

The mystery flavor comes at the point where the end of one batch meets the start of a different one. What about that Mystery Flavor? Kerr points to a screen on a piece of equipment that rolls the mix of corn syrup, sugar and flavoring into a thick rope of candy that’s cut and pressed into thousands of individual lollipop heads.Ī box on the screen glows green showing cherry is currently being produced. The average consumer doesn’t realize that the way the wax paper is folded over the candy is referred to as a sachet wrap or that there have been 37 flavors since 1953. in Bellevue, which had been making the treats since 1924.Įven though Dum Dums have been part of pop culture for generations now, there’s still a lot most people don’t know about the treat. first purchased its iconic lollipop from the Akron Candy Co. This year marks six decades since the 107-year-old Spangler Candy Co.
SEES CANDY CHRISTMAS MEMORIES BOX PLUS
More than 10 million are produced each day in 16 flavors, plus the elusive Mystery Flavor (a hybrid taste that isn’t as much mysterious as it is good business sense, but let’s not spoil that one yet). The Bryan facility also churns out loop-handled Saf-T-Pops and that strange, banana-flavored marshmallow treat known as Circus Peanuts.īut make no mistake about it, Dum Dums rule here. The Bryan plant manufactures flavored varieties for other candy brands such as Jelly Belly, while a second Spangler factory in Mexico makes the traditional versions seen at Christmas. For one, it’s the last major candy cane maker in the United States. Spangler makes sweets other than Dum Dums, of course. “I thought, Oh, I’ll come work here for a couple years until I find what I want to do. He started working for the Bryan-based candy maker 25 years ago - the Monday after he graduated from college - and he never left. “Each wrapper runs about 235 pops a minute,” explains Steve Kerr, vice president of operations at Spangler Candy Co. The repeating red pattern printed on it seems indecipherable at first, but a closer inspection brings a wave of recognition and five familiar words written over and over and over: Cherry. The sound is a stream of tiny lollipops tumbling down a metal chute and onto a conveyor that ferries them on to another machine that cuts and twirls wrappers around each faster than the eye can register. Then, somewhere beyond the roar of machines that cook, knead, roll and cut bushel-sized blobs into 13,000 nearly identical marble-sized orbs you hear it: a random pattering, almost like raindrops. A welcoming scent of sugar hits the senses first.
