Alpengummi80
How a natural alternative to commercially available petroleum-based chewing gum strengthens the domestic economy and is supposed to protect a traditional craft from extinction.
Conventional chews do not only exist to a large extent from plastic, they are also packed in plastic and aluminum. These raw materials are neither renewable nor degradable and so pollute our planet.
Claudia Bergero and Sandra Falkner, the two founders of Alpengummi, have developed a green alternative that draws on old traditions. The idea of Alps rubber was created during a joint course in which they came across the raw material tree resin and the old traditional handicraft of resin extraction (pitching). Since pitching in Lower Austria is now practiced by only a handful of people, it was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2011.
The two also found out that most of the chewing gum customary in the trade is obtained from synthetic products - so it was clear: A natural chewing gum must be made from local resources. This is how the idea of "Alpengummi" was born - the first natural chewing gum in the Alps. The gum is obtained from local tree resin and beeswax and is only sweetened with birch sugar (xylitol), which even promotes tooth remineralization and reduces harmful acids in the mouth. The two flavors of forest mint and strawberry basil are currently available - and soon a third one: juniper verbena.
Alpine rubber has been available in Austrian and German shops and on the Internet since April 2019. So far, the production has been done manually in a kitchen in the 6th district of Vienna. Now the entrepreneur duo would like to outsource the production to a Viennese food producer and collect money for the production machines via a crowdfunding campaign startnext.
ON THE CONTRIBUTION TO OPTION AUSTRIA