At the M&M's factory: how to produce sweets that melt in your mouth, not in your hands

Most people know and love M&M's candies — tiny multi-colored chocolates that, as everyone remembers, "melt in the mouth, not in the hands." But hardly anyone imagines the process of their production. Fortunately, Business Insider journalists recently visited the production of Mars Chocolate North America in Hackettstown, New Jersey, where 50% of all M&M's candies sold in the United States are produced.

Mars Chocolate, a division of Mars Corporation, whose business in the production of sweets, pet food and beverages is worth about $ 33 billion, produces M&M's and other popular sweets, including Snickers, Dove, Milky Way and Twix. The Hackettstown factory opened in 1958. It employs 1,200 people, and the office of the North American division is located here. Mars Corporation was founded by Forrest E. Mars Sr. in 1941. Sweets of its production in 1982 became the first in space.

(20 photos in total)

Source: Business Insider

The sweet aroma of chocolate can be felt even at the entrance to the factory, which is located just a few hundred meters from the Mars Chocolate office in Hackettstown, New Jersey.

When you enter the factory, they ask you to take off all the jewelry. Why does an employee check the nails of visitors for the presence of varnish. This is done so that the chipped varnish does not get into the candy. Those with painted nails are asked to wear gloves. In addition, visitors are given lab coats with the inscription "Mars", like all employees.

Guests are also given helmets, safety glasses, earplugs and hair nets.

Anyone who comes to the factory should be dressed like this.

Before entering the workshops, visitors must wash their hands, even if they are wearing gloves.

The factory tour begins with a corridor decorated with colorful drawings of M&M's characters.

The Hackettstown factory produces M&M's with milk chocolate, M&M's Mini, M&M's with peanuts, as well as 21 types of products in different colors and with different patterns.

"Mixing and softening chocolate is very important," says Eida, an employee of the factory. Conching is the first stage of the process when all the chocolate ingredients are mixed.

The chocolate is then sent to normalization, where it is heated to the desired temperature to create the desired shape of M&M's candies.

Pieces of chocolate move through cooling tunnels before they are covered with multicolored glaze.

Here visitors can taste the freshest M&M's in the world.

As soon as the candies cool down, they are given color. This process does not tolerate haste.

The color is applied slowly until the candy gets a bright shade.

Brand colors are yellow, red, green, brown, orange and blue, the newest color. It appeared in 1995, when consumers voted for a shade that was supposed to replace the light brown M&M's produced since the late 1940s.

For M&M's with peanuts, nuts that are brought to Hackettstown mainly from the southeastern United States are fried first. Then they are poured with chocolate in three layers to achieve the desired ratio.

Millions of M&M's candies are made here every day. The factory, with an area of approximately 42.7 thousand meters, is very noisy and odorous. The sweet smell penetrates the fabric. At first it may seem pleasant, but, according to the employee, as soon as you come home, it seems that it smells like sour milk.

Most of the process is classified, and in many places they are not allowed to shoot. "For such a small piece of chocolate, M&M's are surprisingly complex. We can't tell all the details of the production process because we want to keep the mystery and magic around the letter "M". Many people want to know how the letter "M" is applied to each M&M's, but it's still a big secret," says an employee of the factory.

As soon as the letter "M" is affixed to all the candies, the batch is packaged and delivered throughout the country.

"M&M's taste exactly the same today as in 1941, when they first started to be produced, and this is a direct result of our concentration on sustainable and high quality," explains Eida.

It takes 10-12 hours to produce M&M's packaging from start to finish.