Stay connected with HLK
Keep up-to-date with the latest IP insights and updates as well as upcoming webinars and seminars via HLK’s LinkedIn page, or simply subscribe to our updates.
In this article, James Bowen chews over the history of gum, highlighting the innovations that led to this ubiquitous product.
Get in touch
Chewing gum is often taken for granted, despite an estimated 1.74 trillion pieces being made each year.1 Assuming each piece is chewed for around 10 minutes, that’s roughly 290 billion hours of chewing time!
Most people encounter gum on a daily basis, whether it’s to tackle some particularly pungent garlic breath, spotting it near the till of a supermarket, or seeing someone blow pink bubbles in the park. You may even have a packet stuffed in your pocket, purse, or backpack right now. It’s so ingrained in society that being offered a piece of gum in someone’s car is almost as commonplace as being asked if you want a cup of tea when entering a British home. Yet most people don’t think about what’s in gum or how it is made, or the decades of research that has gone into developing it.
So how, and why, did chewing gum become so popular that the industry is estimated to be worth around $48.68 billion2, and what innovations led to the gum we chew today?
Early chewers
For millennia, humans have chewed natural substances. The earliest record dates back to the Mesolithic Stone Age, somewhere between 9500 and 9900 years ago, when Scandinavian hunter-gatherers chewed pitch made from the bark of birch trees.3 However, the chewing of natural gums didn’t originate solely here, but instead arose independently in numerous cultures and regions across the world. For example, mastich, a gum made from the resin of the mastic tree, was chewed (or perhaps more aptly, masticated) by the ancient Greeks.4 In Mexico, the Mayans and Aztecs discovered that they could extract and process a resin from the sapodilla tree to form a chewable substance called chicle.5 Although conjecture, it’s thought that the Mayans chewed chicle to stave off thirst and hunger, while the Aztecs valued its ability to freshen breath thanks to its sweet, pine-like flavours – certainly preferable to the lingering taste of food stuck between their teeth. Elsewhere, Inuit chewed on blubber, South Americans chewed on coca leaves, and for centuries the Chinese chewed on the roots of the ginseng plant.6
Commercialisation of chewing gum
So how did we go from chewing natural gums derived from tree resins to the modern gum? Well, in the 1600s, early European settlers on the Northern Atlantic coast of America adopted from the Native Americans the habit of chewing a resin from spruce trees.6 This later inspired John B. Curtis, who in 1848 became the first official gum manufacturer, selling “State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum” – a gum with a chewy, insoluble base produced from the spruce tree resin. Over the next few decades, Curtis monopolised the chewing gum industry and began to experiment with the spruce gum by incorporating paraffin wax into the gum base to reduce the reliance on the difficult-to-source tree sap. He also improved the gum’s flavour with sugar, licorice, and vanilla.
Early innovations
With Curtis’ commercial success came competition and innovation. Indeed, the first patent related to chewing gum (U.S. patent No. 98,304) was filed by William F. Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio, in 1869 and disclosed an improved gum using natural rubber as an elastomer.7 In his patent, Semple remarked that this formed “an agreeable chewing-gum” and “that from the scouring-properties of same, it will subserve the purpose of a dentifrice”. Needless to say, gum still hasn’t replaced toothpaste!
U.S. patent No. 98,304
Curtis’ domination of the gum industry only began to wane when Thomas Adams developed chicle, the very substance the Mayans and Aztecs had been chewing centuries earlier, into a gum. Chicle gum was a huge success as it provided a smooth and springy chew that spruce gum and paraffin gums lacked. In 1871, Adams patented the improved chewing gum in U.S patent No. 111798, stating the it was made from a vegetable gum imported from Mexico as the sole ingredient.8
Rising demand necessitated improved manufacturing methods. To overcome issues of hand wrapping the chewing gum, Adams patented a machine that could mass-produce and wrap gum cheaply and efficiently. In 1911, The Wrigley Company, now one of the largest chewing gum companies in the world and who we have been proud to represent for a number of years, patented an improved method of producing sticks of gum, which employed scoring rollers to assist in separating the sticks into the desired shape and size.9 At this point, the industry was booming.
Drawings in U.S. Patent No. 992,590 which show an apparatus comprising scoring rollers for forming sticks of gum.
From chicle to synthetic gums
Nevertheless, the supply of the gum base ingredients, such as chicle and spruce sap, couldn’t keep up with demand. In particular, the isolation of chicle from the sapodilla tree in the Mexican rainforest was a time consuming and laboursome process, which involved Chicleros, the skilled men who collected chicle, slashing a zig-zag pattern in the trees and tapping the resin produced.10 Unfortunately, the sapodilla tree is slow growing and had to reach around 60-70 years old before the Chicleros could get to work. The supply of chicle from the trees was also limited by the need for the trees to lie fallow for 10 years prior to further harvesting.
With the arrival of World War 1 in 1914, these raw materials became even more scarce and poorer in quality – this impacted the consistency of the gum itself. Yet demand still rose. Wrigley even convinced the US military to include chewing gum in its ration packs by advertising that it reduced stress, staved off hunger, and quenched thirst, all while improving mood and easing tension.6 This ingenious move by Wrigley further spread the habit of chewing gum around the world and is credited with popularising gum in Europe. During WW1 and WW2, British children often shouted the phrase “got any gum, chum?” to passing American soldiers in hopes of scoring some of their rations.
