Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Normally noningestible chewable material or process of... – Packaged – structurally defined – or coated
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-08
2003-01-14
Hendricks, Keith (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Normally noningestible chewable material or process of...
Packaged, structurally defined, or coated
C426S103000, C426S104000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06506424
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to chewing gum. The invention relates more particularly to a coated chewing gum product that is co-extruded or otherwise manufactured so that it has two or more portions that are of different colors.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Multicolored chewing gum products, in which a given piece of gum has two or more portions of different colors, are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,352,823, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a co-extruded gum that has an extruded center portion surrounded by and bonded to an extruded outer shell portion. Additionally, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,626,892, 5,437,879, 4,835,000, and 4,834,986, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference, disclose various multicolored gum products, some of which are also multiflavored, the different colors corresponding to different flavors.
It is also known to coat a gum product with a hard shell or crunchy coating. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,790, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a chewing gum having a hard shell formed from sorbitol. Additionally, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,603,970 and 5,376,389, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference, disclose gum products having hard coatings of erythritol, xylitol, and other polyols. Such coatings are typically applied to ball-type or pellet-type gum products, and generally have a solid opaque color provided by various additional ingredients in the coating composition, such as film forming agents, binding agents, whiteners, food colors, and similar ingredients.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a unique gum product comprising a soft gum core having a plurality of regions of different colors visible on an outer surface of the core, and a crunchy edible coating covering the outer surface of the core, the coating being substantially transparent such that the core regions of different colors are visible through the coating. The regions of different colors can also have different flavors.
The coating preferably comprises sorbitol as a primary ingredient, and can have various additional ingredients such as film-forming agents, binding agents, flavorings, sweeteners, and others. Notably, the coating does not include any dispersing or whitening agent such as titanium dioxide, which is commonly used in hard coatings for chewing gum, or any other ingredient that would make the coating opaque or otherwise impair the transparency of the coating. The gum product can be formed in any desired configuration including but not limited to stick, pellet, or ball form.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
The present invention now will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to certain preferred embodiments of the invention. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art.
The gum product of the present invention has a relatively soft gum core and a hard, crunchy outer shell or coating that covers the core. The gum core has two or more regions of different colors, and the different colors can also have different flavors if desired. The gum core is preferably prepared by mixing two or more separate batches of gum mixture having different colors, and feeding the various gum mixtures to an extruder that coextrudes the gum mixtures to form a coextrudate. The coextrudate can be formed as a center portion surrounded by an outer portion of different color, as a laminated structure (e.g., two layers of different colors in face-wise disposition to each other), as a veined structure, as a swirled structure, or in any other desired configuration.
Each gum mixture includes a water-soluble bulk portion, a generally water-insoluble chewing gum base, and one or more flavoring and coloring agents. The water-soluble portion dissipates over a period of time during chewing, while the gum base portion remains in the mouth throughout the chewing process.
The insoluble gum base generally includes elastomers, resins, fats, oils, waxes, plasticizers, and inorganic fillers.
The elastomers may include polyisobutylene, isobutylene-isoprene copolymer, styrene butadiene rubber, natural latexes such as hevea brasiliensis, chicle, and jelutong, or the like.
The resins may include synthetic resin such as polyvinyl acetate with a molecular weight from about 5,000 to 100,000, natural resins such as glycerol ester of gum, wood, or tall oil rosin, partially or fully hydrogenated glycerol ester of gum, wood, or tall oil rosin, glycerol ester of polymerized gum, wood, or tall oil rosin, pentaerythritol ester of gum, wood, or tall oil rosin, methyl ester of partially hydrogenated gum, wood, or tall oil rosin, and terpene resins derived from delta limonene or &agr; and &bgr; pinene, or mixtures thereof.
The fats and oils may include animal fats such as lard and tallow, or vegetable oils such as soybean, cottonseed oil, palm oil, coconut oil, or other fully or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, and cocoa butter.
The waxes may also include petroleum waxes such as paraffin and microcrystalline wax, or natural waxes such as beeswax, candelilla wax, carnauba wax and polyethylene wax.
The gum base may also include filler such as calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, talc, dicalcium phosphate, or the like.
The gum base may also include plasticizers such as glycerol monostearate, glycerol triacetate, glycerin, lecithins, or the like.
The gum base may also include other ingredients such as antioxidants, colors, and emulsifiers or the like.
The present invention can employ any commercially acceptable chewing or bubble gum base. The gum base generally constitutes from about 5 to about 95% by weight of the gum core, and more typically about 20 to 75% of the gum core.
The water-soluble portion of the chewing gum core, which generally makes up from about 5 to about 95% by weight of the gum core, and more typically about 25 to 80% of the gum core, may include softeners, bulk sweeteners, high intensity sweeteners, flavoring agents, colors and combinations thereof.
Softeners in the gum, also known as plasticizers or plasticizing agents, such as glycerin, can be added to the chewing gum center in order to make the gum softer and more easily chewable.
Aqueous bulk sweetener solutions such as those containing sorbitol, xylitol, lactitol, maltitol, hydrogenated isomaltulose and other polyols, or combinations thereof, may also be used as softeners and binding agents in the chewing gum center.
Powder bulk sweeteners that can be used in the gum core may include sweeteners like sugar alcohols such as sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, hydrogenated starch hydrolysates, lactitol, maltitol, hydrogenated isomaltulose, or the like, alone or in combination.
Bulk sweeteners generally make up about 5 to about 90% by weight of the gum core, and more typically about 10 to 80% of the gum core.
High intensity sweeteners may also be used and are commonly used with sugarless bulk sweeteners. These may include but are not limited to sucralose, aspartame, salts of acesulfame, alitame, saccharin and its salts, cyclamic acid and its salts, glycyrrhizin, dihydrochalcones, thaumatin, monellin, and the like, alone or in combination.
High intensity sweeteners generally make up about 0.001 to about 5% by weight of the gum core, and more typically about 0.05 to about 2.0% of the gum core.
The sweetener may also function in the chewing gum in whole or in part as a water-soluble bulking agent.
The softener may also provide additional sweetness.
Flavoring agents that can be used in the gum core include essential oils and artificial flavors, or mixtures thereof, including natural oils derived from plants and fruits such as citrus oils, peppermint oil, spearmint oil, other mint oils, clove oil, oil of wintergreen, anise, and the like.
Artificial flavo
Acar Nesim
Levy Albert
Nielsen Hans Erik
Alston & Bird LLP
Dandy Sakiz ve Sekerleme Sanayi A.S.
Hendricks Keith
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