| What's the most disgusting thing that has ever happened during manufacturing? | I remember an employee sneezing into a chocolate mixing tank. 3,000 lb @ $3.20/lb gone. Draining, cleaning, disenfecting, and Rabbi Koshering was another 28 hours. |
| Are you serious about the Rabbi Koshering, I am amazed that kind of practice would still be used today. In an assembly line/mass production based system I would think that sort of thing takes a back seat to speed and efficiency. | Dead serious. To obtain Rabbinical Seal of approval, we follow their guidelines. The biggest reason is the Jewish market share. |
| I assume you took it out of his paycheck? | Of course not. He came to us. We installed a sneeze guard at every operator area where he may come into contact with product. |
| How often is Koshering done? | We deal with Paerve aspects so whenever we go from dairy to nondairy. |
| If/when something like this happens, is there ever pressure above to keep it quiet and carry on like nothing happened? And, I am so so glad you chucked it away! What happened to the person who sneezed? ... @ ~$288,000 ($100 per another answer you wrote about gross sales per production line) and $9600 in raw ingredients, it is a heck of a lot of money to lose (or was it just the $9600 of raw ingredients/no need to shut down a production line?) | $9,600. The production was moved to the weekend so no labor loss. Overhead loss was probably about $4,500. |
| What's your opinion on this practice? We have to pay a rabi to come "bless" our factory once a year, seems very close to an extortion racket. | Absolutely. The market share isn't worth it IMHO. They come in, say you need this insignia on your product or we tell everyone to avoid it. To get the insignia, you have to.pay us X amount, which is then spread to all customers. I try to buy as much non-Kosher as possible. |
| When the Rabbi comes in, does he actually do any checking of the equipment or is it really just a formality? Is there actually any service provided by paying a Rabbi to come in? | We are actually under daily rabbinical supervision because of the protein line being NonKosher due to the type of protein used. They are there to ensure there is no cross contamination. |
| Many people with food allergies (e.g. dairy, shellfish, etc) and other dietary restrictions rely on kosher symbols too. | Today I learned...I honestly didn't know that. |
| It's that idea of "we'll tell everyone to avoid it", it's what makes me think of it as extortion, is it worth it? | I am told that 8% of the sales are from those who only eat Kosher. This makes it worth it financially. |
| As a kosher consumer, I really appreciate being able to tell if I can eat something or not. Why boycott something that's simply helpful to a portion of the US population? | I believe it was just a ripoff. |
| Funniest moment on the job? | We have a tank that feeds a tempering unit, then pipes over the chocolate to the molder. An employee was "pigging out the line". This is where they put a rubber plug in one end of the pipe and drive it through using air pressure. The other side was not opened. An employee went to open it when the pig gut stuck and chocolate exploded on him and the wall had a clear silhouette of him. Funniest thing I ever saw. |
| What was the temperature? | Probably around 110. |
| What is your favorite candy? Do you have knowledge about candy that would probably shock the average consumer? What candy do you dislike? And if you had to eat a food (fully paid for and prepared) for an entire week, what would you choose, and why? | The most shocking thing to me was the concern for allergens. If we run a product that contains peanuts and switch to one that does not, the line is down for an extremely detailed clean for 8-12 hours. In comparison, I worked at a beverage company where changeovers were 20 minutes, tops. |
| This is intriguing to me. I work at a grocery store and people often won't buy items that are made in a facility that processes something they are allergic to. What is the cleaning process like? Is it thorough enough that someone with a mild allergy shouldn't be concerned? | Every part machine, part, belt that came into direct contact with the product and everything that contacted those contact surfaces get washed. All bins are color coded for allergens and replaced. Before a line is restarted, the quality department does 4 allergen protein swabs up and down the line. The line is not restarted unless all four show no trace of allergens. |
| Is that level of cleaning fairly standard in the industry? | I believe so. Now whether the standards are followed is a guess. SQF and BRC certified products will have followed this. |
| I wish I knew which company you worked for. I have to be really careful with gluten in candy (celiac disease, very sensitive) and after I got glutened by a Snickers bar I can hardly trust any candy without it being certified gluten free. Have you ever had certified gluten free chocolate? It's no Snickers, let me tell you. | No. The coatings for our fruit and nut lines are certified gluten free, but our chocolate is not. |
