The History of Bubble Gum
You are in for a treat (get it?), because the history of bubble gum is super interesting and stretches out (2nd pun!) for thousands of years. Now, before we chew on (that’s 3!) the specifics of bubble gum history, let’s start way back with weird things people would chew on, then we’ll dive into the beginnings of chewing gum, and finally bubble gum’s history.
Click here to skip right to the history of bubblegum.
Since this history of gum is so deep, we break this timeline into several “eras,” as follows:
"Chewing on Trees" Era
According to History.com (they really know their history), there's evidence of people in Europe chewing on birch bark in the way way back days. Archeologists found evidence of teeth marks in the birch bark tar! They think maybe it was for enjoyment or to relieve tooth pain. We'll buy that.
We are still in the tree chewing era. On the island of Chios, there's a tree called Mastic that produces "tears" or droplets of resin that are apparently pretty tasty, with a flavor similar to pine. Ancient Greeks would chew on it for digestive relief and as a breath freshener. Romans were into too, later down the road. The tree's name, Mastic, or Mastiche, means "to gnash the teeth."
You can still get mastic gum today! Check out Apollo Gum, for example.
The Mayans discovered they could boil the sap (chicle) of the Sapodilla tree and use it for cool stuff, like glue. Mayan kids enjoyed chewing on it and called it "cha." So, we have two innovations here: (1) cooking the sap and (2) naming it something cool: "cha." This was a big moment in the history of gum.
Note: Sapodilla trees must be 70 years old before tapping for chicle. You can only harvest every 5 years or so. One tree can produce 2.5lbs of chicle, using a 24 hour tap (about 1,000 pieces of gum).
I'm seeing a trend here of people chewing on different types of tree sap. In this case, the North American natives would chew on the sap of Spruce trees, also for medicinal and recreational reasons. Something big happened in the 1800s, though, when European settlers started mingling with Native Americans and adopted the practice of chewing on sap. In fact, it will take us to the next "era..."
Intermission #1
That’s it for the the “chewing on trees” era. You’ll see we never really stop chewing on trees, but things really progress in the next era.
Before we move on, check out this video 👉 of us actually chewing on trees–in this case, a spruce tree!
"Chewing Gum is Born" Era
Take a look at that ambitious face! At around age 21, he's the clever inventor who made gum a thing you could buy. He boiled up some spruce resin, mixed in some sugar, coated it with cornstarch, then cut it into strips, wrapped it and sealed it with a label. Chewing Gum as we know it was born! (source) He called it "State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum."
He's not done, either. He goes door to door trying to sell the stuff, but nobody wants it until finally he finds a shopkeeper who's not boring. The gum didn't sell well at first, but did have a cult following among a few. It was enough to give John hope, so he took to the roads, spread out, and was successful selling gum.
If that's not enough for you, John also invented a machine that allowed him to make gum faster.
Our friend John creates "The Curtis & Son Company" in Portland, ME. It was a brick building right here. They had 200 employees and made 1,800 boxes of gum a day! They experiment with different flavors called "American Flag," "Sugar Cream," "Four in Hand," "Yankee Spruce," "White Mountain," and “Biggest and Best.”
The chewing gum manufacturing process that John created is still in use today. John Curtis is a chewing gum MVP!
Curtis and Son Company realize that spruce based gums lack the ideal texture, so they experimented with paraffin as a gum base and it was an upgrade. During this time, paraffin-based gum was the standard. By the way, paraffin is the same stuff used to make those wax lips.
Side note - There was a recent clinical trial to test the "salivary flow rate" from chewing on paraffin.
This part of the story has a lot to unfold. It starts with a guy named "Antonio de Padua Maria Severino Lopez de Santa Anna y Perez de Lebron." Count 'em up...13 words in a name! Let's just call him Santa Anna. Well, he was the 8th president of Mexico, and it was his army that fought at the Battle of the Alamo! He is worthy of a Google search, but let's fast-forward to the twilight of his life when he was kicked out of Mexico, living in the United States and pursuing riches with the idea that he could build an army and get back to power in Mexico.
Santa Anna found himself in New York due to a con-man that tricked him with a forged letter from the US government. He had a bunch of chicle and his master plan was to develop a cheaper type of rubber for tires, but it didn't work very well.
Santa Anna was assigned a secretary named Thomas Adams, who happened to be an inventor on the side. Seeing kids buy paraffin-based gum, and seeing Santa Anna chew on chicle, Thomas has a lightbulb moment and decides to try using the chicle as a better gum base.
