In the third of our series on how we source our ingredients, we’re talking about all the other things you need to make really good gum and mints. We appreciate that there are some natural ingredients with funny names that you may have never heard of, so we’re here to put your mind at ease. Read on and get to know our mints and gum a little bit better…
Calcium Stearate
This is a really handy ingredient we use whilst making our mints and gum. It stops all the ingredients sticking to the machine in the factory, which as you can imagine is pretty important. Many other confectionery brands use animal derivatives for this purpose but don’t worry, not us. We just get ours from vegetables so we know our mints and gum are always vegan friendly.
Gum Arabic
Our ingredients might not be sticking to the machines, but we do need them to stick to one another and that’s what we use Gum Arabic for. We like to get ours from the branches of acacia tree, a tree native to semi-desert regions such as sub-Saharan Africa and the west coast of India.
Sunflower Lecithin
This helps us mix all our ingredients together evenly. You wouldn’t want a mint with no mint oil in it now would you? Just like our xylitol, we like to get our Sunflower Lecithin from GMO free European plants. Consistency is key, right?
Vegetable Glycerol
Now here’s an ingredient you might have heard of before, especially if you’re a keen baker. Glycerol is commonly used when making icing for Christmas cakes, but we use it to stop our gum drying out and becoming hard. A lot of confectionery companies use bovine gelatine for this purpose, but we like to leave the animals be so we get ours from vegetables instead.
Carnauba Wax
Finally, once we’ve made our mints and gum we coat them in this wax to seal all the ingredients and to protect them from the effects of humidity. We like to get ours from the leaves of the Brazilian Wax Palm.
An ingredient we definitely don’t use…
Titanium Dioxide. This stuff is used in most gum production all over the world to make chewing gum look bright white. It’s not a very nice ingredient, so we like to steer clear of it and keep our gum looking it’s natural colour.
To find out more about the other ingredients we use in our products check out blog posts 1 & 2 from this series. Click here to learn about our natural flavours and here for xylitol.
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