The American Chicle Company was a chewing gum trust founded by Thomas Adams, Jr., with Edward E. Beeman and Jonathan Primle. [1]
The American Chicle Company was a chewing gum trust founded by Thomas Adams, Jr., with Edward E. Beeman and Jonathan Primle. [1]
Thomas Adams (May 4, 1818 – February 7, 1905) was a 19th-century American scientist and inventor who is regarded as a founder of the chewing gum industry. Adams conceived the idea while working as a secretary to former Mexican leader Antonio López de Santa Anna, who chewed a natural gum called chicle. Adams first tried to formulate the gum into a rubber which was suitable for making tires. When that didn't work, he turned the chicle into a chewing gum called New York Chewing Gum. [2] [3] [4] [5] Adams created his first batch of flavorless chicle balls, named Adams New York Gum No. 1, in 1859, and they sold out quickly. [6] [7]
In 1870, Adams created the first flavored gum, black licorice, which he named Black Jack. He sold it from a warehouse on Front Street. [4] In 1871, Adams patented the first chewing gum making machine. [8] In 1888, his company opened a factory on Sands Street. His Tutti-Frutti gum was also one of the first to be sold in vending machines. [9] Adams retired from the business in 1898 and his son Thomas Jr. took over. [2] [10]
The American Chicle Company was incorporated in Trenton, New Jersey, on June 2, 1899. [1] Its market capitalization was $9,000,000 with one third issued as preferred stock and 6% with cumulative dividends. The business was a merger of the major chewing gum concerns at the time: Adams Sons & Company in Brooklyn; Beeman Chemical Company; W. J. White & Sons in Cleveland; J. P. Primley in Chicago; Kis-Me Gum Company Louisville, Kentucky; and S. T. Britten & Co. in Toronto. [11] [12] The corporation operated factories and gum forests in Yucatan. [13] William J. White served as the company's first president and Thomas Adams Jr. Was the first chairman. [14] [9]
In 1914, the company acquired Chiclets from the Fleer Chewing Gum Company of Philadelphia. [9] It also acquired Dentyne in 1916. [15] In 1919, American Chicle bought land at Degnon Terminal in Long Island City to build a new factory. [16] On January 8, 1920, Don Ricardo Moreira, of San Salvador of the Coldwell & Moreira firm, registered American Chicle Co. trademarks in El Salvador. [17] In 1923, the company moved into its new 550,000 square foot, $2 million factory and headquarters. [4] The building could house over 500 employees and produced five million packages of chewing gum per day. [9] For decades, the building's Dentyne and Chiclet sign became a landmark for travelers entering Long Island. [18] By 1935, American Chicle had 15% of the North American gum market, behind the William Wrigley Jr. Company and Beech-Nut Packing Company. [9]
American Chicle utilized Dancer Fitzgerald Sample in 1950 to promote its products via radio, newspapers, and television. [19]
American Chicle was acquired by the pharmaceutical company Warner-Lambert in 1962, with combined sales that year being estimated at around $300,000,000. [20] During the 1970s, American Chicle discontinued Black Jack and Clove in order to focus resources to the sugarless Trident and liquid-filled Freshen-Up. Beemans was removed from the US market and remained available only in Canada. [21] In 1976, an explosion at the American Chicle Company factory killed six workers and injured more than 40. It remained closed for five weeks following the incident. [22] [23] In 1976, Bubblicious was released to compete against Bubble Yum. [24]
The company's Long Island City factory was shut down at the end of 1981. [18] Gum-making operations were moved to facilities in Anaheim, California and Rockford, Illinois. [23] The Anaheim factory was closed in 1985 during a period of consolidation for the company. [25] In the spring of 1986, American Chicle introduced Sticklets, a stick gum version of Chiclets. Later that year, the company brought Black Jack, Beemans, and Clove gum back into production. [21] In 1988, Warner-Lambert acquired Junior Mints, Charleston Chew, Sugar Daddy, among other brands, from RJR Nabisco and integrated them into the American Chicle Group. [26]
The American Chicle Company was renamed Adams in 1997. [27] Warner-Lambert was acquired by Pfizer in 2000 for $90.2 million. [28] After a two-year ban on selling the company's gum assets, Cadbury Schweppes purchased Adams in 2002 for $4.9 billion. [29] [30] [31] Kraft Foods purchased Cadbury in 2010 for $19.6 billion. [32] When Kraft split into two companies in 2012, the Adams gum unit remained under Mondelez International. [33] Chiclets chewing gum was discontinued in 2016, but returned to production 2019. [34]
By 2018, Mondelez sold off the Black Jack, Beemans, and Clove brands. [35] It then sold the remainder of its United States, Canada, and European gum assets to Perfetti Van Melle in 2023. [36] [37] [38]
Adams and other chewing gum giants of the 19th century Dr Edward E Beeman and Jonathan Primley founded American Chicle in 1899 ...
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