"bubble gum" news and stories

Cadbury Schweppes is putting its money where its mouth is, as I learned while skimming Confectionery News this morning. The company has plunked down $40 million for a gum laboratory that it just opened in  Hanover, N.J. The candy powerhouse, whose gum brands include Dentyne and Bubblicious, is aiming to maintain the growth in global gum sales, which Cadbury now pegs at seven percent a year. The press release on its Web site is filled with a lot of stat-based marketing puffery: it takes up to 70 ingredients to make each of the 65 billion delicious pieces of gum Cadbury churns out. Scrolling down revealed a wad of truth from a bona fide expert, gumologist, Jessie Kiefer. "We've come a long way since the Greeks chewed on resin from the bark of the mastic tree to sweeten their breath."

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It looks like school teachers aren’t the only ones realizing that gum can be a multi-purpose vehicle. In fairness, it has been used as a non-cigarette nicotine delivery system for several years now, but the US army is putting it to more uses.

Stay Alert is a caffeinated gum developed by Wrigley’s. The cinnamon flavored gum has 100-mg of caffeine per piece, equivalent to a 6-ounce cup of coffee. Dr. Balkin, from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research isn’t worried about the possibility of abuse, though people have been known to abuse caffeinated products such as No-Doz in the past, because “the stuff doesn’t taste that good.” There are other brands of caffeinated gum that college students have been using to say alert for some time now. They include Jolt Gum – which has half as much caffeine as Stay Alert – and Penguin Energy Gum.

The army is also in the process of developing a plaque fighting gum for use by soldiers, who are sometimes unable to have regular opportunities to brush and floss due to the duties of combat. This seems like a product that the dental industry could really get behind, once it has completed testing.

Who didn’t hear the phrase “Don’t chew gum at school!” when they were growing up? Of course, this sort of instruction always encourages a few people to flout the rules and chew gum even more frequently. The main reason that gum chewing was frowned upon was that students would probably stick the used wads under the desk or on the floor, where other unsuspecting students might come into contact with them. For some reason, though, the teachers always claimed that the reason was that students couldn’t pay attention while chewing gum. This was a ridiculous excuse since people are more than capable of engaging in other activities while they chew, like walking, for example.