Wrigley cuts gum to get ‘back to basics’

The Wrigley Company is understood to be scaling back the number of variants in its chewing gum range in a bid to “get back to basics”. The move comes as rival brand Cadbury-owned Trident also looks to consolidate its portfolio of products.

It is thought that Wrigley is planning to drop a number of fruit flavours that it introduced to compete with Trident, which launched in the UK in 2007.

It is not clear which products will be axed, but over the past year it has introduced new variants under the Extra and Orbit brands. In April last year, it launched strawberry and watermelon flavours under the Extra Fruit Fusions range. Earlier this year it launched Orbit Complete Strawberry and Orbit Complete Lime and Lemon. It has also launched a number of liquid-filled products, which are understood to have received a mixed reaction from consumers.

One industry insider says it is “culling quite a few of the fruit flavours” so it can refocus on its core mint brands. Another source adds that there is not a high demand for such products and that Wrigley is reducing stock levels of its mint flavours by bringing out so many.

Toby Baker, Wrigley marketing director, says/ “Wrigley prides itself on launching products that meet consumer demand and has always invested in research to help understand evolving need states.”

He adds that the company has “led the way” on product development and has diversified its marketing.

It has become the official chewing gum of the Premier League and has introduced new idents for its sponsor-ship of Channel 4 teen soap Hollyoaks. It also sponsors the Ducati Superbike team with its Airwaves brand and has extended his with the Airwaves Pro Challenge.