How are Easter eggs made?
Ever wondered how Easter eggs are made? Cadbury opens the doors of its factory in Bournville, Birmingham, which produces about half the UK’s Easter eggs, 40 million a year. This short BBC film provides a fascinating insight into the process behind the jauntily packaged eggs we devour every Easter.
There’s a surreal fascination in the endless eggs proceeding smoothly along conveyors belts – sometimes marching along in neat rows, later whizzing in single file towards the robot arms that fit the half-shells together with faultless precision. When the egg is complete, it’s wrapped and spun under a roller to smooth its foil. After all this automation, it comes as a surprise to see real people adding the bags of chocolate buttons to each packet.
This mechanical dance presumably continues virtually all year round, even when Easter eggs are far from our thoughts. It’s just one example of the unceasing processes behind all the manufactured food we eat.
(With thanks to the Local Food Research Project, which led to this via its post on the BBC’s film of the workings of the Goodfella frozen pizza factory.)
One Comment
I would love to have seen the ingredients that go into the cadburys ‘chocolate’ mix before the process of moulding and spinning and of course PACKAGING.
I like this site, thanks for cooking it up.
Charles Canburn