Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

Fleer – Spain 04/04/2024

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 10:17 AM
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I already talked about this company (founded Spanish but now under the American Tootsie Roll) in this blog.

What I find interesting is the broad range of products that they cover:

  • Chewing gum dragees under the brand CLIX. 12 flavours. Presented in individual flow packs and also in zipbags with 30 pieces each
  • Chewing gum sticks: 4 flavours, also under the brand CLIX
  • Functional chewing gum, CLIX PRO with vitamins and ginseng
  • Bubble gum chunks (cut&wrap) under the brand DUBBLE BUBBLE, one of the historical brands in the chewing gum industry. There is one side brand which is sugrafree, quite unusual for a bubble gum for children. Another line extension offers the pieces in the shape of a bear and still another is a tongue painter.
  • Bubble gum balls and melons

So this covers different formats, flavours and target markets.

They also launched a line of Cotton candy (“FLUFFY STUFF”), which is not gum but this could be a new development for the future, although the production of cotton candy gum is a real challenge!

www.fleer.es

 

Innovation in Chewing gum 02/08/2023

Filed under: General — Joan Mestres @ 9:29 AM
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I found this article in the Spanish magazine SweetPress/DulcesNoticias which discusses a very critical point in our industry: How we innovate, how we offer products that can be of interest to the consumer, how we evolve and adapt to the new trends and tastes. The articles includes the point of view of the main chewing gum companies in the Spanish market, such as Mondelez, Vidal, Chupa Chups (Perfetti), Wrigley/Mars, Fleer, Fini, etc… The options include flavours, packaging, functionality, promotional campaigns and also the use of brands (Trex, BangBang) used by General de Confiteria / Joyco in the past.

The Spanish chewing gum market is recovering fast after the Covid19 period. The article reports a 23,3% increase in volume (although it is not clear to me in which period).

Interestingly, there is no reference to natural gum, which is almost inexistent in the Spanish market in spite of being a strong trend in other European countries.

 

FLEER – Spain . Gum for E-Gamers. CLIX PRO 24/05/2023

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 12:34 PM
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Today another novelty seen in ISM. A gum specially designed and directed to E-gamers. This is a growing segment of the market and the company Fleer has identified it as such, and presents their CLIX Pro, containing different Vitamins and also Green Tea and Ginseng.

CLIX is their well-established brand for their chewing gum, after many years, so they use the same umbrella to launch this very special product. It comes in blister with 10 pieces of coated gum www.clixpro.es

 

CHIC-KLES – Spain GUM&GO 19/05/2023

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 11:32 AM
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The company Chic-kles has been busy recently. They exhibited in ISM and also in Vitafoods launching their new functional gums under the brand “Gum&Go”. This is a well-differentiated product from their standard range and , of course, is a complete range of functional gums covering different claims:

  • Easy calm: With Melatonin, L-Tryptophan and Lemon Balm Extract
  • B12+ Iron boost. With both ingredients plus vitamin C
  • Shape care: With Probiotic BPL1 and Zinc
  • Energy shot: With Caffeine, Vitamin B5, Ginseng and Guarana
  • Vitamin shield: With B6, B2 and C
  • Strong teeth: With Xylitol, fluoride, Calcium and Vitamin D

They are presented as coated pillows, packed in blisters, with 10 gum pieces each.

For mor information; jchernandez@chic-kles.com

 

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!

 

GoBeDo 08/02/2022

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 1:49 PM
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ISM is always a good source of information and novelties. This year the event has been smaller and less crowded than in the past, due to Covid19, but at least we were able to meet again in person after a long time and see that many companies are very active and that the chewing gum industry is evolving. I will post during next days about some concepts/products/news that I saw in Köln.

The first one is “GoBeDo” a chewing gum containing Chitosan and Zinc, claiming to boost immunity. It comes in a 9-piece blister with carton sleeve with peppermint flavour. For sure, during this pandemic consumers are more aware of certain healthy claims and are searching for products helping to enhance protection of the body and overall wellness. Immunity, of course is a big issue and this gum fits perfectly well into that request from the market.

Here you can find more: GoBeDo

 

Philip Morris acquires Fertin Pharma 02/07/2021

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 1:23 PM
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1st July 2021 brought important news to the chewing gum industry. The giant Philip Morris has acquired the Danish Fertin Pharma from EQT (which controlled 70% of the shares) and Bagen-Sorensen.

You can find information and details of the operation in many sources. I leave you here just a couple of links:

https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2021-07-01/philip-morris-international-announces-agreement-to-acquire-fertin-pharma

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/philip-morris-buy-nicotine-gum-maker-fertin-pharma-push-smoke-free-products-2021-07-01/

Fertin has always been a reference when it comes to functional and pharmaceutical chewing gums. One of their strong points are the nicotin-containing products. This type of gums, used for smoke-cessation, fit well into the Philip Morris strategy of creating a smoke-free environment. Let’s see what the future brings to us in the market!

 

Compressed Functional Gum 21/07/2020

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 4:03 PM
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I received a comment on this site mentioning the product “Neuro Gum”, so I went to the website www.getneuro.com  and I see a compressed gum named “Energy & Focus” which contains Caffeine, Theanine, B6 and B12. It claims it provides the right balance between “energy” and “calmness”.

I have not tried this product (I wonder about its taste, chewability, flavor lasting, …) but as it falls within the functional gum category, I am glad to mention it here in this website.

 

Caffeine Gum 26/02/2020

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 1:44 PM
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It’s been a while that I do not mention Caffeine gum because maybe it is not as trendy as it used to be a few years ago. However, I came across the caffeinated version of one of the top brand worldwide: Airwaves, by Mars/Wrigley. In particular, I have in front of me a pack of nice hexagonal shape (quite unusual!!) coated pieces of caffein gum. Wrigley uses not only the brand “Airwaves” but also the classic “Alert Gum” to market its gum with Caffein.

 

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Related to this subject I found two interesting websites that I’d like to share with you:

Guide to Caffeinated Gum

The ultimate Alert Gum Review

 

 

CBD Chewing gum 25/02/2020

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 1:14 PM
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Let me introduce to you another natural gum containing CBD. This comes from Lithuania and it is made by the company ENDOCA, which specializes in all types and formats for the CBD.

It comes with carton boxes with 10 individually wrapped gums inside. The pieces are not coated and have a brown color, distinctive of the natural gum base that they are made of.

Each gum contains 15mg of CBD.

The company emphasizes a lot the Natural claim in their marketing.

You can learn more in their website www.endoca.com