Why Refresh Gum Tapped Nostalgia To Rethink BFY Candy

What began as a pandemic-era home kitchen experiment has transformed into a full-blown business with 3,000 retail placements across all 50 states, all in just two years’ time.

Last week, Refresh Gum doubled its SKU count with three new plant-based, sugar-free gums in Peppermint, Bubble Gum and Peach flavors. Peppermint and Bubble Gum will also carry the brand into Whole Foods for the first time alongside existing flavors Garden Mint and Raspberry.

Refresh Gum founder and CEO Ryan Stafford never intended to start a gum brand, he explained, and would have not become an entrepreneur if not for pandemic downtime that allowed him to investigate and reimagine his favorite childhood treat.

“It all started when I was a kid – I would always chew gum whether sports, school, anything in daily life, I’d always have a pack of gum on me,” Stafford said. “As I got older, and started to look at ingredient labels a little more, I realized these products I adored as a kid aren’t really the natural products that I hope to have as I grow up.”

Like many other better-for-you candy entrepreneurs, Stafford was inspired to reinvent a nostalgic category with high quality ingredients. Refresh Gum’s point of differentiation is its use of chicle, a sustainably harvested tree sap native to South America, as well as organic fruit powders for color and flavor and a combination of xylitol and stevia to sweeten. While there are other synthetic ingredient-free, low to no sugar chewing gums on the market, like Simply Gum and PUR, Stafford claims these products don’t offer the same “nostalgic” experience he had “adored” as a kid.

A lot of that nostalgia lies in Refresh’s “compromise-free” flavor profiles, he emphasized. The brand launched with Cinnamon (a less spicy iteration of Big Red), Garden Mint and Raspberry.

“Consumers are skeptical about better-for-you options and when [we are placed] in a set of conventional [gums] without any other better-for-you products – there’s a lot of skepticism if it’s going to do well,” Stafford explained. “One thing led to another and people started buying our product and at Wegmans, especially, we’ve been one of their top selling brands at the front end and it’s been really a true feat.”

Refresh Gum is currently in 3,000 doors around the country – a large jump from the 75 accounts around New York City that Stafford was self-distributing to upon launching in April 2022. Wegmans marked its first major retailer, and this past January it activated its first national partnership with Sprouts.

The product is also sold at Raley’s, Erewhon, Giant, Bristol Farms, Lassens, Mother’s Market, Earth Fare, Festival Foods, ShopRite, Woodman’s and more in addition to having nationwide distribution through both UNFI and KeHE.

“Our main goal here is to keep the momentum going on content and continue to educate consumers of what’s wrong with chewing gum, why we’re a different option and how we give that nostalgia that [consumers] had when they had the treat as a kid,” Stafford emphasized.

But finding a partner to create gum from its novel base ingredient was the first hurdle. Today, Refresh works with a co-manufacturing partner based in Germany that has experience creating alternative gum products for international markets. Stafford said Refresh was its first U.S. based partner brand.

“A lot of [U.S. gum] manufacturers actually don’t even believe in [the better-for-you] industry,” Stafford claims. “They’re still full throttle with the synthetic plastic on base and artificial ingredients. In Europe, we had a really good opportunity to partner up with a manufacturer that really believed in better-for-you gum and they’ve seen great results in [their home markets].”

Refresh has been financed thus far by a pre-launch, family and friends round. Stafford remains the company’s sole employee and said he wanted to learn “every aspect” of the business before making its first hire. While he said he plans to remain “scrappy,” he does expect to begin raising another round of capital later this year.

“With chewing gum, especially when you get into large retailers, slotting fees can become somewhat egregious so to be able to have the cash flow and the comfortability [from another raise] will give us a great chance to succeed in 2024 and going on.”

Long term, he hopes to be able to bring the price of its current $3 packs closer in line with the price of conventional chewing gums, which typically cost about $2.20 to $2.50 per pack.

“We want to get closer to that ballpark so that consumers don’t have to overthink [the purchase],” Stafford said. “I want consumers to say ‘they’re one-to-one and I’m gonna choose this product because of its high quality ingredients, it gives me the nostalgia of gum I love and just make that an easier decision at the end of the day.”