Life Cycle of Gum

By Natalie Fleming

A Product Life Cycle

Step Three: Materials Processing

Step One: Design

Step Two: Materials Acquisition

Step Seven: Reuse/Recycle or Disposal

Step Six: Use

Step Four: Manufacturing

Step Five: Distribution

Life Cycle of Gum

Chewing

History

Intensive Distribution

1.

Buy

The gum base ingredients are melted together and filtered.

Gum Base

Gum has one main use - chewing. People chew gum either for pleasure or fresh breath. Some gums also have abrasives to clean teeth. Bubble gum is also used for blowing bubbles.

Disposal

Most companies use a technique called intensive distribution. This strategy involves putting the product in every single store possible.

The gum base is ground into a coarse meal and mixed to ensure uniform consistency. It is then placed in a warm room to dry for one to two days. During drying, hot air continually passes over the gum base.

glycerin

sugar

corn syrup

synthetic sweeteners

gum base

flavoring

Every product has to be designed before anything else. Gum started a long time ago with the ancient Greeks. They chewed mastice, a resin from the mastice tree. Mayans chewed chicle, which is derived from the Sapodilla tree. American Indians chewed resin of the spruce tree. When they introduced this practice to New England settlers, they began trading lumps of spruce, creating the first commercial form of chewing gum. Spruce gum was sold until the 1850s, when paraffin wax became the new base. Modern gum products began to appear in 1869. Thomas Adams was hired to develop a new form of rubber using chicle, a chewy substance that Mexicans had been chewing for generations. Adams failed to make rubber, but he did invent the first modern gum product. Today, synthetic materials are more often used.

2.

Chewed gum is thrown away. The packaging is also sometimes disposed by people who decide not to recycle it.

Powdered sugar, glucose syrup, flavoring, and the other ingredients are slowly added to the gum base until the mixture thickens like dough.

Recycle

Concept

3.

The packaging is sometimes recycled.

Machines called extruders are used to blend, smooth, and form the gum.

DID YOU KNOW?

Gum is available in many flavors, including fruit and mint flavors. There are some basic ingredients shared by all gum products. These include gum base, softeners (glycerin or vegetable based), sweeteners (sugar, corn syrup, synthetic sweeteners {xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, aspartame}), and flavoring. Sugar is the healthiest out of the sweeteners. Most modern gums have synthetic rubber. As for packaging, the gum is wrapped in airtight packages, assuring that the gum will be fresh and soft when opened. These are put inside of the classic cardboard container.

Reuse

4.

Chewing on gum while cutting onions can help a person from producing tears.

It's time for the gum to be shaped. Gum can be flattened and cut into sticks, squeezed into a rope and cut into chunks, or molded into shapes and candy coated.

The packaging is sometimes reused in crafty ways. For example, stick gum wrappers can be folded and woven together to make chains and bracelets.

Marketing

5 Gum uses exciting commercials along with their tagline "stimulate your senses." Orbit puts a comedic aspect in their advertisements. Hubba Bubba talks about a bigger bubble size and a sweet, fruity flavor. Every gum brand uses different strategies to get noticed.

5.

After the gum is cut or molded into the appropriate shape, it is lightly sprinkled with powdered sugar to keep it from sticking to machinery or packaging.

6.

DID YOU KNOW?

In a carefully temperature controlled room, the gum is cooled for up to 48 hours. This allows the gum to properly set.

The color of the first successful bubble gum was pink, because it was the only color the inventor had left, and that remains the predominant color today.

7.

If the gum is candy coated, like most gum balls or pellet gum, it's sprayed with liquid sweetener, allowed to dry, and then sprayed again. This process is repeated several times until the candy shell reaches the proper thickness.

8.

High speed machines carefully wrap and package the gum in airtight wrappers. This ensures the gum is fresh when you open the pack. Then the gum is shipped to marketplaces and stores for people of all ages to enjoy.