Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

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.

 

Caffeine gum 13/03/2013

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 5:45 PM
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As you know, I have a special interest on functional chewing gums. The industry is venturing more and more into this field (basically driven by juicy margins) and every time I get news about one of these products I like to share it with you.

Today I read in Confectionerynews.com an article informing that Wrigley is planning to launch a gum with caffeine. It will be branded “Alert energy” and follow the path of energy drinks and the like. The product will contain 40mg of caffeine per piece, which is about half of the content of a cup of coffee (I wonder what size of coffee cup is considered a standard “cup”, but that’s another issue…). However the article points out potential problems from having this product consumed by children or teenagers. The article also reviews a number of chewing gums that are currently present in the market which also contain caffeine. Really interesting! Please have a look to this link:

Caffeinated Gum by Wrigley – confectionerynews.com 

 

Wrigley and Mondelez Marketing 10/01/2013

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 7:12 PM
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Today… a note about marketing.

Two articles by Oliver Nieburg in Confectionerynews.com (see links below).

One article for each of the chewing gum giants.

The one dealing about Mondelez, informs about the intention to enhance the use of new technologies for their marketing, in particular mobile technologies by partnering with start-up companies in the field. For instance, Trident is linked to Rockimity and Stride to Waze. Interesting move!

Mondelez marketing

The second article is about Wrigley and their intention to reinvigorate the impulse channels in Germany. This is a more classical approach to marketing, which is also valid. Interesting to see it in a market (Germany) where Wrigley has a strong dominant position (over 70% market share according to Euromonitor). Other players (local brand Hitschler or the italian Perfetti) have a far much smaller share (below 5%). This market, due to its size and importance, is very carefully taken care of by Wrigley. There are line extensions being launched continuously (for the most classical brands like Orbit or Extra) and also new products being launched in a powerful way (such as “5” in 2009). Also, of course, being a well-developed mature market, the functionality vector is important, and Wrigley launched gums with green tea, aloe vera, vitamin C “Extra Professional + Vitamin C”. In terms of flavors, also according to Euromonitor, Spearmint is still number one, but new combinations appear more and more, like mojito, daiquiri or Pina colada flavour extensions for “Orbit”.

However, according to Mr Gabel (Sales director Wrigley Germany) their sales declined 3% last year, mainly driven by the decline in impulse channels, and that’s why they implement new measures now which include increasing sales force, new displays, increased TV marketing budget, etc.

Wrigley marketing

 

Tax on chewing gum 03/12/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product,Research — Joan Mestres @ 9:33 PM
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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

 

New products in China and Korea 20/11/2012

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 2:31 PM
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Wasabi KitKat (Nestlé) or Cheese Chocolate (Meiji-Japan) are only some of the amazing developments that we find in the Far East. You can see them following this link

http://www.confectionerynews.com/Formulation/Asian-innovation-Wasabi-Kit-Kats-and-cheese-chocolate © 2012 – William Reed Business Media SAS

 

But in our field of chewing gum two novelties are being described in the website above: A bubble gum launched by Lotte, in Korea and the appearance of “Stride”, by Mondelez in China.

Both can be considered oddities. The former because bubble gum is usually not the field where the innovation efforts focus, the later because the presence of Mondelez in the huge Chinese market is almost inexistent. Chinese market is (according to Euromonitor 2011) dominated by Wrigley (ca. 40% market share in value), followed at the distance by Orion, Lotte and Perfetti (all within the 3 to 5% bracket). Then various local players have much smaller shares. We will follow very closely how the launching of  the “Stride” brand (already well-known in other countries) develops and if this really represents the disembark of Mondelez in the Chinese gum market.

 

Wrigley files a patent of fibre-containing chewing gum 03/10/2012

Filed under: New product,Research — Joan Mestres @ 10:35 AM
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Wrigley files a patent of fibre-containing chewing gum

I read in confectionerynews.com (see link attached) about this new patent that Wrigley has filed, claiming improved texture, flavour release and healthiness.

 

Nostalgia 01/10/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 6:15 PM
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Now that we have to name the second player in our field “Mondelez” instead of Kraft, there many names that come to my mind which are no longer in use.

The same company, Kraft, took over some years ago Cadbury, which in turn had purchased Adams from Pfizer. Adams, a pioneer in our industry, was belonging to Warner Lambert. Cadbury also absorbed the Danish Dandy, the Argentinian Stani, the Egyptian BimBim and many others.

The other big player, Wrigley, is now within the Mars Inc. group, but it had absorbed some companies in the past, like Joyco (previously named General de Confiteria).

If we llok at the suppliers, we can also find names that are not there anymore. In the field of flavours I remember Bush Boake Allen (BBA), now in IFF; or Quest and Tastemaker now in Givaudan. In terms of machinery we can remember that names of Togum, Comeck or WLS. Many of their machines are still in factories around the world. Or even Nagema, from East Germany, for packaging.

If you also remember those names, it means that you have been around for quite a while as well….

 

Do PIIGS chew gum? 12/09/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 8:49 PM
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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.

 

New Product from Australia 11/08/2012

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 12:20 PM
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The other day I came across this interesting product from Wrigley Australia. They are the classical gum tabs in a multipack, but what is interesting are the two stripes placed on the top of the piece. It seems to be a coextruded product but in this case they are not blending two types of gum with different flavours or colors (which is the most typical case when coextruding) but they are using instead these two stripes of powder. It comes under the umbrella of “EXTRA” brand and there is a different flavour range. I tasted the powder and it does not seem to me to contain xylitol (no big cooling effect), so I think that it might be some isomalt with some flavor (?), just a guess. I do not know how long this has been in the market for, so it might not be a really new product, but in any case for sure it is worth mentioning.

 

Smaller gum packages 16/05/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 4:01 AM
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Continuing the last post, there are still more news about this trend in US. Producers go into smaller packs of chewing gum in order to position themselves in the right unit price.

Considering the economic crisis in most of Europe, I would not be surprised that this crosses the Atlantic quite soon. Let’s count the weeks….

http://www.confectionerynews.com/Processing-Packaging/US-chewing-gum-packs-going-pocket-sized-says-analyst/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=0%2FaKxp4dYMXZ%2F5UG%2BoeJrLBbZVceA37z

By Oliver Nieburg.