Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

LOTTE – Korea / Japan 05/04/2013

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 1:53 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today’s turn for one of the big names in the chewing gum industry: LOTTE

This huge group has even an entry in Wikipedia! They have many branches in different industries (electronics, tourism, publishing, building, finance, retail, …) but chewing gum was in the origin of the company back in 1948. Other food products in their range are: Drinks, Fast Food and Ice creams.

Lotte is producing chewing gum in many different factories, most of them in Asia, but I’d like to focus here on the new products presented last ISM by their headquarters:

Lotte Korea presented “Tri VIEW”. This is a tab (or ministick) with three different layers (this format is very trendy now in the market). The top and bottom layers are chewing gum whilst the middle layer is chewy candy. This allows for great flavour combinations, not only in terms of taste but also in terms of impact and lasting. I attach a photo taken with my iPhone (so I apologize for the “sub-optimal” quality!)

IMG_1918

Lotte Japan introduced two products. I discussed on a previous post about “ZEUS” (28th Aug 2012). This is also a three layer tab (or ministick) with the same concept as Tri VIEW and some others (discussed in the post I mentioned). ZEUS GUM comes in different flavors with “sexy” names: Aurora curtain, Snow storm, Thunder spark, Rain shower,…

Another product is “ENGINE”, which comes in cubic format with a slight coating and presented in a flip top box. There are different versions of the product, such as X-TRA SPEED, X-TRA WILD and X-TRA BURST and the product contains caffeine and guarana, so fall perfectly into the category of functional gum. The cubic presentation is also interesting because it is not very common in the market.

 

lotte xtra speedlotte engine open

 

zeus 2zeus 3zeus 4

 

 

Advertisement
 

Health claims in European chewing gums 04/04/2013

Filed under: Market & Fairs,Research — Joan Mestres @ 5:45 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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.

Confectionery News functional Gum

 

Beneo 25/03/2013

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 4:53 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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:

www.beneo-group.com

www.beneo.com

www.beneonews.com

I thank Ms Ingrid Willibald-Ettle for her time and explanations during ISM.

 

New gum base ingredient 16/11/2012

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 11:34 AM
Tags: , , , , ,

There are not many news about ingredients for gum base. Basically because, as you know, this field of research is quite restricted and companies keep their own developments for themselves. However, yesterday, confectionerynews.com informed about a new resin from Wacker (Germany) which claims to improve many properties of the gum base. The name of this ingredient is “Capiva” and according to the article it reduces the processing time, improves the flavour release, increases the shelf life, reduces the stickiness and increases the elasticity.

I am happy that some of the research on gum base production is openly communicated and published.  Usually, the general public can follow the developments on this field only by the patents that are being filed now and then, so this is like fresh air sneaking through. I hope it is not the last time and that the community can read more of these type of news.

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.confectionerynews.com/Formulation/Halve-processing-times-with-novel-gum-resin-says-Wacker/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=0%2FaKxp4dYMXLpipVB5%2FCo7cy%2FDtUWCBL

© 2012 – William Reed Business Media SAS – All Rights Reserved

 

Sweet Tec – ZDS 22/09/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 12:08 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Just back from Lindau – Germany, where I attended this year’s edition of Sweet Tec, organized by ZDS. Interesting presentations about coating and all what is around it (ingredients, technology, …) Not necessarily about chewing gum, but also. For me it was special because, after many years (since 1998 if i remember well) giving lectures in ZDS, this is the fist time that I talk about something which is not chewing gum. This time was about chewy candy technology, which of course has some points in common with chewing gum but it has also its specificities.
Besides the usual companies attending these seminars (Capol, Danisco -now DuPont-, Chocotech, Beneo-Palatinit, Roquette, AZO, Munters…) I found specially important to note the presence (with booth) of two companies offering Stevia. One of them is Cargill, the other is NP Sweet A/S. While the first is well-known, I was not aware of the second, which is a joint-venture between Nordzucker and PureCircle. This follows, and reinforces the trend of this new ingredient, at least in Europe (I posted something about it already in this blog). However, no chewing gum has been launched in the market yet. I could chew samples (lab scale) and they were very nice, so I’m sure we will see some chewing gum with Stevia in the near future.

 

“New” product – Marijuana 20/08/2012

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 4:10 PM
Tags: , , ,

I received an article informing about a new chewing gum in the US. This time, the novelty that is announced is the active ingredient: Marijuana. According to the article it will be marketed Over-The-Counter, claiming health benefits.
What is more arguable is the declaration that this will be “the first cannabinoid based chewing gum to hit the market”… I have samples, bought in Amsterdam about 10 years ago that claim to contain marihuana as well. Of course, I have not analyzed to confirm if the claim is true, but in this case this “new” US product will not be the first one to be launched.

In any case, this development falls in the category of “functional gum”, added-value product, which tries to offer added benefits to the consumer.We find many launchings in this direction every year, which is a clear confirmation of this market trend.

http://www.confectionerynews.com/Markets/Medical-marijuana-chewing-gum-set-for-US-debut

 

 

 

 

Chewing gum technology book 12/07/2012

Filed under: New product,Production & Machinery,Research — Joan Mestres @ 2:54 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

For those of you that are interested on knowing more and more about technological aspects around chewing gum, I can reccommend the book “Formulation and Production of Chewing and Bubble Gum”, by Douglas Fritz. You can find it in different internet stores ( http://www.woodheadpublishing.com/en/book.aspx?bookID=1965  or http://www.amazon.com/Formulation-production-chewing-bubble-gum/dp/0955808529  and others). In this book you will find the top relevant issues that interest you.

 

New products 10/07/2012

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 4:05 PM
Tags: , , ,

Did you know about Satiereal(R)? This ingredient coming from saffron is said to induce satiety, thus assisting on slimming and weight management diets. You can read more details about it on www.satiereal.com
This ingredient has been used by the company Fembody, in the US to produce a gum that claims these properties. http://www.fembodynutrition.com/shop/product-tag/satiereal-saffron-extract/

http://www.fembodynutrition.com/shop/appetite-control-gum/

It is not my intention to support or promote this product. It IS my intention to show to you any chewing gum that goes out of the standard, like those using specific ingredients or having special shapes or packagings. This is on eo fhte reasons why I love Japan. The products that you find there are “special”, more sophisticated, using ingredients that are not so common in the rest of the world. If you come to know of any of these interesting products, please let me know.

 

Chewing gum to keep a healthy heart. Resveratrol 27/06/2012

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 6:05 PM
Tags: , , , , , ,

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.

 

Isomaltulose in chewing gum 19/03/2012

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 10:00 AM
Tags: , , , ,

I attach a link about news on the use of isomaltulose in chewing gum. The company Beneo is promoting this feature.

http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Sectors/Confectionery/New-chewing-gum-with-next-generation-sugar

You can learn more about the company in www.beneo.com.

I have been in touch with this supplier usually in relation to the use of “Isomalt” in chewing gum, which is a well-know and common ingredient to be used in sugar-free gums, specially in the coating of pellets.

Now we will need to follow the use of this new ingredient, isomaltulose…