fair “ISM”!!

I hope I can bring many novelties (last year was a bit poor) from the exhibitors and/or from the colleagues I will meet there. I am looking forward to that 3D-printed gum.

Of course, the suppliers (ingredients, machinery, packaging material,…) will be exhibiting in the paralel fair Prosweets. So a lot to see and do there as well.

www.ism-cologne.com

www.prosweets.com 

 

Oral care claims – Perfetti 18/01/2017

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 5:30 PM
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Oliver Nieburg informs that Perfetti Van Melle has been fined with 180.000 Eur for misleading claims associated to their chewing gum (Mentos, Happydent, Vivident and Daygum). The company rejects the accusation and says that “All claims on products are in compliance with relevant food legislation and fully scientifically supported”.

I must admit that I always found this field (what claims can be associated to the product) very difficult. Maybe because I am chemist and not lawyer, so when I dive into all these different legislations in each country, the different definitions (e.g. what is considered “organic”, or what is “natural”, …) and what can be claimed or not… I get a bit confused. However, it is very exciting and interesting to see what goes on and to learn more and more about this.

 

Here the link to the article

 

Hemp Chewing Gum 12/01/2017

Filed under: New product,Research — Joan Mestres @ 1:24 PM
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I want to forward to you today the article published by Confectionerynews.com about the functionality of a chewing gum that contains Cannabidiol (CBD).

The article mentions that inital bioavailability studies show promising results and now the company AXIM Biotech (specialized on research of products containing cannabis) will start clinical trials directed to alleviate symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). The bioavailability studies have been conducted with chewing gum containg 30mg of CBD. The current product in the market contains only 10mg of CBD. It is marketed in the USA under the brand Canchew(R). See the link here for the website of the product: Canchew

The gum is made by tabletting process instead of the traditional extrusion process. This is more familiar to pharmaceutical companies and one the best solutions to use chewing gum as delivery system for active ingrendients. The tabletting process has many advanatges (e.g. is done at low temperature, so it does not damage the active ingredient) but also some disadvantages (the chewing profile of the final product is not as “good” as a standard chewing gum, due to the hardness and the dryness of the piece).

Here is the link to the full article from Confectionerynews.com

 

PRINTED GUM IN 3D 10/01/2017

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 5:33 PM
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The new 3D printers that have been developed during the recent years have shaken the whole industry in all fields, and they will influence the objects that we will see in the market in the next years. Then, why not chewing gum? How could it escape from this revolution? No way. Last month, Wacker, one of the leading suppliers of PVA to produce gum base, annouced that they have developed a process to produce 3D chewing gum using such printers. This will be presented during next ISM/ProSweets (Cologne, Germany 29th Jan – 1st Feb 2017), so I am eager to see it in action!

In the press release of the company (see link here) they mention a newly developed process under the name CANDY2GUM(R). This process involves cooking (as for standard candy production) and then their ingredient is added (Capiva(R) C03). This results on a product which behaves like a chewy candy at the initial chew and then becomes a gum. The idea is not new, I worked with this about 20 years ago, and before me many other people. The “Chewy Candy Gum” has been in the market in some contries and there are some patents (quite old as far as i know) about this. Cafosa marketed the idea under the brand “Velvet Gum” in the 90s. However, the product did not catch enough and the companies that started producing it did not keep it for a long time. Let’s hope that this new attempt, with this new ingredient, will be more successful.  If this is linked to the 3D printed chewing gum (when I read the press realease it is not clear to me if they are linked or they are talking about two different launchings), then the chances of survival are clearly much higher.

 

There are other linkes in internet showing 3D printed gum:

https://3dprint.com/videos/3d-printed-chewing-gum/

https://3dprint.com/44851/gumjet-3d-printer/

https://all3dp.com/3d-printed-chewing-gum/

so this will be an issue to follow very closely in the near future!

 

Project 7 02/11/2016

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 12:49 PM
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According to Confectionerynews.com, the company  “Project 7” has announced the launching of a new functional gum. This one contains vitamins B6, B12 and guaraná and goes under the brand “Midnight”. The article also discusses about other functional gums and some data from the US chewing gum market. : link here

In the website of the company (www.project7.com) you can see the different flavors, which are very interesting. although I mentioned this company before, I think it is worth to refresh it because of the special focus they give to the business (related to some NGOs) and the special designs of the packages and flavors they use (e.g. birthday cake gum, kettel pop gum, peppermint vanilla gum , etc..)

 

More CPhI 11/10/2016

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 11:24 AM
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In addition to my post yesterday about the probiotic gum promoted by Cafosa, I want to mention as well the other gum concepts that have been developed by this company:

  • Health in Gum ® Tryptophan: anti-Stress, containing 50mg of the aminoacid per piece.
  • Health in Gum ® Garcinia Cambogia: for weight management, with 200mg of the plant extract per piece.
  • Health in Gum ® Caffeine: for Sport nutrition, containing 50mg of active per tablet.

The company has a website dedicated to this segment of functional gum made by means of tabletting technology:  www.healthingum.com

Another company was also promoting functional tabletted chewing gum in this massive Exhibition: Harke Pharma (www.harke.com) which has a partnership with Cafosa for this purpose.

 

Probiotic gum 10/10/2016

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 4:56 PM
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I was in the last CPhI fair in Barcelona, the largest pharmaceutical fair in the world.

There I could find some mention to chewing gum in some of the booths.

For instance, the gum base supplier “CAFOSA” was presenting a tabletted chewing gum with probiotic function. The product contains Lactobacillus Patented Strains (AB-Dentalac) as active ingredient and has an oral care claim associated to it.

Extract from Cafosa’s brochure: AB-DENTALAC has bactericidal activity against most common oral pathogens and helps restore the protective oral flora by competing against pathogenic bacteria and disrupting their adhesion to the different tissues in the oral cavity.

 

Practical Course on Chewing Gum Technology 21/09/2016

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 12:20 PM
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Next week I will be lecturing in this interesting seminar organized by the German school ZDS, in Solingen. I am honoured to take part once again in this type of training, which I enjoy a lot. I hope I will be able to share the know how i have about chewing gum and also learn from the other elcturers and participants.

The Course will cover many different aspects of the production, looking at ingredients, machinery, processes, etc. and includes a hands-on experience which participants in previous editions rated as extremely useful.

If you are interested, you can read more on this link:

ZDS Chewing Gum Seminar

Inscription still open, so if you hurry, we can still meet there next Tuesday!!