About 2 months ago I started hearing rumours of a gum technology that would change the candy world. This new gum was not bragging about a new flavour, or new colour, or even longer lasting flavour, this gum was instead bragging about keeping the world a cleaner place. The concept was simple, why not make a gum that can biodegrade and be cleaned off of any material.
It’s not often that a particular novelty of a candy intrigues me so much as this one did. I was lucky enough to get in contact with the folks making this gum, called Rev 7. I spoke to Jonathan Briggs the product manager at Rev 7 and he had lots to say about this chewing gum revolution:
Professor Terrence Cosgrove from Bristol University created this new gum technology. He was challenged by his wife, who noticed all of the black spots on the street, to create a gum that doesn’t make such a mess. He examined the technology of “gum” and studied why things stick on a scientific level. He managed to create the base of what is Rev 7, a gum that cleans up easily from almost any surface.
Jonathan went on to explain that the gum was tested by many independent sources. They would use sections of sidewalk and compare the gum with other gums by pressing it down and seeing how it holds up to weather conditions. In this particular case the losing gum, the one that didn’t stick as well, would be the winner. This new type of gum base (found in Rev 7) came off the sidewalk 75% of the time in normal weather conditions. They also did a test in Florida at very hot and very dry conditions; the gum came off 100% of the time while competitors only came off 5% of the time. This may not seem that important in the grand scheme of the world, but the thing you have to consider is that the UK alone spends 150 million pounds (that’s more than 245 million US dollars) a year on gum removal.
But sidewalks are just part of the problem, clothing and hair can be the worst place to find gum. I personally have had many bad experiences in this area in particular a few years ago when I sat on a park bench and my bag and pants where covered. Jonathan told me that they tested the gum on clothing as well as hair. They bought samples of many different fabrics and found that the gum was removable all of the time with soap and water. The most challenging test was wool because it could sink into the fabric yet the gum was removed with a little soap, water and some care. Most importantly in all of their tests the gum did not damage the fabric at all. They even had a few employees offer to test it on their hair. In all cases the gum came out with shampoo and water, no need for oils or peanut butter.
The stickiness of gum is something that has never really been address in the candy world. Solving this problem is a great way to improve the environment and also makes me feel a little better about sitting on park benches in the future.
CC
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