Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

Cafosa 07/07/2022

Filed under: Mergers & Acquisitions — Joan Mestres @ 12:38 PM
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Some days ago the Brazilian gum base producer Sweet Gum (I posted about them in the past) reached an agreement to acquire the leading gum base supplier world-wide, Cafosa, from Mars. The deal is pending approval from the Authorities, so probably we will hear an official communication about this matter once it is completed.

Cafosa, which is part of Mars, was showing red figures for the last years. Negative financial results, loss of customers and poor performance might be some of the reasons (among others) that led Mars to take this move.

I look forward to see how this changes the game in the gum base sector. I worked for 12 years in Cafosa and I have seen the changes and transformation of the company from a family-owned Catalan SME (Mr Carulla founded the company within the General de Confiteria -later Joyco- Group) to being absorbed by Wrigley and later being part of Mars. Now starts a new era within an environment that has been hit by the Covid19 pandemic and with a decline of chewing gum consumption in many countries.

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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.

 

AW-Caffeine-duo-CMYK_optIMG_20180228_181805-2s-l300

 

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

 

 

MARS WRIGLEY in Kenya 28/05/2018

Filed under: Market & Fairs,Production & Machinery — Joan Mestres @ 1:36 PM
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http://www.confectionerynews.com just informed that MarsWrigley will open a new factory near Nairobi (link). I remember visiting the Wrigley factory in Kenya already in the early 2000s, and it was quite impressive. They were producing chewing gum coated pellets under the brand “PK”.

 

p.k.-and-juicy-fruit

This is gum with sugar. Sugarfree is still not mass-produced in SubSaharian Africa.

This new factory was already announced back in 2015, with expectations to start operations in early 2017. Well, finally here! Good to see new, large factories of gum.

Some there links to this news here:

Business Daily Africa

Africa Business Chief

Food Drink & Franchise

 

Caffeine Gum – Stay Alert- Wrigley – USA 30/10/2017

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 8:31 AM
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I read the news in www.confectionerynews.com that Mars/Wrigley has decided to re-introduce their Caffeine Gum in the market.

The company withdraw that gum in 2013 because there were doubts about thte effects that it could have on children.

You can read the story in the linked article.

Even the FDA has not regulated the use of such product regarding children (the legal situationj is the same today than in 2013) the compnay says that has conducted their own studies and decided to re-launch it. The article also contains interesting figures about the gum market in the USA, where we can see the the decline in sales is still there and that Wrigley continues losing market share. I guess this might be one of the reasons for this re-introduction of the “Alert Gum”, now called “Alert Caffeine Gum” ( and before “Alert Energy Gum”).

As I mentioned several times before, going into the fuctional gum segment is one of the ways to try to boost sales.

 

 

Wrigley case study 27/03/2017

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 4:12 PM
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I found this interesting article about how Wrigley started and developed. It is written more from the point of view of business strategy, rather than “chewing gum” itself, but I think it is well written and wanted to share it with you:

 

http://yourstory.com/2016/03/wrigley-case-study/

 

Simply Gum (and Wrigley). 23/03/2017

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 3:58 PM
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Today I wanted to “replicate” an interview with the CEO of SIMPLY GUM, from the USA, which has been published by www.confectionerynews.com (see link to the article).

Mr Caron Proschan declares his intention to compete for shelf space with Wrigley. When it comes to the issue of shelf space, I cannot avoid to tell you how frustrating it is for us, people at the technical (R&D and production) side of the chain, to see that all our efforts in developing a great product, with right the flavor profile that we want, the packaging that appeals the most, the shape, size and appearance that has been stated in the definition of the product, do not lead to a successful sales record because of the wrong positioning at the sales point. This parameter is so important (and so difficult to obtain) that we might think that all the other are insignificant.

I leave you with the article by Douglas Yu, although I do not agree compeltely with all what is mentioned there… but that would be too long to discuss here…

 

Wrigley vs. Perfetti 19/11/2014

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 5:21 PM
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I copy here the link to the news published to day in www.confectionerynews.com about the legal battle between Wrigley and Perfetti over the “WTF” trademark.

Wrigley considers that “WTF” can somehow overlap or coincide with their well-known brand “Winterfresh”. I have no other news about this issue other than the one appeared in this article, so I better just invite you to read it here

 

Degradable chewing gum 04/04/2014

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 9:03 AM
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More news on this interesting topic have been published by confectionery news.com (see link).

Wrigley has filed a patent describing a new degradable gum. The way this is achieved is by formulating the gum base with “block polymers”. The company claims that the resulting product is more easily removed from surfaces such as sidewalks (in 20 seconds a high pressure hot water jet can remove more than 80% of the material)

According to wikipedia:

“Block copolymers comprise two or more homopolymer subunits linked by covalent bonds (4). The union of the homopolymer subunits may require an intermediate non-repeating subunit, known as a junction block. Block copolymers with two or three distinct blocks are called diblock copolymers and triblock copolymers, respectively.”

In this particular patent, the company uses polymers of at least 4 blocks composed of at east 2 different monomer systems.

The articles from confectionerynews.com mentions as well other companies that presented progresses on this controversial field of the chewing gum business (Mondelez, Revolymer, TNO, RSSL,  GumLink, Fertin Pharma, University College Cork) . I also posted in the past about those patents and inventions.

 

 

Cooling agent for chewing gum 24/07/2013

Filed under: Research — Joan Mestres @ 10:49 AM
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Mint is by far the most popular flavor for chewing gum around the world. When we check the lists of top flavors in each country published by market research companies (e.g. Euromonitor), we always find peppermint, spearmint, mint, or other variations of the theme under local names (such as chlorophyl, hierbabuena, …) at the top of the list.

Mint  brings this refreshing feeling that many consumers are looking for in a gum. Breath freshening is one of the main purposes for the consumers to use gum. When dealing with breath freshening, we have to consider not only the mint flavor but also some “cooling” agents that go with the flavor. Menthol is probably the most traditional, but it brings some bitter aftertaste and has to be very well balanced in the formulation. Other ingredients are WS3 or WS5, but recently Wrigley has patented a new ingredient that serves this purpose. This has been published by Confectionerynews here, and the inventor claims that this ingredients has less disadvantages compared to previous ones. It can be combined with other ingredients or used in the coating of the gum.

This is one more step that main players (gum producers, flavour suppliers,…) take in the direction to provide cooling/freshness to the consumer without adverse effects. I like when I see the industry moving forward and developing better, new products!

 

Wrigley and Mondelez cuts 12/06/2013

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 5:10 PM
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I reproduce here two articles published by Oliver Nieburg in “confectionerynews.com”

Some days ago we learnt that Wrigley France is going to cut 207 jobs in the Biesheim factory. The production of pellets (dragées) will be transferred to another plant. The production of sticks and tabs (for France and for the European market) will remain. The company plans to build an “European Gum Base and Soft Gum Center of Excellence” in that French town located next to Strasburg and the German border.

Wrigley France article

Today the news are that Mondelez closes the factories in Lebanon and Morocco. It has not been announced which factories will absorb that production.While 105 employees are affected by the closure in Lebanon, the staff in Morocco (43) will be offered a position in other Kraft or Mondelez business units (beverage or biscuits).

Mondelez Lebanon and Morocco article

Both decisions originate from a slow sales performance in those areas. For instance, the production in Wrigley France dropped 33% since 2007. This is directly related to the economic situation in Europe.