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Before selling bubble gum, William Wrigley Jr. moved to Chicago in 1891 with $32 (about $1,000 in today’s dollars) to sell soap. He called it Wrigley’s Scouring Soap. The soap was manufactured by his father’s company, the Wrigley Manufacturing Company. From here, the young 29-year-old entrepreneur would learn business expertise that would set him up for his gum and candy empire.
William eventually named his company Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company in 1892, where he continued to sell soap then made a transition to baking powder. To sell his baking powder, he started to sell two packages of chewing gum (primarily Lotto & Vassar) as a promotion for each box of baking powder sold. However, as fate would have it, the bubble gum proved more popular than the baking soda. The young man would pivot completely to bubble gum soon after.
Juicy Fruit branded chewing gum was introduced in the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, with other brands like Quaker Oats and Cracker Jacks making their debut as well. Juicy Fruit debuted as a minty flavor, it wouldn’t be till 1914 that it would have it’s signature fruity flavor.
Wrigley’s Spearmint gum was launched shortly after the introduction of Juicy Fruit and known for its intense spearmint flavor that is still used today. Wrigley was a master of advertising, with his famous motto “Tell ’em quick and tell ’em often” as his guidepost. With his ad campaign, he was able to make Wrigley’s Spearmint gum a household name—selling one million dollars worth of the gum by 1908!
By 1911, Wrigley purchased Zeno Manufacturing Company, taking complete control of his branded gum production. Wrigley’s Spearmint would become the leading gum in the United States shortly after.
Wrigley’s Doublemint gum, created with double the strength of peppermint , was launched in 1914. It became mainstream due to its innovative marketing, especially with its iconic Doublemint Twins advertising campaign that began in 1939.
During the period of 1915-1939, Wrigley’s company underwent significant international expansion. Beginning with Canada in 1910. Australia followed suit in 1915, with the UK in 1927, and finally with New Zealand in 1939. Entering these markets helped Wrigley to expand its manufacturing to the entire English world and setting the stage for a global bubble gum empire.
Wrigley also launched new products in these international markets, with pellet-shaped gum sold under the brand name P.K., which is the most popular.
Between 1921 and 1930, the company’s profits grew from $8.5 million to $12.2 million—with production reaching nearly ten billion sticks of gum annually!
In 1932, William Wrigley Jr. died. His company was now a global powerhouse with annual revenues to $75 million and profits of $12 million by the time of his death! The company’s iconic brands were also being sold in over 30 languages across many languages, making it the largest gum manufacturer on planet earth.
In 1944, during WWII, the Wrigley company temporarily removed Doublemint, Juicy Fruit, and Spearmint from the civilian market due to wartime rationing of top-grade ingredients like sugar. These brands continued to be manufactured for the rations of the troops overseas only.
Orbit was introduced by the company as a wartime alternative. Each Orbit wrapper contained the message explaining that it was made with the use of available wartime materials, but wasn’t up to Wrigley’s premium standards. Orbit ceased to be produced after the war, but would eventually make a comeback in 1976, launching in Europe as a sugar-free gum.
After WW2, Wrigley reintroduced Spearmint and Juicy Fruit in 1946 and Doublemint in 1947.
In March 1973, IBM engineer George Laurer’s rectangular barcode design was invented. The first barcode scan would happen a year later at 8:01 AM on June 26, 1974, at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. A pack of Juicy Fruit gum was selected. It became the first product ever scanned with a UPC barcode.
Looking to launch a sugar-free gum in the USA, Wrigley’s launched Extra Gum in 1984. It was created to follow the sugar-free gum trend happening world wide at the time. It was an immediate success. Extra was the number one selling sugar-free gum brand in the US within five years. Its success was due to its long lasting flavor and special certification from the American Dental Association.
In 2005, Wrigley closed its historic Ashland Avenue plant in Chicago, which ended over a century of production in the city. At its peak, it employed over 1,700 workers with enough daily produced gum to stretch from New York to Galveston!
The plant closure was announced by William Wrigley Jr., the great-grandson of the company’s founder. With 600 workers fired. The owner expressed personal difficulty with the decision, stating that the change was “absolutely necessary for the long-term vitality of our company”.
In 2008, Mars Incorporated announced that it had acquired the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company for a whopping $23 billion. It created the world’s largest confectionery company, with combined sales of over $27 billion and more than 64,000 associates worldwide.
Under the acquisition agreement, Mars would continue to manufacture and sell all chocolate brands, and Wrigley would take over all gum, mint, and fruity candies.
Today, the combined company employs over 30,000 workers across 70 countries, with its HQ in Chicago, Illinois.
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