Posted on 08/14/2005 1:59:09 PM PDT by WmShirerAdmirer
Almost unnoticed at home, Chicago-based Wm Wrigley Jr Co, the world's largest maker and marketer of chewing gum, has quietly built a dominating presence in the Chinese market. With a 60% market share and a jaw-dropping one million sales outlets, Wrigley may have come closer than any other US company to actually realizing the China dreams of American business. - Todd Crowell
I feel better now - we are sending our entire manufacturing and technology base to china. but we've got their chewing gum market cornered.
And the "free" trade cheer-leading Asian Times conspicuously omits telling us the location of factories manufacturing the gum!
It's better than that - we sent them the Doublemint twins, as well.
"Wrigley's entered China in a big way in 1989, when it built its first wholly owned chewing gum factory in Guangzhou. Last October, Wrigley's opened a 50,000 square-foot factory to make gum base - the material that gives gum its chewiness - in Shanghai. Since the opening of the Shanghai plant, the company has been able to produce all the ingredients for chewing gum on the mainland."
This "free" trade stuff is really working well for America after all.
Wrigleys is beefing up their plant here in Flowery Branch GA to produce Altoids and other stuff. They recently bought Altoids from the British. and moved much of the production to the U.S.
JERRY: (peering) That's an interesting package.
LLOYD: Yeah, it's from China. Go ahead, try a piece. Tell me that's not the most delicious gum you've ever tasted.
KRAMER: Yes, yes. We shall all try a piece and tell you how delicious it is. (he takes pieces for himself and Jerry)
LLOYD: George?
GEORGE: I don't chew gum.
I'm more partial to Lotte's Green Gum myself.
How can you have Doublemint Twins in a one-child-per-family country????
GEORGE: Hey.
JERRY: I think I finally figured out what the flavor is in this gum. It's a little lo-mein-y.
ELAINE: What kind is that?
JERRY: It's Chinese gum, Lloyd Braun gave me.
KRAMER: All rright let's get some gum or something.
GEORGE: Pack of gum, okay here you go.
CLERK: What is this a hundred? I can't change a hundred.
GEORGE: Why not?
CLERK: You got to buy more than that.
KRAMER: Here, get a newspaper.
GEORGE: A newspaper.
CLERK: That's not enough.
KRAMER: A Clark Bar.
GEORGE: Clark Bar.
CLERK: Keep going.
GEORGE: There's 22 dollars here.
KRAMER: George, George, Get a Penthouse Forum.
GEORGE: I'm not getting a Penthouse Forum.
KRAMER: That will make great dinner party conversation. We'll read the letters at the dinner table.
GEORGE: Oh, that's nice.
KRAMER: Hey, did you ever read one of these?
GEORGE: It's not real. They're all made up.
KRAMER: Oh, it's real.
GEORGE: You know there is an unusual number of people in this country having sex with AMPUTEES! . . . Penthouse forum, newspaper, gum, Clark Bar.
I could never figure out why the liquor guy couldn't change a hundred for a $20.00 purchase, but the news guy can change a hundred for a $5.00 purchase. But then, I couldn't figure out why they had to take another number to return a cinnamon bobka with a hair on it.
??? Say again...
You are complaining that a company builds plants in a market to capture share of that market (much like Toyota has done here in the U.S.). Do you have a better way?
The raw material comes from China, the workers come from and spend their salaries in China... Very good for "Chicago-based" Wigley... But actually how does any of this economic activity benefit the US economy - aside from the lobbyist and politicians in Washington?
Wrigley pays corporate income tax on its world-wide income.
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