PENNY GUM

[摘要] "Inflation was reported threatening the survival of the nation's penny gumball in 1974 and early '75. Manufacturers were exploring ways to hold the line by increasing the size of the gumball's hollow center. Some distributors were swinging to 2-cent and 5-cent gumballs. Uncertainty was shaking the industry.The penny gumball lives, and one of its biggest manufacturers says it will survive into the ‘foreseeable future.’That manufacturer, Leo Leary, president of the Ford Gum and Machine Company of Akron, N.Y., credits automation with slashing production costs and saving the day. Ford, which turns out a million colored gumballs a day, or six million pounds a year, offers a product that is ⅝ of an inch in diameter, with the hole in the middle ‘possibly ⅛ inch.’‘It's still a value,’ Mr. Leary says, noting: ‘I've just invested a quarter of a million dollars in new equipment to further automate this plant, so I can see the 1-cent gumball in any part of the foreseeable future.‘I get a new set of customers every seven years. They buy my gum from 3 years old until about 9 or 10 or 12, and then they go into stick gum and baseball gum.’"

[学科分类] 儿科学