Flavor Microencapsulation for Taste Masking in Medicated Chewing Gums—Recent Trends, Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Chewing gum, being a pleasant formulation, requires effective taste-masking techniques, such as encapsulation methods along with an amalgamation of flavors and sweeteners. Taste-masked medicated chewing gum offers a palatable way of administering drugs and dietary supplements to children and old-aged people. The concept of chewing gum development provides a sustained and modified release of actives through various techniques, such as microencapsulation, cyclodextrin-complexation, buffering agents, ion exchange resin, solid dispersions, effervescent agents, etc. The taste, solubility, and stability of the active ingredient are the key parameters to be kept in mind, while formulating a medicated chewing gum. Flavor microencapsulation has been used as a crucial technology in the research and food industry to control sensory performance as demonstrated by the hefty number of chewing gum patents over the years. This manuscript provides an insight into conventional and novel taste-masking techniques employed in developing palatable chewing gums. Additionally, concepts of flavor microencapsulation, its applications, polymers, and patents have been discussed.