Why is bubble gum pink?

During the 1920s, Walter E Diemer, an accountant at the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, spent his spare time inventing new recipes.

All of them had to be pink as that was the only food colouring the company had. He claimed his discovery of a formula both pliable enough to blow bubbles and smooth enough not to stick to your teeth was an accident.

Fleer sent a batch of Diemer’s invention to a local sweetshop in 1928, where it sold out in a single day.

Delighted, Diemer personally taught salespeople the correct way to blow ‘Dubble Bubble’ so they could teach clients – and pass on the information to the children of the United States.