Chewing gum industry overview / Ingredients
play a positive role in calorie control and in otherwise supporting the well-being of our consumers. Beyond the
traditional positive aspects of great taste and fresh breath, sugar-free chewing gum is scientifically proven
to deliver oral care benefits including tooth cleaning and strengthening, plaque reduction, and the reduction of dry mouth. Additionally, emerging science suggests that chewing gum can also aid concentration, ease stress and support smoking cessation.
Although our product contributes limited calories and nutrients, we know that consumers want and need the right information to make informed choices about the role that gum can play within their total diet. We must work to ensure that consumers are fully informed about important product attributes, while at the same time recognizing that chewing gum’s nutritional contribution tends to be limited and package sizes tend to be small. So proposed approaches for providing nutrition information that may work well for a large box of breakfast cereal or a frozen pizza often don’t work for gum. We want harmonized labeling requirements that provide this flexibility for manufacturers, while at the same time ensuring that our consumers are receiving the most relevant information about our products in a format they can readily understand.
Gum snapshot
A snapshot of the latest gum trends reveals how consumer demand has resulted in a call for more environmentally sourced ingredients.
As part of a sustainable, responsible business plan, gum companies are continually looking at their product lines and building sustainability in wherever possible. Rudy Wouters, vice president, BENEO Technology Center, told Kennedy’s Confectionery: “As a result of this, we are finding our BENEO rice starches are becoming increasingly popular when used as whiteners with confectionery producers. Being naturally derived, with an extreme whiteness and a very fine particle size, these rice starches enable the replacement of the artificially manufactured titanium dioxide in both chewing gum and confectionery products.”
BENEO offers functional ingredients derived from chicory roots, beet sugar, rice and wheat. The company describes itself as ‘the ideal partner’ to help
18 Kennedy’s Confection September 2012
improve a product in terms of nutritional and technological characteristics. Key nutritional benefits listed are ‘less fat’, ‘less sugar’, ‘less calories’, ‘added fibre’, ‘gluten-free’ and dairy alternatives - as well as energy management, digestive, bone and dental health. BENEO says these technological benefits primarily focus on taste and texture improvements and, through a ‘chain of expertise’. This includes the BENEO Institute, which has been established in a bid to provide decisive insights into nutrition science and legislation. The BENEO-Technology Center has also been set up to consult in application technology, and the organisation actively supports customers in the development of more balanced and healthy food products. Wouters noted: “As more and more companies look to reduce the amount
Nutrition information for chewing gum should be provided on a “per piece” basis – as opposed to, for instance, on a 100-gram basis – to enable consumers to quickly calculate the relevant information based on their own typical consumption. Also, to require extensive disclosure of nutrients not typically present in chewing gum – for instance fats and sodium – places a significant burden on the industry, while providing consumers with no added benefit.
Keeping communities clean by encouraging proper disposal
Finally, as our industry contributes to the well-being of our consumers, we know that we also have a role to play in supporting the well-being of our communities. ICGA understands that improperly discarded chewing gum tarnishes the environment – potentially giving some consumers a reason not to chew.
ICGA and its members support educational initiatives that raise gum chewers’ awareness of the importance of proper disposal. Littered gum is caused by the irresponsible behavior of a small minority of gum chewers. The only sustainable solution to deal with this issue, as with all forms of litter, is to influence behavior – something that is best accomplished through education. ICGA members promote proper disposal through a dedicated on-pack icon and its members are actively involved in programs at the local, regional and national levels to educate and sensitize consumers to the importance of proper gum disposal.
of ingredients with E-numbers in their confectionery and gum products, rice starches are showing their ‘clean label’ credentials. This trend for rice starch as a natural replacement looks set to continue as companies seek to promote increasingly ‘all natural’, sustainable product lines to consumers.”
kennedysconfection.com
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