Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

Degradable chewing gum 04/04/2014

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 9:03 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

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.

 

Advertisement
 

Biodegradable gum 20/04/2013

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 10:14 AM
Tags: , , , ,

Now it’s been a while since I last posted about biodegradable gum.

So for those of you interested on the subject, here is a link to confectionerynews.com which informs about a new patent being filed by Mondelez on this matter.

As you know, this is a hot subject and many companies are working on developing this type of gum which would be more environmentally friendly. There is a product already in the market, Rev7 but it does not seem to really take off. In fact it has been withdrawn from the US market. All the research turn mainly about news types of polymers. There are many polymers which degrade easier than the ones currently in use, but they do not offer an acceptable chewability. So the main task is to find  a polymer with the right degradability and nice chew profile. In this case, the article and the related patent mentions “alternating copolymer of C2-C10 alkene and maleic anhydride”.

 

Tax on chewing gum 03/12/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product,Research — Joan Mestres @ 9:33 PM
Tags: , , , , , , ,

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

 

Kraft pushes for biodegradable gum 11/07/2012

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 12:40 PM
Tags: ,

The giant Kraft has a post in its website asking for inputs that will help them develop a biodegradable gum base. Those inputs can be “novel and inventive ingredients, processing methods and technology solutions”
You can read more on:
http://www.kfcollaborationkitchen.com/EN/What/Pages/NeedInformation.aspx?bid=E50EFBE8-E5E4-4044-9C79-4ECA806A84E6

It has been many years that the main players in the chewing gum field are researching in this direction, with many filed patents but limited results in the market. As the issue become hotter and hotter, maybe we can really see something relevant in the market soon….

 

More news about a biodegradable (?) gum base 09/07/2012

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 3:57 PM
Tags: , , ,

Kraft (via RSSL center in UK) is looking for novel food approval for a new gum base recently developed. This gum base seems to contain a polymer currently used in cosmetic (oral care) products. You can read the article here:

http://www.confectionerynews.com/Regulation-Safety/Another-enviro-friendly-gum-base-set-for-EU-novel-foods-approval/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=0%2FaKxp4dYMXzeIa7Lr%2Bnp8rP515wTTwD

What surprises me is that the article mentions that the expected time for degradation is going to be “equivalent to other synthetic polymer gum bases”.

We’ll wait for more news on this and see if finally we get a real breakthrough in the market.

 

And more on biodegradable gum 23/03/2012

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 5:37 PM
Tags: , ,

This article is not very new. I had it in my files, but as I did not have this blog at the time it was published, I do it now to add to the last articles about biodegradable chewing gum

By Oliver Nieburg 14-Nov-2011

http://www.confectionerynews.com/Formulation/Scientists-develop-biodegradable-non-sticky-chewing-gum-using-cereal-proteins/?c=0%2FaKxp4dYMU80dJpoxejbRU%2FDQQPoGLT&utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily

Copyright William Reed Business Media SAS

 

More biodegradable gum 22/03/2012

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 8:46 PM
Tags: ,

Following the interesting thread from last post, I attach a link to an article about “Revolymer”, which promotes the polymer named Rev7 and claims that this material can degrade after a couple of years on the pavement.

According to the article, chewing gums containing the novelty can be found in some shops in USA (also named “Rev7”).

Here is the link to the company web-site: http://www.revolymer.com/ and if you want to know about the product http://rev7gum.com/

By Oliver Nieburg 4-Jan-2012

http://mobile.confectionerynews.com/Regulation-Safety/Revolymer-seeks-collaborators-as-Rev7-degradable-gum-base-gets-EU-novel-foods-approval

Copyright Willian Reed Business Media SAS

 

 

One more attempt for biodegradable chewing gum

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 8:34 PM
Tags: , ,

Develop and launch a biodegradable chewing gum. This has been one of the most discussed issues (if not the most) during the recent years in our industry. All major players are working on that. New patents are filed regularly. But until now.. this has not been transferred to the shops. We can find only the “Rev7” (mentioned in my next post) following this claim.

Here is one recent article about this issue

By Oliver Nieburg 22-3-2102
http://mobile.confectionerynews.com/Formulation/TNO-and-Dutch-firms-aim-for-next-generation-of-non-stick-chewing-gum

Copyright 2012 William Reed Business Media