As noted above, Thomas Adams used the chicle from Santa Anna and figured out a way to make a chewing gum with a better texture than paraffin. His first gum was called "Adams New York No. 1" (source).
Note: Some people call Thomas the inventor of chewing gum and "the most important man in the history of gum." He certainly deserves his credit and we are big fans, but let's not forget John Bacon Curtis!
Two patents are filed in this year related to gum.
The first is to Amos Tyler of Ohio (No. 93,141) for an "improved chewing gum compound" he made with a partner named Samuel Morse. It was made of white rosin mixed with olive oil.
Dentist William Semple files the 2nd patent in the same year (No 98,304) for "a new and improved chewing gum." Here's an excerpt:
"It is produced by simply dissolving the rubber in naphtha and alcohol, and when of the consistence of jelly, mixing with it prepared chalk, powdered licorice-root, or any other suitable material, in the desired proportions, and subsequently evaporating the solvents."
Doesn't sound great to us, but his objective was to create something useful for dental purposes (e.g. strengthening the jaw) and not to create a delightful treat.
Thomas Adams is back at it. He develops "Black Jack," a gum flavored with anise (licorice). If you can believe it, you can still buy this gum today! The company/brand was sold many times, but now lives with Gerrit J. Verburg Co. and Black Jack was reintroduced in 2019.
Thomas Adams is back yet again. This time, he invents and patents a factory machine to mass produce gum based on chicle.
In Louisville, a drug store owner named John Colgan bought a bunch of chicle, mixed it with balsam tolu extract (which he used for cough syrup), added powdered sugar, and boom 💥 - he had gum. He called it Colgan's Taffy Tolu and it was a big hit. So much so that he stopped being a drug store guy and started a gum company instead, the Colgan Chewing Gum Company. They sold the gum in tins and included cards of baseball players of the day. Baseball and gum have an intertwined history, starting right here. (source)
The significance of this moment is the big advance in gum holding its flavor. Here's the story:
William White, a candy store owner, mistakenly buys a barrel of Yucatan chicle (source). Oops! So, in an attempt to make use of it, he adds peppermint and corn syrup, making the first peppermint flavored gum, which also happened to last a lot longer than the licorice gums, which lost their flavor very quickly. He names the gum "Yucatan Gum," starts a company called "W.J. White Co." and does very well in the market...well enough that Mr. White later builds a 52 room mansion and becomes a mayor and House representative. Not a bad turn of events, considering that chicle purchase was a mistake.
Note: White's company also introduced a gum called Red Robin which contained "fortunes." (Source)
An Ohio physician named Edward Beeman got the idea to put pepsin, a digestive enzyme, into gum. He called it "Beeman's Gum" and claimed it "cured indigestion and sea-sickness." I guess it was easier to make unproven medical claims back then. You can still buy Beeman's Gum today, but it doesn't contain chicle or pepsin anymore. Fun Fact: Beeman's Gum features heavily in the movie Rocketeer
Frank Fleer comes on the scene, starting to make chewing gum. We will be hearing about him later in the next "era." In his company's early days, he sold candy and a chicle-based gum with different flavorings, including cola.
By the way, the company was initially started in 1849 by a German Quaker named Otto Holstein. Frank Fleer took it over after marrying Holstein’s daughter (source).
Credited as the first popular fruit-flavored gum, "Kis-Me" was brought to market by inventor Jonathan P Primley. The slogan was "Fare Better Than A Kiss."
Customers could mail in the wrappers and receive key rings, paper dolls, and other small prizes.
This was a big moment. Thomas Adams Gum Company had the idea to make a vending machine for gum. These machines were placed on elevated subway platforms in New York City and sold Tutti-Frutti gum.
Later, in 1897, the Pulver Manufacturing Company added animated figures to make these machines even better, but that clown is a little creepy if you ask us.
Interestingly, several people are credited with inventing the gum Chiclets (small candy coated gum), including the Fleer Company, Thomas Adams and Louis Mahle.
After hours of research, we think the most plausible Chiclets origin story is that of Henry Fleer (Frank's brother). Inspired by candy-coated almonds, Henry Fleer had the idea to coat small pieces of chicle gum with candy. When he showed them to his brother Frank he called them "little chiclets” and the name stuck. (source)
The American Chicle Company will be established soon (in 1899) by a team of names you'll recognize. More on that in a bit...
