Relevant Videos:

                           This is a video of a Sugar Cane harvest in Ciarns, Queensland, Australia.


I am sorry to say that my search for videos of a chicle harvest and of chewing gum production both turned out to be near on impossible to find. Understandably a video of a chicle harvest is hard to come by because the harvesters, (chicleros) are generally underpaid labourers. The videos of gum production were hard to find because all of the reliable gum companies that would provide real, usefull information tend to claim that their gum is made with a secret recipe and they cannot reveal how it is produced, this tends to be a handy scheme for avoiding giving out the bad nutritional information.

Origin of Gum Ingredients:

Where did the Sugar Come From:

Sugarcane is grown best in sub-tropical climates, such as Australia, Brazil, Colombia and Cuba. In Queensland, Australia, sugarcane takes about 14 months to grow to its full extent, at this point it is harvested, generally between June and December when rain is least frequent, this is when levels of sugar in the canes reach their height.  

Sugarcane is then harvested by a bladed machine, similar to a combine harvester, which cuts the leaves from the canes and chops the stems into small chunks. The chunks are collected and taken to the sugar mill.

The Sugarcane Harvester.

The Corn Processing and Milling.

To make the syrup the starch is left to soak in vats of water containing a starch eating enzyme, which breaks it down to almost pure glucose, syrup.

In the mill the bits of cane are shredded and compressed in rollers that squeeze all of the juices from the stalks. The juices are collected in vats where they are boiled slowly; lime is added to remove impurities.  Most of the fluid is then evaporated out of the mix, leaving a syrupy, sugar-based, mixture. The syrup is boiled slowly while small sugar crystals are added in, this speeds up the crystallisation process of the sugar. This is the finishing line for allot of sugars, but in chewing gum, powdered sugar is necessary. To make this the sugar crystals are ground down into the fine powder by a machine. The sugar will then take a boat trip to gum factories in America and Europe.

Where did Corn Syrup Come From:

Corn syrup is made from the starch from maize/corn.  Corn syrup mainly contains glucose which is pure sugar; hence it is used as a sweetener.

Corn is grown in many countries in the world and is very common, so it would not be unusual for the corn mills to be in the same regions as the gum companies, this would reduce costs of shipping.

Corn is harvested using a bladed machine that cuts off the heads, or ears, of the corn and collects them for use in food products or as a food in themselves.

When the corn reaches the mill, it gets soaked in hot mildly acidic water for up to 30 hours. This makes the corn swell and the acid in the water helps to promote the release of starch.  The corn then enters the mill where it is ground into a slurry like paste. The largest solid parts left in the slurry are filtered out leaving only a paste, this slurry is then ground down even further which releases the starch and gluten from the corn.  The gluten is removed using a rapid spinning technique which separates the substances.

References:

Production of Gum:

All gum begins with a latex, or rubbery, type base, generally made from the resin of a tree mixed with a man-made rubber; in this case I will use chicle, from the Sapodilla tree, as my natural rubber example. I am going to take Belize, a country in Central America, as my example of a Sapodilla rich area.



Belize (Right Hand Corner of Central America)



In Belize the wet season stretches from September to February, this is the time when trees such as the Sapodilla are producing the most latex, thus this is the time when they must be harvested. Chicle is still to this day harvested by hand but each tree gives only around 1kg of rubber every 3-4 years this gave need for the introduction of synthetic rubbers in modern, mass produced, gum products.  An example of this synthetic rubber is polyvinyl acetate.

When chicle is harvested from a tree it is ground into small pieces and then compressed in blocks, it is then left in heat to dry out. After the drying process it is generally shipped out to factories in the E.U and U.S.A, there are very few companies who produce the gum inside of Central America (Belize.).

When the chicle blocks arrive in the factory they enter a machine that heats the gum to 116°C, into a syrup like paste, impurities are then filtered out of the chicle. The syrup is poured into large vat where a bladed machine stirs it rapidly. Here is where extra ingredients are added, these include; firstly the synthetic rubber base that makes the majority of the rubber in the gum, then the sugar and corn syrup, followed by the flavourings and softeners. The gum is then rolled to appropriate size and cut into strips for packaging.




Harvesting, preparing and blending chicle.




The majority of any gum is made from sugar and sweeteners although the pure mint gum brands generally contain less than a bubble gum brand. 

References:

http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Chewing-Gum.html

http://www.internationalservants.com/www/docs/1/belize-missionaries

http://books.google.ie/books?id=Domy6igYAMYC&pg=PA182&lpg=PA182&dq=chiclero+harvest+sapodilla&source=bl&ots=esMU1MIFia&sig=3YA2XC64DnyuvlZQOkZjSx2_rtE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=75OeT9XuMMbChAecs4GIDw&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=chiclero%20harvest%20sapodilla&f=false

The Origins of Gum:

Chewing gum began in its earliest form with the Greeks, who were known to chew mastiche made from the sap of the mastic tree. This tree is commonly found in Chios, an island off Greece.



Mastic Tree.

Shortly following the Greeks were the Mayans who chewed a resin called chicle made from the sapodilla tree. Evidence of this dates back as far as the 2^nd century.  This tree is found in Central America, South Mexico and the Caribbean.


Sapodilla Tree.




Sapodilla Distribution in South |Mexico.

In the 19^th century, long after the collapse of the Mayan civilisation, their American ancestors were still attached to this one habit, chewing gum. They chewed a gum made from spruce trees, a very common coniferous tree (evergreen).  Early in the 19^th century the first ever gum products went on sale, still made from spruce trees at this point.



Spruce Tree.

Spruce Distribution in America.

In 1896 the first modern gum recipe appeared, its base was made of chicle, the original Mayan gum but other substances were added to the recipe over time to make the quality gum that we eat today, these include Corn syrup, sugar and flavouring agents.

 References:

http://www.delange.org/MasticTree/MasticTree.htm

http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/sapodilla_pictures.htm

http://www.locogringo.com/past_spotlights/sept2009.html

http://www.tree-pictures.com/spruce_tree_pictures.html

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/silviculture/Compendium/SitkaSpruce.htm

http://www.fordgum.com/story_gum.aspx

The Geography of a Stick of Chewing Gum:

Hi, I'm Daniel and this is my blog on the geography of a stick of gum. In this blog I plan to follow a stick of gum from its origin, right through its production.

How did this get to my mouth?