Gumlink Teams Up with Canadian Probiotic and Nutraceutical Gum Manufacturer

The jointventure is among the first initiatives in Gumlink’s nutraceutical strategy for the future involving strategic collaborations with various industry partners, as announced in January this year.

4/28/2011 --- In a recent joint venture agreement, Danish Gumlink has acquired a 50% stake in Tab Labs Inc. creating a strong partnership with a primary focus on patented nutraceutical chewing gum.

Located in Vancouver, Tab Labs Inc. has been producing chewing gumfor the B2B market since 2001. Like Gumlink, Tab Labs have recently shifted a great deal of focus towards the increasingly attractive functional and nutraceutical market for chewing gum. Tab Labs has especially focused on upgrading their facilities to accommodate extremely sensitive active ingredients, such as probiotics.

Probiotics is indeed interesting, due to the size of the market ($15.9 billion globally in 2008) and its’ potential, as sales are expected to near $30 billion in 2015, according to Global Industry Analysts (GIA).

Gumlink will be reinforcing the joint venture by contributing with its nutraceutical chewing gum capabilities, and the accumulated know-how in its’ R&D facilities located in Denmark.

In order to support this new venture, renowned expert in the field of probiotics and microbiology Dr. Chris Chilcott has joined the Tab Labs management team, to head up Tab Labs’ new Nutraceutical Innovation Center.  Dr. Chilcott has been one of the leading forces behind the development of patented, oral probiotic strains Blis K-12 and Blis M-18 at BLIS Technologies in New Zealand.

The jointventure is among the first initiatives in Gumlink’s nutraceutical strategy for the future involving strategic collaborations with various industry partners, as announced in January this year.

CEO of Gumlink A/S, Soren Birn, says; “This move makes perfect sense for us, as it will provide us with a nutraceutical manufacturing and distribution platform in North America and provide access to novel technologies that when combined with our own proprietary gum technologies will enable us to offer the most potent nutraceutical chewing gum assortment. Furthermore, Gumlink is now following our strategic pathway to maintain and further build our position as the world’s leading nutraceutical gum developer and manufacturer.”

CEO of Tab Labs Inc. Tom Holtgen says; “We are very excited to be partnered with the #1 business-to-business gum manufacturer in the world.  Gumlink brings to Tab Labs scale, infrastructure and resources that will allow us to take all aspects of our business to the highest levels.  Our common vision and synergies are very complementary, and will result in many new exciting innovations and discoveries.  Tab Labs is now positioned to taking ownership as North America’s leading  nutraceutical chewing gum innovator and contract manufacturer.