TopGum launches honey-based gummies

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TopGum (Tel Aviv) launched a line of honey-based gummy supplements, called HoneyGum, at SupplySide West 2024. The gummies feature a high-dose of liquid honey sourced locally in Israel, which the company says differentiates it from other honey-based gummies that utilize powdered gummies.

According to Jennifer Toomey, head of new product development for the company, TopGum uses its roots in confection to design gummy supplements to ensure the optimal user experience, namely taste and texture. In the case of HoneyGum, the company’s expertise helped to create a product that could be considered clean label.

“With honey, there are other gummy companies that are using honey, but what they're using is a powdered honey. So, what they have to do is take a liquid honey and dry it down. Then they have to make it be able to flow and be able to be a stable powder. And oftentimes, to do that, they're adding in additional starches,” says Toomey. “So, what we looked at is how can we do it differently and how can we bring a better product to people? That’s why we looked at whether we can use liquid honey, because when you use the liquid honey, you're taking out that drying step and taking out those extra ingredients.”

At the show, TopGum showcased five functional gummies within the HoneyGum line that target a number of trending health categories including sleep/relaxation, immune health, energy, and beauty. The sleep and relaxation gummy contains 500 mg of honey with chamomile extract, GABA, L-theanine, and valerian in a lemon-chamomile flavor. There are two immune gummies, one that contains 500 mg of honey, elderberry, vitamin D (1000 IU), and other vitamins in a mixed-berry flavor, and another that contains ginger, propolis, and 500 mg of honey in an apple flavor. The energy gummy contains 500 mg of honey with energy from B-vitamins and caffeine in a bright tangerine flavor. The beauty product contains the highest dose of honey with 1 g of honey per 3 g gummy along with 500 micrograms of biotin.

The HoneyGum products also utilize the company’s patented Gummiceuticals technology, which is a base of prebiotic fiber that helps give the gummy its structure while also adding prebiotic benefits from fructo-oligosaccharides. The company also endeavored to create flavor profiles that complemented the honey and other actives within the gummies, while also making sense for the ascribed benefits.

“Some actives do have their own distinct flavor,” says Toomey. “Because our roots are really in the confectionery area, we understand that you don't want to fight against flavors. Ashwagandha, for example, nicely put, has earthy flavor and there's certain things that don't work very well with it, but there are certain flavors that do. Flavors like cherry and cranberry and raspberry work very well because they complement the earthiness. In terms of the HoneyGum products, what we looked at were ingredients that don't necessarily bring a lot of flavor with them. Like the biotin, for example, kind of created a blank slate. But when we looked at things like elderberry or even, you the caffeine and the B vitamins, we really leaned into flavors to complement the honey that would play with them very well.”

The relaxation product, for example, says Toomey, leans into the chamomile flavor, “balancing the chamomile with the honey, so you're getting a tea-like experience. And then when we looked at the elderberry, [we know that it] is going to be very dominant in that formula, so we pulled in more berries to complement that flavor profile. With the energizer product we wanted a very bright flavor because we're looking at caffeine and that's supposed to be energizing. So, we paired raspberry and lemon which honey would complement quite nicely as kind of a lemonade type of flavor. We really paid very close attention that we weren't fighting against it and really pairing it with things that would work nicely.”