We manufacture chewing and bubble gums with long-lasting flavour and consistent, high quality. This includes manufacturing our gum in spotless, air-conditioned rooms and extensively testing all ingredients before accepting them into any of our manufacturing facilities. After raw ingredients are approved as meeting our quality standards, the first stage of production begins. We are proud to manufacture our chewing gum on site at our factory in NSW.
The Process
1. Melting & Mixing
The making of our gum begins by melting and purifying the gum base. The melted base is poured into a mixer that can hold up to one tonne of ingredients. Sweeteners and flavours are added at just the right moment and in just the right amounts and then slowly mixed.
2. Rolling
From the mixers, a large "loaf" of gum is sent through a series of rollers that form it into a thin, wide ribbon. Each pair of rollers is set closer together than the previous pair, gradually reducing the thickness of the gum. A light coating of finely powdered sugar or sugar substitute is added during this process to keep the gum from sticking and to enhance flavour.
3. Scoring & Conditioning
At the end of the rolling process, the continuous ribbon of gum is then cut into a pattern for sticks, short thicker tabs, long rolled strips or small rectangular gum centres, depending on what type of gum is being made. The scored gum is then moved to a temperature-controlled environment to cool and ensure the finished gum will have the right consistency and stay fresh on store shelves.
4. Breaking & Coating
After tempering, the gum centres are broken into individual pieces. The pieces are then fed to a spray drier that forms the crunchy coating around the gum centre. It tumbles the pieces while a prepared syrup mixture, made of filtered water, sweeteners, and colouring is sprayed onto the gum. This combination of tumbling and spray coating forms a candy shell around the soft gum centres.
5. Wrapping
After cooling and tempering, skilled operators break the sheets of sticks up into sections and feed them into the wrapping machine. In one continuous process, the wrapping machine receives and wraps the sticks, in some cases applying an outer wrapper and seals the ends of the package.
6. Packaging
Pellet-style gum is principally packaged by two methods. One is to place the pellets into the formed plastic compartments of a blister pack. The package is heat sealed with a foil backing, and inserted into a cardboard sleeve. The second method is to line up ten pellets in a row, wrap in traditional packaging and seal both ends to ensure freshness. For our HUBBA BUBBA® Tape, a ribbon of gum is rolled up and placed in a plastic clamshell-like package.
For more information, please contact the our consumer care line on 1800 084 222 (within Australia).
