How long does the flavor in your gum last? OR, for that matter, what type of gum do you chew? Lately, I've been chewing quite a bit of Orbitz and I'm pretty satisfied with how long the flavor lasts. I also chew Extra and have found that some of their flavors seem to last longer than others (the mints verses the fruits). Gum is one of the most popular "foods" items in the US, but it is probably also the most complained about. According to the vice president of Cadbury Schweppes, 66% of people feel that their gum looses flavor too quickly. So, to try to give customers what they want, Cadbury has developed a new gum, called Stride. The gum is formulated to remain soft and chewy longer, as well as to release its flavor more slowly, thus increasing the amount to time that customers are willing to chew it. An unofficial taste test in the New York Times found that it did last longer than regular gum, averaging about 20 minutes of good chewing time. The new product will hit the shelves later this month, as will a $50 million advertising campaign, so the release - just like the longer, time-release flavor of the gum itself - will probably be hard to miss.
The ridiculously long lasting gum
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
25-08-2006 @ 5:05PM
Franz Hemingbeck said...
There are several issues this brings to mind:
1. The reason why we percieve that gum loses its flavor is because the brain can only take so much of one strong flavor before it goes into a kind of an overload and you percieve that the flavor is going away. The next time you chew a piece of gum, try taking a sip of fruit juice, then put the gum back in your mouth. The flavor will be strong again.
I remember reading about this in an article years ago and I'll try to find it for anyone who is interested.
2. Several years ago when Wrigley quietly started replacing the sugar in all of their gums (Big Red, Spearmint, Juicy Fruit...) with cheaper sweeteners like Ace-K and Aspartame, I contacted the company and asked them why they were putting artificial sweetners in non-sugar free gums.
Their response was that these artificial sweeteners make the flavor of gum last longer.
As a person who loves to chew gum but refuses to consume artificial sweeteners of any kind, it's been frustrating watching the the candy companies reformulate their non-sugar free gums in the name of "extending the flavor."
All they are doing is replacing a more expensive commodity with cheaper ones. I can understand if you want to chew sugar free gum, but it's irritating to be left with few sugar only choices anymore.
I love chewing cinnamon gum, but now I'm down to mail ordering Freshen Up or lowering my standards to chew the occasional piece of Dentyne.
Are other people bothered by this?
3Actually incorporating sweetners into gum does make the flavor last longer. Sugar immediately releases from gum base, examples of this are Juicy Fruit, Doublemint, etc... The articial sweetners take longer to release and therefore extend the flavor. Price is not primary driver.
45-09-2006 @ 3:31PM
Franz Hemingbeck said...
Price is the primary driver. Despite the fact that aspartame and ace-k costs more per pound than sugar, only a fraction of the amount of artifical sweetener is needed to replace the sweetness of sugar.
At its lowest, aspartame costs $20 per pound. At wholesale, sugar cost 23.5 cents per pound in 2004. Acesulfame K is 100-200 times sweeter than sugar, and aspartame is 200-400 times sweeter.
Therefore to replace an ounce of sugar in a stick of gum, you'd only need a tiny portion of an artificial sweetener.
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