Cadbury targets UK chewing gum market with Trident

by Beth McLoughlin, Brand Republic 30-Oct-06, 09:00

LONDON - Cadbury Schweppes is set to launch into the UK chewing gum market with Trident, going head-to-head with market leader Wrigley's.

The initiative being launched today by Todd Stilzer, Cadbury Schweppes chief executive, at a seminar for investors.

Although Wrigley of America has a virtual monopoly on chewing gum sales in the UK, Cadbury is in second place since it bought Adams, maker of Trident and Dentyne, Halls cough sweets and Bubbalicious bubble gum, in 2003.

In the UK, Wrigley's is currently understood to have an estimated 95% of the UK chewing gum market.

Elsewhere in the world, the Adams brands compete against Wrigley's. In the US, Cadbury has 31% of the chewing gum market , up from less than 27% at the time of the Adams takeover in February 2003.

Now Cadbury Schweppes is building a new plant in Poland that will produce the base gum from which most of its products are made.

It was expected that the company would wait until this expansion until it aggressively started to compete against Wrigley's, but it has now been revealed by the firm that Cadbury will now introduce its Trident products into the UK, using plants in Turkey and Denmark as production hubs.

Simon Baldry, Cadbury Trebor Bassett managing director, said: "While confectionery markets around the world are seeing strong performances from gum, this has not been repeated in the UK and we firmly believe our entry can only be good news for this category."

Globally, chewing gum is the fastest-growing sector of the confectionery market, ahead of chocolate and sweets. Across the world, the sector has grown by over 7% the last three years -- and is projected to be worth over £10bn in 2006.

In the UK, the market is estimated to be worth about £400m a year.

Cadbury is keen to divert attention away from poor chocolate sales, due to the hot weather conditions in the UK and and criticism after it failed to raise the alarm after a salmonella scare hit some of its products in June.

Millions of products had to be withdrawn and the scare cost the company an estimated £26m.

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