Today I will leave the presentation of chewing gum producers in ISM and talk a bit about a supplier. There were a few suppliers presenting there, so I will discuss about their ingredients as well.
Today is time for BENEO. The group has many branches and deals with sugar beet, rice and wheat products. It is itself a branch of the big german Südzucker group and probably the part of Beneo which comes closer to the chewing gum field is Beneo-Palatinit (Others are Beneo-Orafti, Beneo-Remy, Beneo-BioBasedChemicals and Beneo-Animal Nutrition). The company has an excellent application laboratory where they can prepare and analyize samples of many confectionery products.
This company produces two main groups of products: Isomalt and Palatinose.
Isomalt includes a family of different grades. It can used as bulk swetener (Isomalt ST) in sugarfree gum, but mainly as coating agent (Isomalt GS) for the chewing gum pillows. It has other applications such as tabletting (Isomalt DC) and chocolate production (Isomalt LM).
Recent studies conducted by the company show, for instance, that isomalt can replace the Mannitol in the chewing gum formulation. Many producers use 5% of Mannitol in the formulation. The main objective of this, is to act as anticrystallizing agent for the main bulk sweetener (usually sorbitol).
See more in this link
Palatinose is a trade name for the ingredient Palatinose, a sugar substitute which is “the only low glycemic carbohydrate providing longer lasting energy in the form of glucose” and it has also its application as sweetener in chewing gum.
In ISM the company presented a chewing gum which includes Palatinose and Stevia as sweeteners and a candy with Isomalt and Stevia. This follows the trend noticed in the market of increased use of Stevia as intensive sweetener. I mentioned about this in previous postings.
Let me reproduce here a text supplied by the company itself discussing about one of my passions: “Innovative applications”. In this case about tabletted gum, which is interesting in itself:
“One of the most interesting uses of the multi-layer compressed gum technology is Procter and Gamble’s Wick Blau Icebergs Sugar Free Chewing Gum. Launched late in 2008 in Germany, the chewing gum features a white layer of peppermint, with a special chewing gum layer. Containing ISOMALT, this sugar free mint product has been designed to have two effects; to provide an immediate refreshing feeling, as well as prolonging the product’s overall taste with the chewing gum. A more recent product brought to market featuring a similar two-layered mint/gum approach is Vivident’s Cool Shock Two-Layer Chewing Gum. This strawberry flavoured gum contains no added sugar, thanks to the inclusion of ISOMALT, and has been reformulated into trianglular-shaped tablets for marketing impact.”
In the links below you can find more about the company and products:
I thank Ms Ingrid Willibald-Ettle for her time and explanations during ISM.
Chewing Gum Consultant 