Airwaves Gum: History, Flavors & Varieties

Snack History Nostalgia Rating: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

If you love the menthol taste of cough drops and other strongly flavored breath fresheners, you will love this gum. This sugar-free gum is one of the most unique kinds of gum that has ever been made. This strongly flavored gum is still sold today, and its oddly unique flavor is no deterrent to modern candy and gum lovers. 

There are actually six varieties of this gum, and all of them are strongly flavored. This gum is actually used by many to relieve cold symptoms due to the eucalyptus in the formula, which is a good anti-inflammatory product and which helps to clear the airways and sinuses. This is one of the very unique gum products that is sold today that is not actually intended to be a cold-fighting product but which serves this function just as well as medications in the cold and flu aisle.

History

Airwaves Gum is sugar-free chewing gum that is made by the Wrigley Jr. Company. The gum is sold mostly in Europe and East Asia today. The recipe for this gum is made with both menthol and eucalyptus, which offer superior cold-symptom alleviating properties as well as strong flavor. These are common ingredients in other cold products, and this means that this gum can offer the benefits of these medications with a more enjoyable taste.

Strongly flavored gums used to be quite common when gums were first sold. Gum and candies were both intended to deliver medicine or to perfume your breath during this time period. The strong flavor of this kind of gum is not common any longer since there are much more pleasant and enjoyable ways to freshen the breath these days. Menthol is much reduced in many gums, even the ones that are made to make your breath fresh.

The old connection between medicine and candy or medicine and gum is long gone, and many people today are not even aware that this was the original intention for the creation of most of these products. This gum product is one of the ways to experience what these more medicinal candies and gums were really like. It shocks some people that these gums are so strong and that anyone would have originally chewed these products just to freshen their breath. Most people today just associate these flavors with cold medicine today and not something that you might chew for enjoyment only.

There are six flavors of this gum that are sold today, and their wrappers are color-coded by variety. The blue packets are Eucalyptus, and Menthol flavored, the red are Cherry, Herbal comes in light green wrappers, Blackcurrant and Vitamin C is purple, Black Mint is sold in a black packet, and Grapefruit and Menthol, which are pink. There have been a few additional flavors that have been discontinued, such as the spicy cocktail flavor. There was also an energy version of this gum that included guarana, like most energy drinks. This product is no longer sold, but it was certainly a unique idea to try out.

This gum was not originally made to be used as a cold treatment, but it is so good at this task that this has become part of the stated benefit of this gum for those who buy it in some markets. There can be a laxative effect with this gum if you take too much of it since it is a sugar-free gum, but if used sparingly, it can greatly alleviate cold symptoms.

Imagine being able to just chew gum to help treat your cold instead of having to deal with yucky cold medicines or strong and harsh cold or cough drops! This could be the benefit of tracking down some Airwaves Gum to have on hand for the next time that your nose feels a little stuffy.

This gum has been featured in a few popular culture references which include Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. The lead character, Sam Fisher, regularly consumes Airwaves Gum, and there are product placement scenes scattered throughout various parts of the movie.

There have also been sponsorships connected with the gum like a well-known sponsorship during the British Touring Car Championship. The gum is also the title sponsor of the Airwaves Plymouth Raiders, which is a basketball team. The gum has also been the official chewing gum of the FIA World Rally Championship.

Livery

Airwaves gum has a very classic appearance with a swoopy logo that indicates the brand name. The color conventions of the packaging are linked to the flavors of each gum, and there might be different little tidbits of information listed under the logo on different versions of the wrappers. Wrigley’s has always been known for sticking with classic wrapper designs, and this gum has been on the list of items that the company sells for a long time.

The logo is always aqua blue in color, no matter what the background color is. The colors of the wrappers are very simple, which makes this brand really distinctive. You will not find too many other gum products that are so simple. The only other equivalent is Wrigley’s gum products that are sold in the US. These also have really simple designs on the wrapper, which makes them quite distinctive in US markets as well.

This means that there is a classic nature to the wrappers of this gum that you will not find when looking at lots of more modern gum products. This is a really charming aspect of this gum product and one that makes it clear that this brand still stands for the old-fashioned values that made the company well-known in the first place. While the wrappers do not tell you how strong the flavor of this gum will be, you probably would not be seeking out this product if you did not know that it would be so strongly flavored.

The UK now has one version of this gum that is sold there. The only product that is sold in the UK at this time is the menthol and eucalyptus gum. It is marketed solely for cold symptoms in the UK and not for any other use. This is not how the gum is marketed in other areas of the world where these flavors are more common in food and snacks.

There are so many places where food flavors are different than in the UK and the US, and this is a prime example of a product that is not marketed extensively in places where strongly-flavored food is less common.

Logo

Varieties

• Eucalyptus And Menthol
• Blackcurrant and Vitamin C
• Cherry
• Grapefruit and Menthol
• Herbal
• Black Mint
• Honey and Lemon-discontinued in some markets
• Spicy cocktail-also discontinued due to containing guarana
• Ginseng – discontinued
• Ginger- discontinued
• Herbal Mint
• Ice
• Fire
• Super
• Ice Grape
• Extreme

All of these gum varieties include menthol and eucalyptus, which makes them all more reminiscent of cold medicine than what most people think of as gum. All of the various flavors are added on top of the menthol and eucalyptus, so any of these varieties of gum could be used to treat your cold. When you think about the limited flavorings that cold medicines are offered in, this seems like a key benefit to this product.

Ingredients

From a listing for a company that sells this product in the UK:

Sweeteners Sorbitol, Isomalt, Maltitol Syrup, Aspartame, Acesulfame K, Mannitol,

• Gum Base
• Glazing Agent Calcium Carbonate
• Flavorings
• Thickener Gum Arabic
• Emulsifier Soybean Lecithin
• Humectant Glycerol
• Glazing Agent Carnauba Wax
• Antioxidant BHA
• Colour E141

This product is sugar-free, which is great for those who are diabetic. It is certified as suitable for vegetarians, but it does contain soy. There are also sweeteners in this product that might not work for everyone. The brand also warns that there is phenylalanine in this product and that is can have a laxative effect.

Sugar-free products can be ideal for many kinds of needs, but there should always be cautious when you are using these products on a regular basis so that you do not upset your digestive processes. The strong flavor should be enough to keep you from consuming this gum too frequently, but there are people that do overdo it with this gum. Make sure if you order it that you do not take it too often and make yourself sick.

Nutrition

Serving Size:	100g	% Daily Value*
Amount Per Serving
Calories from Fat	0
Calories	143
Total Fat	0g	0%
Saturated Fat	0g	0%
Sodium	0mg	0%
Total Carbohydrates	60g	20%
Sugars	0g
Protein	0g

• Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000-calorie diet.

Pictures

Commercials

The ads for this company are often focused on outer space and car racing. There are also some ads that turn people’s cars into Airwave cars when they consume the gum in traffic. The various slightly silly ads are memorable and communicate correctly that the gum is strongly-flavored. While the products are marketed as cold products in the UK, there are no ads that are aimed at this market specifically.

The lion’s share of the sales of this product doesn’t need to be aimed in this direction which is why there are no ads for the cold remedy part of the benefits of this gum.