The oil from fresh mint is what gives our mint gum its flavour. Our company is one of the largest single users of mint in the world.
Growing
Mint is a very thirsty plant. It grows in well-drained mucklands throughout parts of the United States in areas north of the forty-first parallel, where the right amount of daylight produces the best yield and quality of oil.
Mint is a perennial plant that produces no seed. It is planted in rows, with state-certified, disease-free, root stock or underground runners from existing plants. By the second year the plants spread out, creating a solid mint meadow.
The oil is stored in glands on the underside of the peppermint and spearmint leaves. An acre of mint produces about 34.5 kg of oil.
Mint is difficult to grow and special care must be taken to ensure only the finest quality finished oil.
Harvesting
The harvesting season for mint is mid-June to late September, depending on the location of the fields. When the crops mature, windrowers mow swaths down the mint field, leaving mounded rows of "hay," or cut mint. The hay is left to dry, then picked up by a mechanical chopper and blown into a tub.
Distilling
During the harvest season, the mint tubs roll steadily from the fields to a nearby distillery, where pressurised steam shoots through the tubs, vapourising the mint oil. The oil vapours and steam pass through a line at the top of the tubs to water-cooled condensers, where they return to a liquid state. In a separator, the mint oil rises to the top and is drawn into huge drums.
Samples are then tested and the oil is either bought or rejected. Oils accepted for purchase are stored in a temperature-controlled warehouse. Oils are identified by their growing areas. We buy an assortment of mint oils, which are combined together in specified proportions to create each flavour.
Refining and Blending
Most mint oils go through a refining process called fractionation, which removes or reduces certain components to alter the strength or the taste of the oil. Then, the final blending and refining of mint oils is completed, ready for purchase by our business.
Quality Assurance personnel perform comprehensive tests on samples. The composition of the oil is checked on a gas chromatograph to make sure it meets specifications.
The oils are mixed together in specified proportions to create a master blend of peppermint or spearmint. The master blends are then further refined by distillation.
The final step is to blend the oils with other flavour ingredients required by the brand's formula. The finished flavours are then sent to our factories worldwide.
Sustainable mint
We use mint to flavour 70% of our gum formulas including some fruit flavoured products, so ensuring there is always high-quality mint available is vital to our business, while making sure we source it responsibly is vital to all involved in our value chain.
We are identifying best practices to reduce environmental impacts of mint farming related to productivity, water usage, distillation efficiency and reduction of GHG emissions. For example, we collaborated with the Mint Industry Research Council to educate North American farmers on the environmental and economic benefits of using natural gas over diesel fuel. Over the last four years these farmers converted 18 percent of total mint production from diesel to propane or natural gas, resulting in a reduction of over 8000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide—the equivalent of removing 1,684 passenger vehicles from the road in the United States.
In India, another one of our key mint growing regions, we are developing a sustainable agriculture plan. This assesses our economic, environmental and social impacts, and sets strategies against these impacts to ensure we secure a vibrant Indian mint industry for the future.