William Brewer was a college dropout who reluctantly went home to work for his dad's "rubber paint" company in Chicago. Doesn't sound like great start, but the 20-something year old kid gets the idea to use some of the excess rubber as a chewing gum base and it works great. Then a guy named A.G. Cox buys the company and hits the gas on the gum operations, partnering with people in the area...people like 👇
William Wrigley Jr. went to Chicago with $32 in his pocket and a dream to start a soap company. He did. With each soap, he gave away baking soda. People loved the baking soda more than the soap, so then he started selling baking soda instead, this time with a free gift of gum. You can guess it from there...the gum was the winner and he began to sell gum as the main product. At this time, chewing tobacco was way more popular than chewing gum. His first two gums were called "Vassar" and "Lotta." (source: NY Times)
We have a whole write-up on Juicy Fruit's history, along with lots of fun facts if you want to hear the details. This was also the time that Wrigley's Spearmint gum was introduced. There are conflicting reports on which flavor was introduced first, so if you have the definitive answer, please drop a comment below.
While Juicy Fruit is still thriving, I'm sorry to report that Wrigley's Spearmint was discontinued in 2022. 🪦 😢
A New York City druggist/pharmacist named Franklin Canning formulated a gum that he promoted as an oral hygiene tool. "Dental" + "hygiene" = Dentyne. Dentyne Classic was cinnamon flavored, sweetened with sugar, and designed to freshen breath.
Since then, we've had about 10,000 flavors and names of Dentyne, such as Dentyne Ice, available in "Peppermint", "Arctic Chill", "Spearmint", "Shiver Mint", "Vanilla Frost", "Cool Frost", "Wild Winter", "Intense", and "Mint Medley," Dentyne Fire, Dentyne Pure, Dentyne Tango, Dentyne Shine and on and on.
The American Chicle Company was founded by William White (see above) and Edwin Beeman (also see above) (source), consolidating their operations and putting Black Jack and Beemans gum under one company. The company also included Adams Sons & Co., J.P. Primley (the Kis-Me guy) and S.T. Britten and Co. Combining these 5 gum companies made American Chicle Company a major player and helped them to better compete with Wrigley.
Did you know there was a Coca-Cola gum!? We didn't either, but there sure was according to earlycoke.com. Three guys with All-American named (David Carson, William Clark, and George Rogers) pooled together $15,000 and made a deal with the real Coke company to use their name. They had to meet "the high standards of the Coca-Cola company."
It is likely that the gum actually used Coke as one of the ingredients.
Only 2 years later, the company was sold off to the Franklin Manufacturing Company, who renamed the gum "Coca-Cola Pepsin Gum."
"Waiting for Bubble Gum" Era
Intermission #2
OK, let’s take a breather because we covered a lot so far: a guy with 13 names, gum with pepsin inside, vending machines with clowns, and a lot more. Now it’s time to enter a new era: the “Bubble Gum is Almost Born” Era!
"Bubble Gum is Almost Born" Era
While this gum was a "bust" and was never sold, we still think of it as the very first bubble gum.
Credit goes to Frank Fleer (see 1885 👆 ) for formulating this concoction, even thought it didn't work out.
According to accounts of Blibber-Bubber, it enabled small bubbles that were brittle and sticky and really stuck to one's face! You needed a solvent to get it off. The texture resembled silly putty (source) and the bubbles kind of broke apart when they burst, but the key word here is bubbles! They sound like terrible bubbles, but it was a start.
So, Blibber-Bubber never made it to market in its original form or name, but it goes down as the first bubble gum, and you haven't heard the last of it!
Intermission #3
I bet you were expecting more in that last section, but that’s it for now. Bubble gum was a failed experiment, just like many new products and ideas. It’s going to take 20 years of waiting, iterating, and reflecting on Blibber-Bubber before bubble gum is ready for prime time. Until then, we enter an in-between era where cool stuff happens, but we call it the “waiting for bubble gum” era.
We already had "gum vending machines" (see 1888 👆 ), but in 1907 we get both gumballs and gumball machines. The belief is that Thomas Adams Co. probably released the first one.
Remember "Adams New York No. 1" gum? We hear those were molded into balls and wrapped in different colored tissue, but that's a little different than a candy-coated gumball. In any case, we estimate 1907 to be the beginning of the gumballs you know and love today.
