Today I send you the link to an article about the Health claims that are approved for a chewing gum by the European Union. The article mentions the mature Dutch market and says that functional claims are the way to keep a higher growth for the chewing gum compared to other confectionery products, but these functional chewing gums must keep a reasonable price.
It mentions the claims approved by EU, which include the use of ingredients such as carbamide, fluoride and xylitol.
Have you heard of the “French Paradox”? This term is associated to the low heart disease occurence in France, even the diet in this country contains a high level of fat. It is claimed that one of the elements that can contribute to this fact is the red wine (consumed at relatively high levels in France), and more in particular, to one of the ingredients in this red wine: The resveratrol. This substance is a polyphenol with antioxidant properties.
Some months ago was launched to the US market by Cheiron Holdings a gum named “Heart Strong Gum™”. This product contains resveratrol from the firm Fluxome (www.fluxome.com).
Now this danish firm announces a partnership with another danish well-known firm in the gum industry, Fertin AS (www.fertin.com), to produce chewing gum containing resveratrol.
You can see more of this news on http://www.confectionerynews.com/Formulation/Fluxome-close-to-developing-resveratrol-chewing-gum-for-Europe
It is always a good sign that companies research and develop products with high added value. Chewing gums offering something else than just a nice chew and flavour are always welcome in the family. It seems that the chewing gum industry is not able to fully break the high wall between food and pharma (the main exception to this rule is the well-know Nicorette (www.nicorette.com), the chewing gum produced by Johnson & Johnson containing nicotine. In this case, resveratrol gum will not be a pharmaceutical product (the active has GRAS classification if the US) but a functional one.
Chewing Gum Consultant 