A clear trend in recent years has been the use of natural gum base, from sapodilla trees in Mexico. Different companies have launched chewing gums formulated using only natural ingredients. The gum base is one of them but also the flavours and sweeteners are natural. Some of them use the claim “plastic free”.
I have talked in this website about natural gums in the past (The Humble, Endoca, Two Wise Chimps, BenBits, Simply gum, Chewsy,…) , so this is not new to us. I just want to introduce here three companies that were exhibiting in ISM:
TRUE GUM www.truegum.com
FOREST GUM www.forestgum.de
TREE GUM www.treegum.ch
Only the first one has the website in English. “True gum” has been in the market for quite a few years now and can be found in many supermarkets around Europe. Recently, it became part of The Humble group, a Swedish company that specializes in Oral Care products (not only gum) and offers its own natural gum as well.
Recently, we see also the well-known brand STIMOROL, by the giant Mondelez, also offering a natural version. This is available only in Denmark and Switzerland and it comes with 2 different flavours (Spearmint&Eucalyptus and Lemon&Ginger). I find quite interesting that one of the big names in the chewing gum industry has decided to take this way as well. Let’s see how this works in the market and… let’s see if other big names (Mars/Wrigley, Perfetti Van Melle, Lotte,…) decide to follow in the near future.
As this is a clear growing market segment, I wonder if the supply of natural gum base from the trees will be enough to cover the demand!!
Chewing Gum Consultant 