By the way, did you know there were vending machines for Holy Water way back in 215BC! (source)
Dr. Louis A. Dreyfus was a chemist who knew a lot about rubber. He developed a synthetic gum base to replace chicle and became a supplier for many gum companies. This is the company and base behind Wrigley's Juicy Fruit and Spearmint gums, for example. In fact, Wrigley is going to buy out this company a little ways down in the timeline...
Fleer sold his chicle chewing gum product line (Chiclets) to the Sen-Sen Company, which, then renamed itself as the "Sen Sen Chiclet Company." Sen-sen was a breath mint company. It sold off to American Chicle Company (see 1914 👇 ), which seems like a fitting home for Chiclets after all.
Fleer is still in business at this time and can still sell gum; however, as part of the terms, they cannot use chicle as an ingredient anymore. Hint: this might lead them to innovate with new gum base materials down the road.
Beech-Nut was a 20 year old baby food company at this time and somebody said, "let's make gum!"
That somebody was a guy named Frank Barbour, who was the QB for Yale in 1891 (13-0 and national champions). He was also the head football coach at Michigan in the last 1800s before his big Beech-Nut gum idea.
Wrigley had been using Zeno Manufacturing as a supplier since 1892. In 1911, Wrigley bought out Zeno and merged the two companies. From then on, the Zeno gum brand was folded under the Wrigley brand. If you want to go deep on Zeno's story, here's a deep dive.
Coca-Cola Gum, now owned by a company called Franklin-Caro Company, expands to offer Spearmint, Wintergreen, and Peppermint flavors (source).
We think Cola flavor would have been the best move.
Nope, not the car company (although this was the same year the car company invented the moving assembly line).
In this case, we are talking about a 20-year-old roofer named Ford Mason who took out a loan to lease a bunch of gumball vending machines to supplement his income during the slow winter months.
The gumball business was great and he eventually quit the roofing business and his side hustle of gumball machines became his full-time business. However, the quality of the gumballs and the reliability of the machines was suspect. So, he ended up teaming up with his Pops to build his own machines--much better and more reliable ones--so he could offer a better product and cut out the middle man. (source)
Ford Gum and Machine is still going strong, making close to 1 billion gumballs a year! They are a massive producer of gumballs and they also own the Big League Chew brand, which they bought in 2010.
Fun fact - It takes 2 full days to make a single gumball. Here's a cool (but poor quality) video of the Ford Gum factory.
The American Chicle Company does what it does best...consolidating gum brands. Here, they scoop up Clove gum.
This one is a classic, so it deserves a mention. It would create career opportunities for twin actors. Sadly, Doublemint gum was recently discontinued. 🪦
Hershey Company's first gum "Easy Chew." They saw how well Wrigley and Beech Nut were doing and wanted in on this gum stuff. Hershey's cousin, Clayton Snavely, was put in charge of developing the chewing gum business. Easy Chew gum was sold until about 1924 (source).
Wrigley's was exceptionally creative and bold in their marketing efforts. In this case, they made little booklets with "Spearmen" gum characters and rhymes. It involved a spearmint gnome with a broom riding a flying goose.
Somebody dreamed all that up! Just for fun, we wanted to see what today's generative AI image generators would come up with for "spearmint gnome with broom riding on a flying goose..." check the last image to see!
Whoever ran marketing for Wrigley's in 1915 was a legend, because the Mother Goose booklet was just the warm up act. The next stunt was to mail 3 sticks of gum to everyone in the phone book! That's 1.5 million people at the time. Seriously.
In 1919, 4 years later, they do it again...this time to 7m people. In addition, they would mail 2 sticks of gum (Juicy Fruit, we believe) to 22 year olds on their birthday. Apparently, age 22 was the center of the bullseye for their target market.
These mailings weren't the 1st invention of mass mail, but it was definitely a bold move. You can read more about it in our Juicy Fruit Review Article.
Wrigley realizes this supplier of a gum base is pretty important and buys up most of the company.
American Chicle Company does its thing and scoops up the Dentyne brand.
Gum is a big enough deal to have its own association!
National Association of Chewing Gum Manufacturers (NACGM) is established.
DL Clark was a candy company in Pittsburgh, that spun off its new gum business as a separate company in 1921. It was most famous for Teaberry, which would peak in popularity in the 1960s. It even inspired a song and a cool commercial featuring the song. Other flavors were Tendermint and Cinadent.
After Fleer sold off the chicle-based gum business, it started making candies like "Fleer’s Bobs" and "Fruit Hearts." What's notable about this is these are likely the first Fleer products to include trading cards. There were 120, including Babe Ruth.
