Back in 1860, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the eighth President of Mexico, traveled to the United States bringing a special (and somewhat sticky) ingredient in his luggage – chicle. The General introduced this unfamiliar white substance to his American friend and inventor Thomas Adams, who tried unsuccessfully to use it as a rubber substitute.

Later, inspired by a young girl asking for gum in a New York drugstore, Adams came up with the idea to use chicle – rather than the unflavored spruce tree resin or paraffin wax common at the time – to make a better kind of chewing gum. He added licorice to the chicle, turning a sticky situation into a prosperous business. With his son’s help, Adams & Sons became the world’s most prosperous chewing gum company by the end of the 19th century. Today, Adams’ legacy company lives on as part of Mondelēz International!

More than 150 years later, chewing gum is still a common bond between the United States and Mexico, which are the first and second largest gum markets in the world, respectively. The first chewing gum brand our company introduced in Mexico was Chiclets in 1927, and our top-selling gum brands today include Trident, Bubbaloo and Clorets.