| Did I grow up or did every candybar I used to eat shrink by about 20-30% in the past decade? | Our candy bars are sold based on weight. Instead of increasing price, many companies have opted to reduce size. Our bars remain the same, but we have had to increase prices. Continuous improvement has reduced those increases. |
| How costly would it be for the company if the factory stopped production for say 1 minute? | Each production line loses approximately $11 in overhead and labor for every minute down and about $135 in gross sales. |
| how much has the process been improved in the 18 years you've been there? as in:what has changed, what has stayed the same, how many more candy can you produce now compared to then, etc... | I've been with the company for 5 of my 18 years. The biggest improvements we made involved increasing the speeds of the line and increasing the yield. If we throw away the product for one minute of production, that is $115 in raw materials alone, making yield our most crucial Key Performance Indicator. |
| Do you pay the Oompa-Loompas? | Would it surprise you if my first name is William? |
| You're dodging the question... | I do not sign any checks for Oompa Loompas. |
| What is so secretive about a confectionary company that we can ask you almost anything? What are you hiding??? | I just can't mention the name or customers. |
| Do you (employees) get delicious kick backs? My Uncle worked for a major cigarette company for 30+ years and while he never smoked was given cartons of smokes which he gave away and filled a closet with throughout the years. | We do have employee bars that are defective which are given away. The defects range from not enough inclusion (bar supposed to have 12% peanut may have only 9%) to not being enrobed correctly. |
| Have you ever caught an employee intentionally disrobing his bar? | No. |
| How much better is a snicker bar right off the line? | I can't speak for Snickers, but that's the only way I eat a candy bar anymore. |
| So you guys make Skor at this factory if infact that is your favorite candy bar o.0. | We don't make Skor. Wish we did. |
| Is your name Lucky? | No. |
| What's the inside buzz about posting calorie contents on the outside of packages? From what I understand, the industry decided to do this to avoid regulation--have consumers responded positively? Are companies afraid of a coming health conscious effort? | Yes, our biggest fear is the health activists, but then we also need to change our paradigms and adapt. We now have one line dedicated to protein bars and two others dedicated to fruit and nut based bars. |
| Has a TV Show such as Unwrapped ever filmed in your factory? | There is no eating on the production floor, but I have no issues with a bar being taken from the line to the break room. |
| Do you get to eat anything off the line? I'm sure if you did you would be sick of sweets by now. | No television has ever been at our plant. |
| It's nice knowing your relaxed with employees taking the odd chocolate bar for lunch. Strict rules just ruin morale | Our rules are strict. What ruins morale is not knowing the reasons for those strict rules. |
| People often remark, "It's all made at the same factory anyway." when talking about cheaper home brand alternatives etc. Do you know this to be in anyway true? | False. The same company sometimes, but different manufacturers. A lot of the production that a larger company considers too much changeover time, allergen concerns, Sugar Free, etc...gets moved to a smaller copacker to produce. |
| Now these smaller copackers may make a cheap chocolate bar, turn around and do Ghiradelli the very next shift. |
| 1) Why did did you get promoted? | I got promoted because of influence. When people say it's who you know, they are partially right. Bosses hate jerks. Make it a joy for them to approach you rather than have them think talking to you is a necessity. |
| 6) can you alter the product mix on a line? Such as Change settings/ machinery to produce something different. 8) does the product taste like unicorn rainbows hot off the line? | Our product is mixed before it hits the line, so the rest of the settings are standardized. There are ranges an employee may work within before needing to get maintenance involved. |
| 8 never tried unicorn rainbows |
| Can you describe (in as much detail as you're able) the general properties of the chocolate that coats most non-chocolate-core candy bars? It seems to be a chocolate quite unlike what you'd find in a majority-chocolate bar. Is it chosen for melt resistance, ability to hold form, or what? | First thing depends on the coating. Some are chocolate, some are chocolate flavor coatings. |
| The biggest thing we look for is the temper. This doesn't affect the flavor, except psychologically. The temper melts down the crystals which then reform on the outside, making chocolate have a crystal skin. Badly tempered bars don't shine and bend, don't break. Coatings are used because the tempering process is eliminated. |
| I'm an engineer in a chocolate factory here in the UK, given your products...I'd say we work for competing companies. Question is, in the US who is king in a factory; engineering, quality, safety or supply chain? | Unfortunately, supply chain...easily. |