The people being Coca-Cola Gum (now Franklin-Caro Gum Company) expand with a new gum called Velvet Pepsin gum.
The company declines from here, with the last sale of Coca-Cola gum, and presumably Velvet gum too, in 1925.
One of Wrigley's lesser known brands was "P.K." which is thought to stand for one of two things:
- Philip Knight Wrigley, who was CEO at the time.
- An abbreviation of a popular packaging slogan "Packed tight, Keep right."
We are guessing it was for the CEO. What do you think? PK gum was discontinued in the 1970s.
Intermission #4
To recap, we just learned about the introduction of a bunch of new gum brands and flavors. We saw Wrigley do some amazing marketing, and we saw American Chicle continue to chew up companies.
Not it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for! Let’s jump in to the Bubble Gum Era 👇
The Bubble Gum Era!
It's time for Blibber-Bubber's redemption story, thanks to an accountant named Walter Diemer. Apparently, he was working in close proximity to the Fleer chemists who were trying to formulate bubble gum and he decided to drop his paper and pencil for a bit to try his own hand at gum formulation.
Through trial and error, he finally stumbles upon the perfect magical mixture to produce massive bubbles but without the annoying face stickiness that plagued Blibber-Bubber.
Unfortunately, the first batch had a major flaw: after sitting overnight, it lost its bubble-blowing abilities and turned super hard. Walter Diemer is a man of persistence. So, undeterred, Diemer spent another four months tinkering with the formula until he whipped up a 300-pound batch that worked like a charm, calling it Double Bubble!
Imagine you just invented bubble gum, but literally nobody in the entire world has seen someone blow a bubble, let alone know how to blow a bubble themselves.
So, Diemer teaches his salespeople how to blow bubbles, then they go out and teach shop owners and so on. We like to imagine Diemer holding lessons in the Fleer board room with each salesperson getting more and more frustrated until it finally clicks. We've all been there.
L.A. Dreyfus, as noted above, was a key supplier of gum base. Wrigley buys them out.
This candy company is notable for Rain Blo bubblegum, it's baseball trading cards, and all sorts of brands you probably know (Payday, Jolly Rancher, Heath Bar, etc.).
The company is involved in so many acquisitions and spin offs, we can't keep it straight, but the Leaf brand is no more. However, you can still get Rain-Blo from Ferrara.
Not much happens between 1928 and 1947 in the world of gum. The novelty of bubble gum + the great depression + WWII had the world, especially the USA, preoccupied.
Bazooka bubble gum burst onto the scene in 1947, bringing a pop of patriotism to post-World War II America. Created by the Shorin brothers of the Topps Company, Bazooka gum wrapped itself in red, white, and blue, capturing the nation's heart with its rocket-propelled weapon-inspired name.
It wasn't all about the gum; Bazooka Joe, the eyepatch-wearing mascot, and his gang of friends added a touch of fun with their comic strip adventures. From its Brooklyn beginnings, Bazooka gum has stuck around for generations and is still a fan favorite today. Stay tuned for our review of Bazooka Joe bubble gum soon.
Fusen gum is Japanese bubble gum made by Marukawa, which dates all the way back to 1947 as one of the earliest bubble gums. We've tested a few of their flavors and will have a review up shortly!
"Fusen" means "balloon" in Japan, so we think that's a pretty cool name for a bubble gum.
These gums are known for their soft consistency and fruity flavors. They used to include free water-based tattoos in the package, which kids loved.
This brand has a strong presence in countries like Kuwait, India, Iran, and Pakistan, and of course Japan.
You probably know Topps as a sports cards company. Well, in 1951 a Topps employee named Sy Berger designed baseball cards on his kitchen table. He included a photo, name, team name, logo, and autograph on the front and stats on the back. That same design is still the standard today.
These cards took off when Topps decided to include them with their gum--replacing a single cigarette as the gift! The 1952 set included 407 total cards and included people like Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Jackie Robinson.
In our timeline, we continue to cover both chewing gums and bubble gums. To make it easier to distinguish the two, bubble gum specific events will have a bubble gum pink background like you see above.
Dr. Bruno Petrulis, a dental pioneer, concocted the first sugar-free chewing gum. This invention paved the way for a new era of guilt-free gum chewing, with brands like Trident soon following in Dr. Petrulis' footsteps.
We scoured the internet looking for the name of this first sugar-free gum, but came up empty handed. Anyone know it?
