What fruits are used for the tutti-frutti flavor of the gum?

Depends of the place. The secret of tutti-frutti is to mix the most popular flavors for the palate of each country. In Brazil, the mixture takes orange, banana, pineapple, vanilla and strawberry. In the American formula, the main difference is the cherry, a very popular fruit over there. In Asia, cloves are added, and in Europe, the mixture tastes like cinnamon. But it is not a fixed composition. In other times, the Brazilian tutti-frutti already had apple, currant, raspberry and lemon. “The mild apple aroma ended up being eliminated because it was barely noticeable amidst the intense flavors of banana and pineapple. Currants and raspberries left because they were too expensive. Lemon too, but it was replaced by orange”, says chemist Moisés Galano, creation manager of a company that develops aromas. Whatever the combination, tutti-frutti arises from a mixture of aromatic substances that give flavor to fruits in nature.

Each fruit has about 300 of these substances, but only the main ones are used to create each artificial flavor. It is enough to feel the most important part of the fruit taste. Although it can be created from natural essences, the most common thing is that tutti-frutti is made up of synthetic aromatic substances, produced in the laboratory since the end of the 19th century. In this process, the first step is to isolate the main ingredients of the desired substance , determine their organic structures and then reproduce them through a series of chemical reactions. At the end comes the most creative part: a mixture of all aromatic substances until reaching the ideal point. “The process is completely automated. A device gathers hundreds of substances and the result is tasted in a device that exhales the aroma. The final adjustments are made by computer”, says Moisés.