With adequate future supply of gum bases like chicle in doubt, the industry sought alternative materials that could be readily sourced and provide the much-loved chewy texture of gum. Pontianak gum, also known as jelutong, tapped from the jelutong trees native to Malaysia and the East Indies, was found to be an excellent substitute for chicle.6 Although obtained by a similar process to chicle, greater quantities of gum could be obtained as the jelutong trees were significantly larger than the sapodilla trees. Such was the success of jelutong that during the period 1932-1938, its imports were double those of chicle.
The outbreak of World War 2 exacerbated supply issues and pushed companies to innovate further. Some experimented with blends of rosin, rubber or rubber-like materials, and waxes. Indeed, on behalf of Hercules Power company, our legacy firm Haseltine Lake & Co. filed a patent application (GB555085A) for a gum in which chicle was partly replaced with a pentaerythritol ester of a rosin.11
Ultimately however, it was synthetic polymers that emerged as the most successful replacements for chicle and natural gums. In 1942, Frank T. De Angelis patented a synthetic gum base employing polybutene (US Patent No. 2,284,804).12 Polybutene (sometimes termed polyisobutylene) was found to provide excellent gum-like texture whilst being readily available, resistant to oxidation, and compatible with common flavourings. Not to mention, due to the synthetic nature of the polymer, its molecular weight could be readily adjusted to alter the texture of the gum base as required. New polymerisation methods soon yielded popular gum bases made from synthetic polymers of vinyl acetate and isobutylene, as well as co-polymers of isobutylene and isoprene (butyl rubber) and co-polymers of butadiene and styrene.6 Unlike natural gums isolated through complex processes, the supply of these synthetic gum bases was seemingly limitless, and their quality could be easily controlled.
Modern-day chewing gums, recent innovations, and where next
These days, the vast majority of chewing gum bases are still made from blends of these synthetic, petroleum-based polymers, the three most common being polybutadiene-styrene, butyl rubber, and polyisobutylene, in combination with additives such as softeners, waxes, flavourings, and preservatives. While the main elastomers haven’t changed much in decades, there has still been plenty of innovation from gum manufacturers in many aspects of the ingredients, to improve the texture, flavour, and to account for changing market demands, such as reducing sugar for dental health!
Companies are always looking at ways of improving the consumer experience of a product, and chewing gum is no exception. For example, the Wrigley Company, still a giant in the industry, was granted a patent (EP2326187B2) in 2019 for a chewing gum product containing coarse erythritol granules which provides increased hydration and mouthwatering sensations.13
In relation to the health benefits, the use of gum as a delivery system for medication is on the rise, with the aptly named Medichew®, Pharmagum®, and ChewMed® already available.14 Nicorette®, a nicotine gum launched in 1978, remains one of the most successful examples and has been a mainstay nicotine replacement therapy. Though manufacturing challenges remain, medicated gums offer a convenient and distinctive way to deliver drugs, with strong commercial potential.
Efforts are not just focused on making chewing gum more enjoyable and beneficial, but also on dealing with what happens after it has been chewed and reducing its environmental and social impact. As many people will be painfully aware, if chewed gum is not discarded properly it can end up stuck to the pavement, shoes, clothes, or even hair. For many years, the main gum manufacturers have improved their formulas to reduce tackiness. Just one example of this is formula developed by Wrigley based on starch, sucrose, and glucose in particular combination, protected by European Patent No. 3 681 304.15
Also, perhaps less visible to the general public are the patent disputes that have been fought for many years over this notionally simple – but actually quite complex – product. Given the efforts taken by each company to devise their unique formulas and production methods, they naturally wish to protect their intellectual property. With many companies working on similar goals, they sometimes see their competitors’ patents as a commercial block to their own progress. The consequence of this is that many chewing gum companies try to knock out their competitors’ patents, for example by using the opposition procedure of the European Patent Office. We have been proud to represent Wrigley for many years when defending their patents and in helping them to revoke numerous competitors’ patents.
Despite seeming like a humble product, it’s clear to see that chewing gum has undergone a wealth of innovation, with plenty of scope for more to come. So next time you freshen your post-lunch breath with a piece of gum, maybe take a moment to consider the thousands of years of innovation you’re chewing between your teeth.
References
[2] Chewing Gum Market – Statistics & Facts | Statista
[6] Fritz. D. (2006). Formulation and production of chewing and bubble gum. Kennedy’s Books Limited.
[7] U.S. patent No. 98,304 – Improved chewing gum
[8] U.S patent No. 111,798 – Improvement in chewing gum
[9] U.S. Patent No. 992,590 – Manufacture of chewing gum
[11] GB555085A – Improvements in or relating to chewing gum
[12] US Patent No. 2,284,804 – Chewing gum base and method of preparing the same
[13] EP2326187B2 – Confectionery products providing an increase hydration sensation
[15] EP3681304B1 – Chewy confectionery product
Need assistance?
This is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Should you require advice on this or any other topic then please contact hlk@hlk-ip.com or your usual HLK advisor.