Last year I already posted about this Irish company (link), managed by Brendan Roantree. Not so many novelties this year, but I’d like to mention here the nice snooker balls, which display the number printed on the surface.
Although it is not gum, I liked very much this jawbreaker which was displayed in their booth, so I share it with you as well.
I had the chance to talk to Mr Brendan Roantree, Managing Director of Zed Candy, during ISM.
This Irish company was established in 1998 and has been growing and expanding since then. Now employes more than 270 people and has production facilities in China and in UK. Even if they produce hard and soft candy, chocolate and jelly beans, what is interesting to us is their production of bubble gum. They are real specialists in hollow ball production. Their designs and powerful image has always surprised me, since I met this company many years ago. I invite you to visit their web-site: www.zedcandy.com
They have one big brand:; JAWBREAKERS which includes hollow balls in different designs and sizes (Mammooth Jawbreaker, Monster jawbreaker, etc). The hollow balls have funny designs, like the ones that resemble an eye (Terror eyes) or a golf ball. There are other brands of bubble gum, such as GUM POWDER (in this case consists on coated nuggets of gum) or ZAPPERS (small gum squares). All the products from Zed Candy move away from the traditional, conventional, well-known styles and are able to present an innovative and striking look.
During ISM’13 Zed Candy presented a world first, which is a ball with 4 colour print (the logo of the company) on it. Also very powerful is the lollipop consisting on a liquid center, with bubble gum around it and then coated with 3 different layers (colours) of candy. This sophisticated product is called TORNADO POPS.
According to Brendan during last years he feels that the market is asking for higher quality products and that low price/low quality is not selling as much as before. Children are more and more novelty driven. About the future, he is worried about volatile raw material prices, currencies and legislations. As in international business manager he has to deal with those variables and it is a tough challenge. He also feels (and I fully agree with him, but I will discuss about this in another post) that ISM is getting smaller.
Thank you, Brendan, for your time and explanations!
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
Today I had the curiosity to check the Euromonitor figures for these European countries that suffer the current crisis in its most severe form. I’d like to share some of them with you (from smallest size market to largest). The data are from 2011.
PORTUGAL: 1318 Tons. Up 1% in value from 2010 but expected to stay at 0% growth until 2016 (the maximum range of Euromonitor’s study). The main brand is Trident and the market is largely dominated by Cadbury (63%), followed at distance by Wrigley (13%) and the local producer Lusiteca (4%).
IRELAND: 2130 T. Up 2% both in value and volume from 2010. Expected growth of 1% per year until 2016. The top brand is Extra and in this case the market is clearly dominated by Wrigley (86%), with some minor shares for Cadbury (3%), Zed Candy (1%), Tesco (0,6%), Adams (0,5%) and Topps (0,1%). A special note about the products from Zed Candy, which are very original and shocking.
GREECE: 3025 T. Down 9% in volume from 2010 and a decrease of 3% is expected in the studied period. Here the main brand is Trident and the market leader Cadbury with 59%. Then we find Wrigley (20%), Perfetti (13%), Elma SA (5,4%) and Sarsantis with 0,9%. This is clearly the country where we find the worse results, and it is as well where the economic situation seems to be the worse.
SPAIN: 13038 Ton in 2011 with 2% decrease in volume and value. However the expectations are more positive with a growth of 2%. Number one brand is Trident and here there is a tight fight for the largest market share, being Cadbury (43%) and Wrigley (42%). Then we find Perfetti (4,2%) and local producers such as Fleer (2,2%) and Damel (0,1%).
ITALY: with 18322 T is the largest market and one traditionally dominated by the local multinational Perffetti (94% market share!). Not much room left for the others, with only Wrigley accounting for a 2,3%. Number one brand is, of course, a Perfetti one: Vivident. The market has grown 2% in volume since 2010 and a small 1% growth is expected from now on.
We do not find many similarities, as each country has its own players, trends and dynamics. The only common trend that I found is also found in many other developed markets, which is the increase of sugarfree and functional products, that are keeping the market alive, in opposition to bubble gum and sugared gum which decreases more and more its presence. We can also look at the trend of smaller packages (which I discussed in a previous posting) and also some differences noticed at the point of sale, regarding the consideration of gum as impulse product.
Chewing Gum Consultant 