Stride (gum) facts for kids
Stride is a type of sugar-free chewing gum that first came out in 2006. It was owned by a company called Mondelez International. Stride gum usually came in packs with 14 pieces.
In 2023, Mondelez International sold many of its gum brands to another company, Perfetti Van Melle. However, Stride gum was not part of that sale. Mondelez wanted to focus on other sweet treats. By 2024, Mondelez stopped selling Stride gum in the United States, Canada, and Europe. But you can still find Stride gum for sale in China and Australia.
Contents
Stride Gum Flavors
Stride gum had many different flavors over the years. Here are some of the popular ones:
- Forever Fruit
- Nonstop Mint
- Spearmint
- Sweet Berry
- Sweet Cinnamon
- Sweet Peppermint
- Uber Bubble
- Winterblue
- Always Mandarin
- Eternal Melon
- Mega Mystery
- Tropical Trance
- Fearless Fruit
- Mintfinity (This was a special flavor from a contest!)
- Shaun White Mintacular
- Shaun White Whitemint
Stride 2.0 Flavors
In February 2011, Stride released a new version of some of its original flavors. These were called the "2.0" series. They were made to improve the taste of the first flavors.
Stride Shift Gum
Stride Shift was a special kind of gum that changed flavor as you chewed it! It came in two main flavors:
- Shift Berry to Mint
- Shift Citrus to Minty
The packaging for these gums had two colors. For Berry to Mint, the wrapper was magenta and light blue. For Citrus to Mint, it was orange and light green. Stride Shift gum was not sold in Canada.
Stride Spark Gum
Stride Spark was another unique line of gum. It came in three flavors:
- Spark Kinetic Mint
- Spark Kinetic Berry
- Spark Kinetic Fruit
What made Spark gum special was that each piece contained some Vitamin B6 and Vitamin B12. The label said one piece had 25% of the amount of these vitamins you might need each day.
Stride ID Gum
The Stride ID line also offered several flavors:
- ID Spearmint
- ID Peppermint
- ID Berrymelon
Stride Sour Patch Kids Gum
Stride also teamed up with the popular candy brand, Sour Patch Kids, to create gum with their famous sour-then-sweet flavors. These included:
- Sour Patch Kids Redberry
- Sour Patch Kids Lime
- Sour Patch Kids Orange
- Sour Patch Kids Watermelon
- Sour Patch Kids Extreme Blue Raspberry
Where Stride Was Sold
Stride gum was first only available in the United States. In January 2008, some flavors like Spearmint, Sweet Peppermint, and Forever Fruit were also released in Canada. Later, more flavors became available there.
In Europe, some Stride flavors were sold under a different gum brand called Trident Senses. For example, Winterblue 2.0 was sold as Mint Breeze, and Forever Fruit 2.0 was sold as Tropical Mix. Sweet Peppermint 2.0 was called Rainforest Mint and had a green wrapper. The Mega Mystery flavor was sold under its original name. The packaging for these European versions was a bit fancier than the usual Stride box, except for Mega Mystery.
Gum Design and Packaging
The special 'S' logo and the design of Stride gum packages were created by a design company. Almost all Stride gum packages had this 'S' logo. The only exception was the Mega Mystery flavor, which had a question mark ('?') on the front instead of the 'S'.
In 2014, the 'S' logo was updated. After this change, the new 'S' only appeared on certain flavors like Spearmint, Peppermint, Winterblue, Nonstop Mint, Stride Spark Kinetic Mint and Fruit, and the Sour Patch Kids gum.
How Stride Was Advertised
Stride chewing gum was first shown to the public at the All Candy Expo in 2006. After three years of making the gum just right, the company that owned Stride, Cadbury, said their gum had a flavor that lasted a really long time. They used a special sweetener called mannitol to make this happen.
Cadbury advertised Stride gum with the slogan "The Ridiculously Long Lasting Gum." A New York advertising company, JWT, helped with the big launch. They created funny ads that showed people in workplaces. These ads were very popular. One ad even showed the CEO of Stride gum asking people to buy more gum because it lasted so long that no one needed to buy it again quickly!
Stride also won an award in 2007 for its online advertising. This was for a special event called "The Ridiculously Long-Lasting Gaming Event." In 2006, Stride worked with a company called Xfire to host a live video game challenge with famous players. Stride gum also helped fund a worldwide trip for Matt Harding to make a very popular video on YouTube in 2006, where he danced in different places around the world.
Later, in 2009, Cadbury and a gaming website called Kongregate held a contest called "The Longest Lasting Game." They challenged game developers to create a game that was all about how long you could keep playing.
Stride gum and other Cadbury-Adams brands like Trident sold very well in the United States in 2007. This helped the company have surprisingly good sales that year.
Stride gum was also shown a lot in the TV show, Smallville. In one episode, "Hero," a special kind of Stride gum gave the character Pete Ross super stretchy powers. A former Stride factory was even used as a concert venue in that episode.
