Doctor approved caffeinated energy gum

With new VE2, the energy gum market has officially exploded. Jolt Gum, Mad Croc Gum, Nutra trim, blitz, Think and Black Black have all been introduced or re-introduced within the last couple years. The reason for this? Manufacturers are trying to grab a piece of the $7.6 billion snack business, especially in the confectionary area which is 34 percent of the market and growing 3 percent annually, according to the industry. This market is growing up and changing, from an area dominated by children to one seen growing in the adult population. This change in demographic means a rise in new aduly confections, including more caffeinated and more healthy options to sweeten your day.

Today's newest device is VE2 Gum, recently released at a big candy expo. This one is at least as strong as jolt, and is on par with Mad Croc for delivering a big jolt of caffeine into your body very quickly. VE2 comes to us from the minds of an ER doctor and businessman John Katsoulis. “As an ER doc, I work crazy hours yet have to stay sharp, so I can appreciate the need for a quick boost,” said VE2 co-founder, Andres Sasson, M.D. “Two years ago, a friend and I decided to develop something more convenient and less expensive than energy drinks I wanted something that fit in my lab coat pocket, didn’t need to be refrigerated and didn’t make me need to find a bathroom 10 minutes later.”

Like the makers of Jolt Gum, they spent extensive time and research into developing their caffeinated gum, trying to hide the bitterness of the caffeine, and still managing to pack in all the other stuff energy drinks have in them, like ginseng and niacin. Overall, this gum is superior to mad croc or jolt, but I am afraid it still has a ways to go before it actually becomes something I would chew for taste alone.

Nutrition:9
Energy gum delivers energy more rapidly than energy drinks, which are eventually absorbed only after passing through the stomach. This means it could take only 5-10 minutes to feel the effects, versus the half hour or more for an energy drink to kick in. VE2 is also crammed with vitamins B6 and B12, niacin, ginseng and caffeine from guarana. First off, the gum works. Pop 3 peices in your mouth and in less than a half hour you will be on fire. Also, the crash is barely there because of the lack of sugars found in it.

As for the other ingredients, this is sweetened with all sorts of stuff, including xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, ace k, lycasin and aspartame. Well, we all know the dangers of ingesting too much aspartame, but I guess one of the benefits of having an MD on staff is the ability to also find sweeteners like lycasin ( a sugar starch) and mannitol, which sweetens and masks bitterness.
I liked the addition of the B vitamins and ginseng to make this feel more like an energy drink in gum size.

Packaging:7
We also want to be green,” adds co-founder John Katsoulis, MBA, referring to VE2’s environmental consciousness. “Conventional gum packaging generates lots of trash, but our innovative packaging does away with the paper sleeve and therefore saves trees.”
Regardless of the green factor, the extra stregnth foil backing is a major improvement over the jolt gum and mad croc varieties. I LOVE the way this gum is packaged, and the design on the front of the package is clean and very attractive.

The problems with the packaging are that the back of it has absolutely no design, and they are coy about their caffeien content as well. I hate the references to " as much caffeine as an energy drink or coffee" - as those amount vary widely. Just list the stupid 40mg per chicklet and be done with the cutesiness. For 1.69, I guess a color printing on the background would cost too much - but there is an art to graphic design, and they should really find someone to remake their back of the package into a pleasing layout.

I would have given this a 9 or 10 if it were not for these errors.

Taste: 7
The peppermint did a fantastic job of being tasty for a full 3 minutes. While it did not taste nearly as good as the mad Croc gum, this still had the clean pepperminty flavor for about 3 minutes. Getting it to last the fill 5 minutes was a challenge - as it goes from sweet and tasty to chewing a chalky lemon instantly. One of the people in the office actually sprinted for the garbage once the sweet wore off. In terms of taste, Mad Croc is still the clear winner of all the gum I have tried. This is a decent choice, but it certainly could be improved upon.

Website: http://www.ve2energy.com - 1
OK - there is the big warning on the front of this site that there is a website coming soon - and this is just a placeholder. but even as a placeholder this sucks. Get your designers to just build you a single business card page with your pertinent info. This little yahoo sitebuilder site does much more damage than good, and would even turn the bravest of websurfers far away. Something this ugly and slipshod hurts your brand - makes it seem homemade and small-time. For a product trying to go national, this is a detriment. Check out madcroc.com or even joltgum.com to see how it could be done.

Topics: Energy foods