Introduced by the Danish company Dandy, Stimorol was a brand designed to "stimulate" and refresh the mouth. It was sold in Scandinavia and later in other European countries. It will get purchased by another company and be rebranded as Trident in 2002.
The company famous for acquiring lot of gum companies gets purchased itself. Pfizer, the drug company, will eventually buy Warner-Lambert.
In the 60s, Amurol Confections made a splash with the introduction of Blammo, the first sugar-free bubble gum with a pretty cool name too.
This groovy gum was a big deal for health-conscious chewers, who could now blow bubbles without the guilt of sugar.
Originally called Whammo, the gum's name changed to Blammo within a few years of its debut. We think that was a good call.
The world of gum got a little more colorful in 1969 with the introduction of Fruit Stripe gum, creation by James Parker of Beech Nut.
This striped gums came in five fruity flavors: lime, cherry, lemon, orange, and mixed fruit. They were wrapped in a zebra-striped wrapper, which doubled as a temporary tattoo.
"Yipes the Zebra," Fruit Stripe's mascot, became a beloved figure in the gum world.
Fruit Stripe gum has been acquired several times. It is still available today from Ferrara Candy Company (the brand was sold off in 2003).
Quick Fun Fact: Fruit Stripe donated over $100K for th preservation of animals.
Thomas Tate Tidwell (that's a triple alliteration name!) had a company based on his name called "Triple T Co. Inc." He had the bright idea to engulf gum with a hard candy shell. He even had the idea patented.
These were originally called "Triple Treats," then sold to Charms in 1973 to become "Blow Pops." People loved them and Charms Candy Company become the biggest lollipop company in the world.
In a land where bubbles were yum, a gum revolution had begun! In 1975, a housewife from Fisk, Missouri, spun a tale of a gum so soft and fun. She called it "rubber bubblegum" and shared it with her son to bring to school. It was a hit! Life Savers caught wind of this treat and knew it was the one. They bought the recipe and Bubble Yum was born. It was the first "soft" bubble gum.
But in 1977, a rumor spread wide, that spider 🕷️ eggs were hidden inside. Eek! Life Savers fought back with ads in the news, dispelling the myth and the gum-chewing blues.
Check out our Bubble Yum Review here for even more history and fun facts.
Warner-Lambert (parent of American Chicle Co.), who sought to create a bubblegum that could compete with other popular brands, introduced Bubblicious, another "soft" gum with chewy texture and bold fruity flavors. They marketed it as having "the ultimate bubble."
These brands face declining sales and production is stopped. 🪦
In 1979, young people are crazy for bubble gum, so Wrigley brings Hubba Bubba to compete with the others. It was the third "soft" bubblegum to hit the market and considered to be one of the "big 3" soft chunk bubblegums, along with with Bubble Yum and Bubblicious.
The gum got its name from the World War II military slang "Hubba Hubba," which was used to express approval.
This gum wasn't just about taste; it was also known for being less sticky than other brands, making it easier to peel off your face after blowing a massive bubble.
In the early 1980s, a new type of gum bubbled up in Latin America with the introduction of Bubbaloo from Canderaria the first bubble gum with a liquid center. 1
Bubbaloo quickly gained a loyal following, popping up in over 25 countries across three continents with flavors like strawberry, banana, and tutti frutti.
The gum's mascot, Bubba the Cat, is pretty sweet too.
All three of these gums are re-introduced by Warner-Lambert. They are still available today, now through Gerrit J. Verburg Co.
This chew-tastic creation by Wrigley's rolled out six feet of gum in a unique, hockey puck-like dispenser, allowing gum lovers to choose their own adventure by tearing off their desired length of gum. The official serving size is 3g, but come on...that's not nearly enough.
Bubble Tape quickly became a hit and still is a big seller.
Final Intermission
Now let’s enter the modern era. The classic bubblegums are still on the shelves, but you’ll find all sorts of other stuff like natural and functional gums:
- Natural gums, with a return to chicle gum base, root extracts, xanthan, etc. More on this in a future article.
- Sports/Electrolyte Gum, designed to improve physical performance.
- Smoking Cessation Gum, to help people stop smoking.
- Caffeine-infused gum, to provide an energy boost.
- Vitamin gum, with vitamins and stuff.
The Modern Gum Era
TBD
Glee Gum was inspired by a family's trip to Central America where they discovered chicle and wanted to make a more natural gum back in the USA.
Sugar-Free Glee Gum is sweetened with 100% xylitol.