Bompass & Parr's chewing gum factory at Meet d3

At Meet d3 from April 2-4, 2015, Bompas & Parr is building an Artisanal Chewing Gum Factory, where people can create up to 40,000 flavour combinations in the 10m by 10m micro-factory.

Each visitor will be able to choose and combine 200 familiar and unusual flavours including iris, wild strawberry, green banana, black pepper, sandalwood, wasabi, fresh garlic and shrimp. In total 40,000 flavour combinations are possible. The flavours have been captured by maceration, distillation, expression and enfleurage.

Guests will first enter the "flavour library", where they can choose from 200 flavours. Then to the making room, where the flavours, gum base, colour all come together.

In an interview with Caterer Middle East prior to the event, Sam Bompas said: "For d3, what we’re doing is creating an artisanal chewing gum factory, which is elevating the once vilified medium of chewing gum to a state of high art and high design whereby anyone that comes along will be able to make their own chewing gum, in a craft-based way."

Bompas & Parr had previous created a prototype of this factory in the UK, but Bompas said: "With this one we’re going far, far beyond that. The one we did before was modest by comparison and this is pushing it to the extreme. We’re literally building an epic installation, which is a 10m by 10m chewing gum factory, which will knock people’s socks off, I hope!"

Citing Charlie & The Chocolate Factory as inspiration, Bompas added: "People have a complex relationship with gum, and it’s interesting as a foodstuff as well because it’s non-digestible, non-nutritive masticatory product."

He said about the flavours on offer: "There are tons of weird flavours, and if you get up to 40,000 flavour [combinations], you’ve got to go pretty strange. We’ve got things like flowers like jasmine, geranium and lilac, and lots of abstract flavours, then there’s more kitchen-y flavours like dill, rosemary, sage, arugula, patchouli, and then more expected flavours like grapefruit, bitter mandarin, bergamot, canteloupe… then also some strange and wondrous ones like amber grease, or crème brulee and panacotta."

Bompas said the duo has calls themselves "culinary experience designers". He said: "That’s just reinforcing the important of the customers’ journey through our installation, through a meal, or a dish or product. But we’ve been called many things in the past, things like architectural food smiths, culinary deviants, artists, jellymongers, culinographers."

Bompas & Parr was founded as a jelly company in 2007, and since then has delved in "taking unusual disciplines and then putting them into the world of food".