| Interesting to hear, I'd say quality control over here, though I find the biggest arguments I have are with supply chain. | QC may have been the case 5 years ago, but as we got our processes under control and shipping charges raised considerably, Supply Chain is now our King. |
| Have you ever witnessed any form of disruption or manipulation to your products by employees? | No. Not one time. I believe the employee engagement processes we have in place allowing our employees self autonomy and mastery at their positions in addition to a profit sharing program eliminate this issue. |
| This sold me... you guys rock. I want to work there now =) | Link to www.youtube.com |
| What's your story for successfully climbing the ladder that well? | Reading and then utilizing what I read. The single most important book anyone in any field could ever use is How to Make Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. |
| Why not bite? | Personal preference. |
| Is your real name William Wonka and if it isn't, would you change it to William Wonka for charity? (Redditors get ready to reach into those pockets). Just saying, it would be a MASSIVE publicity stunt for your company. Bet the papers would love it, nudge nudge. | Wife said absolutely not. |
| Would you consider another wife that would say absolutely yes? | No. I've had this one for years. |
| Does your wife hate charity? Is that it? She hates charity? | Who is Charity? |
| Do you ever get any dead animals (bugs, rat bits, etc) in candy and the whole batch has to be thrown away? | That hasn't happened yet. We did get a batch of honey we use on a bar that had bees in it once, but that was disposed of before we used it. |
| Snickers seemed more chocolatey back in the 90s, now it kind of just tastes like sugar and caramel and nougat. Who's responsible for this?? | I can't confirm Snickers formula, but a bar we run similar to Snickers is 35g of core and 10g of chocolate. I would think they use a similar one. |
| In relation to the original question you commented on, what other odd things might slip through the production line? I remember seeing quite a few posts with bags of Doritos containing nothing but a huge nugget of spice powder. Anything happen like that with confections? | Not really. We just had a Cherry Almond Chocolate bar sent back lacking Almonds and had to recall two pallets of it. Thats about the worst of it. |
| What do you do when it's a defect like that? Remelt and put the almonds back in? Or let everyone in the factory help themselves to them, until nobody ever wants to taste cherry chocolate ever again? | Remelt and add almonds. Problems with this is maintaining a correct temper. |
| Favorite Candy? | Skor, easily. |
| Have you frozen them and eaten them that way? If not, you're missing out. | Yes, I always end of with a toffee bar. |
| How often do the workers steal candy and what happens if they get caught? | The two immediately firable no questions asked rules are gossiping and stealing. Yes, both have happened. |
| Gossiping we consider to be complaining to people who can't fix the issue you are complaining about. |
| I can understand firing someone for stealing but the gossiping rules seem overly harsh and kinda contradicting to the companies view on employees being a valued asset. | Attitude is huge. Every employee is told the gossiping policy and what we define gossiping as. This actually is a relief for all the employees as negative words are rarely said. |
| What happens if manager X doesn't properly address the problem? Can't mention the problem to a fellow employee? That actually sounds like an anti-union tactic, to be quite honest. | We have an open door policy. If your first supervisor did not fix the problem, advance it to the next level. Why is this anti union? |
| Can you share the policy? | "Any employee complaining to other employees who are unable to rectify the complaint may be subject to immediate termination upon the discretion of management." |
| Because employees ought to be able to grumble to one another. What constitutes gossip exactly? | Employees can grumble...to those that can fix the issue. |
| Do you ever get tired of candy? | I get tired of the smell of chocolate. One does not simply get tired of candy. |
| What are your thoughts on Watermelon Stretchy and Tangy Laffy Taffy, the kind with edible seeds? Edit: Are there any out of production snacks/candies that you miss? | I have no experience with those. Our company does chocolate molding, sheeting, and extrusion processes. |
| Specifically, which confection items does your facility make? Also, how many of each do you produce each day? | We produce about 200,000 of chocolate bars per day, 600,000 bars of our fruit and nut based bars and about 250,000 protein bars. |
| Really astonishing you make so many more "healthy" bars. Does that reflect the industry in general or just your plant? | Just our plant, but I think it will be a growing trend that Hershey and Mars will lead in at some point. |
