This Greenwich man with pandemic time on his hands turned his kitchen into a gum-making business

“I experienced a ton of cost-free instances on my hands” when he was household from college researching remotely in 2020, he recalled in the course of a new job interview in his hometown.

“One day, I was wanting at the back again of the pack of chewing gum, and contemplating 2 times about the ingredients. I acquired it was comprised of forty-furthermore synthetic components, plastic and other items most buyers are not aware of. Artificial flavors, artificial shades, sweeteners, preservatives. You have an understanding of that it is a absolutely synthetic solution,” he said. “I’ve been chewing gum my full everyday living, and I had no plan.”

Stafford decided to delve further into his style for chewing gum, investigating the history of the item and its roots in the sapodilla tree of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and Central America. The Mayans have been chewing the sap of the sapodilla tree for hundreds of years. The sap is referred to as chicle, and Stafford bought his palms on a block from Mexico via a specialty importer.

His goal was to make his possess chewing gum with all-purely natural substances. Perhaps a pleasurable dwelling cooking venture, he imagined, could be more than just a pastime.

“I’ve constantly loved to prepare dinner, nearly anything culinary I’m intrigued in. So this started out off as just a different recipe in my household kitchen area. I experienced no plan how to make gum. So it was me investigating. Making an attempt to determine out: How do I start off with foundation that’s not plastic, how do I place ingredients that are organic into it?” he mentioned.

“I just wanted to check out and see what I could do with it, and that was the initial section of starting up this journey. A ton of exploration went into this, and my total family was there in the kitchen area, as well, simply because of COVID,” he explained. “I’d be cooking up gum in the kitchen area, and they’d be making breakfast and lunch beside me. I finally arrived up with a good initial recipe.”

Stafford viewed as operating with food stuff experts to bring the solution to marketplace, but decided to do the work on his individual, offered his curiosity in getting to be an entrepreneur. There are other all-organic chewing gums on the market in the U.S., but Stafford, a Greenwich native who went to Brunswick University, assumed he could do much better in conditions of “appearance, flavor tonality and longevity of flavor.”

With his recipe perfected, he went to Hamburg, Germany, to uncover a maker to switch out the gum to his requirements. A consultant then received him through the U.S. regulatory process and how the item had to be packaged.

Stafford positioned specific emphasis on the layout of the task, as the seem of the gum experienced to convey a apparent information, he explained.

His concept appears to have been loud and obvious. The Dieline journal, a trade publication, said the product or service stood out, and its “minimalistic style is agent of the clean ingredient” immediately after calling its packaging “both dynamic and modest, balancing sturdy typography with tender hues superbly.”

Stafford also has earned his business enterprise chops, having carried out study and enhancement, gross sales, advertising and marketing, logistics, regulatory overview and stock control to deliver the item to market place.

Now it’s a make any difference of driving hundreds of miles a working day in his mother’s Mercedes-Benz to make certain stores have all the stock they require, and to seek out new venues for Refresh, he said.

Juice Press, a chain with a lot more than 80 retailers close to the state, carries Refresh gum at its locations in New York Metropolis you can also obtain it at Westside Markets and Brooklyn Fare in the metropolis. Stafford explained the gum is also readily available at spots in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and California, and he hopes to have it for sale in Connecticut in the in close proximity to potential.

The confectionery entrepreneur explained he thinks the time is just right for his item.

“I think it is a new wave, a new movement, as people become a lot more wellbeing acutely aware and actually treatment about what they place in their bodies,” he claimed. Stafford sees himself in line with other foodstuff creators using a different route, “innovating, generating new goods and aligning with health aware shoppers.”

It is been an arduous approach, but a gratifying one particular, he said.

“Seven days a week, 12-hour plus days,” he claimed. “I’ve generally needed to be an entrepreneur my whole existence. I’ve often been fascinated in how corporations started off from level A, and how they bought to level Z, and every single intricacy in it.”

Now, he claims, he knows firsthand.

“Even even though my days on a regular basis consist of ups and downs, I have figured out more than I at any time could’ve imagined and have met some fantastic men and women together the way,” he reported. “Each day is a new and exciting obstacle that I repeatedly glance ahead to.”