Chiclets is an American brand of candy-coated

chewing gum Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/ plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its ...

manufactured by

Mondelez International Mondelez International, Inc. ( ), often styled Mondelēz, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational confectionery, food industry, food, holding and drink industry, beverage and snack food company based in Chicago. Mondelez has an ...

. The brand was introduced in 1900 by the American Chicle Company, a company founded by Thomas Adams.

History

The Chiclets name is derived from the

Mexican Spanish Mexican Spanish ( es, español mexicano) is the variety of Dialect, dialects and Sociolect, sociolects of the Spanish language spoken in Mexican territory. Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, with more than twice as many as in a ...

word "

chicle Chicle () is a natural gum traditionally used in making chewing gum and other products. It is collected from several species of Mesoamerican trees in the genus ''Manilkara'', including '' M. zapota'', '' M. chicle'', '' M. staminodella'', and ...

", derived from the Aztec

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...

word "chictli/tzictli", meaning "sticky stuff" and referring to a pre-Columbian chewing gum found throughout Mesoamerica. This pre-Columbian chewing gum was tapped as a sap from various trees. Chiclets are essentially the same as the indigenous chicle, with the innovation of a hard sugar coating offered in various flavors and colors. The original flavor was peppermint and assorted fruit flavors were available in Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Mexico, Portugal, Syria, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and parts of the Americas. Various people have been credited with inventing Chiclets, including the brothers Robert and

Frank Fleer Frank Henry Fleer (1860November 1, 1921) was an American confectioner who is thought to have developed the first bubble gum. Fleer founded the Frank H. Fleer Corporation in 1919 as a gum manufacturer. Fleer's original formulation, called Blibber- ...

and Louis Mahle. It was mentioned in the Saturday Evening Post in 2019 that as of 2016, Chiclets was discontinued by Mondelez in the United States. It has re-appeared as of 2019, manufactured in Mexico. In 2020 the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board held that the Chiclets trademark had not been abandoned. To further confuse the issue it was noted in an article on the Mashed website that Chiclets, identified as Adams Chiclets, were available at Walmart, Kmart and Amazon in the US. It is unclear whether the product has been changed in its formulation or not.

References

External links

* Chewing gum Cadbury Adams brands Mondelez International brands Products introduced in 1900 {{candy-stub