| Glad to see you followed up on my AMA suggestion! Figured it would be well-recieved. :) I'd like to know about the general proportions of product over the years - no specifics necessary, just general trends. Has your plant always done protein bars as part of their production, or is that a more recent thing? What kind of shifts in production or demand have there been over the years? | We had 4 lines where we did three molding lines and 1 fruit and nut line. Over the course of five years, we took a molding line out, added another fruit and nut and added a protein bar line. I cant say for sure, but I think this will be a trend for most confection companies. |
| Why do kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch? and why is twix so damn good? | I know one thing we do is try to get to a certain weight in all our bars yet keep pricing constant. I'm sure Twix does the same so to make up for the light and cheap cookie core, I would bet they use a higher quality chocolate. |
| Where can i get that cookie core to munch on at home | Not a clue |
| How does one manufacture a shiny, rounded chocolate like a chocolate covered almond? They don't show lines as they would if moulded, and there is no flat spot as they would if dipped and cooled on a surface. Are they tumbled? | The product goes through a mesh belt with a waterfall of chocolate raining down. As it continues, the excess chocolate gets blow off and the chocolate hardens around it. |
| If I have you co-pack 100k of 2oz brownies with horizontal preprinted wrap and I'm paying for the ingredients, how much should I expect to pay per piece for your compacting services? | I would expect to see your costs to be appx $.12 per bar. This is assuming they get packed into 1.5lb displays and cased as 6/12s. |
| Do most copackers offer nitrogen injection vacuum packing or is that too much of a specialty process? | We have experimented with nitrogen vacuum sealed wrapping, but it is not a service we currently offer. |
| To your knowledge, how often is a given recipe (for something like a Snicker's bar) notably changed, and for what purpose generally? Are the occasional differences in taste just a product of my imagination? | The specifications of our bars are reviewed and tweaked twice a year based on ingredient pricing for newer products, but the consistency is always more important in keeping a popular brand popular. |
| Does your business card say "Candyman" on it? | No, but I did change the first name from Bill to Willy. |
| How much do you make? | With bonuses I grossed 55k. |
| An analyst programmer (someone with a 4 year bachelor's degree and 3 years XP) grosses $65k a year in Florida, and that's on the low end. You are a manager, ask for a raise man :) | My boss takes care of me. |
| You are underpaid for the food industry. By 20 to 40% | I am overpaid for my education level. |
| How much of it is automated and how much manual labor is there? Is the machinery customs built or off the shelf? | The machines for the most part are stock then custom fitted to our needs. |
| Labor is higher as a lot of bars are handpacked into displays and cups into trays, but automation is coming in the future to our plant. |
| Do your workers steal a lot? | We've fired two people for theft since I have been there. One was not product related. |
| I got this vision of an employee trying to smuggle out blocks of raw chocolate in his trousers. I laughed. | Not raw. Processed. |
| Why is some chocolate much, much cheaper than others? What accounts for the difference in quality--ingredients/production? | One is cacao content. Two is fat % in the cream/milk used. |
| I can't believe this hasn't been asked yet: Are you the favorite house for Halloween? | In the neighborhood, yes. |
| Great AMAA, but I have to ask. Proof? | I will need to provide some tomorrow when I get back to work. |
| Wait, how does labeling not save you from lawsuits? If the company has informed the consumers, any suit like that should be immediately dismissed from court, right? Like, if I'm allergic to eggs and eat a product that is labelled as containing eggs, I can't sue the company that produces it. | Who says you can't? That was the FDA letter to us in a nut shell. The court did throw out the case, but the FDA states proper labeling does not protect you from liability. |
| How useful is this type of feedback to you, and is there a threshold of consumer complaints that you ignore? eg I would say mine was a medium level issue, and maybe a mishapen bar is minor, and foreign objects is major. | Now, a response stating the corrective action taken to the consumer never dawned on me, but I will be talking to my quality department about doing it today. |
| As the type of person who will complain about something simply to help the business out, I would hugely appreciate knowing my complaint solved a problem somewhere. | Update, we have instituted this. A response letter specifying the corrective action taken. |
| Do you have any books or online resources you'd recommend for learning about continuous improvement/lean mfg? Was your shop focused in that direction before you started working there or did you get to see the process change yourself? | The Toyota Way Series is your best bet. |
| Lean was a foreign concept here when I started. |
