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How we make Sweets Have you ever wondered how sweets are made ? Well here's a quick outline: Our products can be
split into two kinds, those made with dried powders and those that are All Swizzels products start from one basic commodity, granulated sugar, just like you buy at home, only this is delivered in huge tanker loads, 25 tons which is 25,401 kilos and this is blown into our tanks The sugar is next put through the sugar mill, which turns the granulated sugar to icing sugar, this is the start of our production. The icing sugar is fed to mixing machines where colour, flavours and other products like citric acid (that is what gives the nice flavour in citric fruits)and bicarbonate of soda (which helps to give you the fizz) are added. After the mixture has been thoroughly mixed it is ready for the tablet machines. Some of these machines will compress up to 5,000 tablets a minute. After the tablets have been compressed they are mixed to get an assortment of different colours and are then conveyed to the various wrapping machines, which in turn wrap all the familiar lines. Regarding all the Matlow lines, we start from basic granulated sugar but we also use other raw materials. The next most important commodity after sugar is glucose, also known as corn syrup. This is made from European corn (also called maize), which comes as a very thick, clear, colourless liquid. We use other ingredients- a type of vegetable fat similar to margarine, condensed milk and to a lesser extent, things like golden syrup, black treacle, dried milk powder, rice and to a still lesser extent ingredients like gelatine, GMS (glycerine mono stearate), egg albumen, fruit acids (both tartaric and citric) fruit oils (orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit) and flavours (strawberry, raspberry, blackcurrant, cream, banana etc)
The batch is put through special wrapping machines, which can wrap at speeds of up to 500 sweets a minute and are placed into boxes to be taken away to our warehouse where we then deliver into the wholesalers and subsequently shops The next group of
sweets are commonly called "high boilings". This covers products like Fruity
Pops, fruit drops, butterscotch, humbugs etc. These types of lines can be made
in one of two ways, either batch or continuous. Here at New Mills we have opted
to use the continuous process because we feel that this gives a far greater
degree of control. We start off with the basic ingredients and then feed into
the continuous Candy Maker which boils the syrup over 150 C. This syrup is
spread on a moving stainless conveyor belt were it is cooled. During the course
of cooling the flavours, fruit acid and colours are added. Another type of production process is called Panning. This is a method of coating sweets with either sugar or chocolate. A pan comes in various sizes anything from 3ft to 6ft in diameter. It can best be described as a saucepan revolving on its side. The method of production is to revolve the sweets in the pan and gently pour a sugar syrup on to the sweets. When the required thickness of syrup is obtained the pan is emptied and the next load is put in. One of our most famous brands, Rainbow Drops, is made in this way. |
made
using dissolved solids, such as sugar, glucose, gelatine, milk powder, butter,
etc.
Two of our lines
are Drumstick Lollies and New Refresher Chews. Both of these lines are made from
a common base, that is a chewy material, but of course, the difference is that
the New Refreshers have a lovely refreshing centre. To make the chewy base, we
mix sugar and glucose together, a little of fat and gelatine and then boil it up
to 126 C . The batch of chew is then placed onto the table and allowed to cool.