| How was the transition? | Rough at first. I converted it 5% at a time as I involved every employee (8 different ones each group) into a kaizen every week for 6 months. After this exposure to it, they were pushing for change quicker than I could provide it. |
| This is really interesting. Thank you. Let me ask you a few things. How much of working for a really big and known corporation influence your purpose? We are a small factory, I saw this video maybe a couple of years ago and with it convinced management to pay enough so money is not an issue and gave people autonomy, we concluded that purpose was already there. We increased the mean time people stay with us from one year to 3. Now it's clear that the problem is purpose. But we do something a lot more purposefully than making chocolate bars and still people leave because, on their own words a lot of times, they have accomplish mastery and there's nothing more to learn, which by itself is ridiculous because I have been in this business for the last 23 years and I still devote a lot of my time everyday to understand it. So my last question is, How do you help your subordinates to find and/or understand the purpose in your job? | Our purpose is to be the best in North America at what we do, period. |
| We have a low turnover rate, but those that leave as in your case, should be thanked and encouraged. It is a loss, but they achieved what their personal goals were. |
| Vegan here - what the hell is the purpose of milk protein or lactose as ingredients in confectionary? Surely it can just be skipped? Thanks for doing this AMA! | There are plenty of non-dairy chocolates out there. |
| What is the company's position on the fact that most chocolate in the world is produced by child slaves in western Africa? What are they doing to try and alleviate the problem? | I honestly knew nothing about it before this AMAA. |
| For products that clearly contain peanuts, why does the label say "This product may include peanuts"? Is it on the off chance that candy bar didn't get any nuts? | Never understood that myself. |
| Now the real question is the right twix left twix thing real? | Yes, the ad is for real. |
| Are you a fancy chocolate guy? Or cheap chocolate? I like cheap more, like snickers and mars. | Cheap milk, fancy dark. |
| You seem like a nice guy, but you are asking them to prove it to better themselves to in reality better you in the short term then find another job? There is a integrity issue here. | I believe I pay every employee fairly. If they feel differently, I tell them to get another offer. Usually, I am correct, sometimes I am wrong. |
| Allen Bradley or siemens? | Siemens, but AB has dominated every place I have worked. |
| What chocolates and snacks exactly? | Bars, fruit and nut, chocolate, and protein. |
| Are you gonna be looking for an assembly line engineer or something like that 1.5 years from now? | I can't even predict tomorrow... |
| On average, how much does it cost to make a single candy bar at your factory? | 40g bar would be about $0.38. |
| How many lame Willy Wonka jokes do you hear in a day? | Not as many as on Reddit. |
| Do you guys need any process fans or dust collection? I can get you a deal. | Not right now, no. |
| Why do Chocolate factories smell horrible? I have to walk past the Mars factory in Slough everyday. | Never noticed. |
| Really? It smells quite nice and sweet at first.. then it gets increasingly sickly and burnt. What do you use to heat the chocolate and other ingredients up? | Most of or tanks have a water jacket around them powerpoint them at a constant 115-120. |
| Are you ever given extras of candy when the companies make too much? | No. |
| Does your company employ microbiologists? | No. |
| So there is no R&D for new product? What about the QA process? | We do our own R&D with a contracted food scientist. All lab work is outsourced. The QC is a department head with a minion on each shift. |
| To your knowledge, has anyone pooped on the conveyor belt and had their poop turned into a chocolate bar? | No. |
| Do you approve of the use/abuse of oompa loompa slave labor? | No. |
| Great AMAA man. One of the more informative 'normal guy' AMAA's I've seen in a while. | I really appreciate that. Thanks so.much. |
| One of these accidents seems delicious though and the other seems really delicious. | One had nuts, the other didnt... |
| "This product was manufactured in a facility that also processes peanuts and/or other tree nuts" | Labeling does not save you from lawsuits. The FDA is severely lacking in its regulations on allergens. |
| I'm way behind the curve, but let me say thank you for doing this AMA. It's one of the most interesting things I've seen on Reddit for a long time. | It's amazing because there are so many positions that actually provide meaningful services that sometimes I feel my position is insignificant. |
| Why is the same product manufactured differently for different countries. I'm not talking a bit of difference in ingredients and taste but massive. | That I don't know. I would think the sourcing of the ingredients. We imported Belgian chocolate for some products and Mexican Chocolate for others. The formulas are vastly different, though the actually ingredients may be similar. |
