Love Hearts maker Swizzles features on BBC show

By Matt Atherton

- Last updated on GMT

Swizzles featured on BBC Two's Inside the Factory
Swizzles featured on BBC Two's Inside the Factory

Related tags Bbc

Sweet manufacturer Swizzels opened its doors to BBC Two series ‘Inside the Factory’ last Tuesday (August 23), as the programme explored its Derbyshire-based factory, which produces Drumsticks, Love Hearts and Parma Violets.

Presenters Gregg Wallace and Cherry Healey explored Swizzels’ New Mills factory, which operates 24 hours a day, and makes over a million sweets every day – 12 sweets every second.

The hour-long show described how the company’s 500 employees produced 165M Drumstick lollies and 1.75bn individual Love Hearts each year.

Swizzels md Jeremy Dee said: “We were delighted to welcome the BBC team into our factory in New Mills, Derbyshire. We have been manufacturing here since 1940, and are extremely proud of our British heritage.

‘Making Drumstick chews’

“During their three days with us, Gregg and Cherry rolled up their sleeves and got stuck into pressing Fizzers, making Drumstick chews and wrapping Double Lollies. We gave them a full tour of the factory so they could get an understanding of all the different processes we have in place to produce our huge range of products, from our classic Refresher chew bars and Parma Violets, to one of our more recent creations, Squashies.”

You can watch the programme on BBC iPlayer​ now.

The television show had also visited Kellogg’s Manchester factory​ and Heinz’s Wigan factory​ earlier in the series.

Meanwhile, ‘Masterchef’ ​and ‘Inside the Factory’​ presenter Wallace had also recently filmed for BBC One​ show ‘Eat Well For Less’​. The programme, which aired last Monday (August 22), explored coffee specialist Lincoln & York’s roastery.

Wallace discovered the process of sourcing, roasting, packing and brewing coffee during the TV programme, which aims to help families improve the quality and reduce the cost of their weekly shop.

‘A great honour’

Lincoln & York marketing & communications officer Gina Reay said: “It was a great honour for Lincoln & York to be invited to feature in the BBC One show, not only to have Gregg Wallace and the crew on-site, but to play a part in educating the coffee-loving public on where coffee comes from.

“Gregg’s eyes were well and truly opened to the skill, care and attention to detail involved in roasting coffee and we hope the British public’s were as well.”

The show is available to watch on BBC iPlayer​ now.

Swizzels – at a glance

  • 1.75bn Love Hearts produced every year
  • 24M bags of Rainbow Drops made last year
  • 165M Drumstick lollies made last year

Related topics People & Skills Confectionery

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1 comment

Hygiene and Machine Safety

Posted by David Larner,

Watching the inside a factory program on BBC2 I was pretty amazed to see an operator loading a sweet roller on a couple of occasions without any interlocking or guarding in place.
That coupled with the same operator using un-gloved hands to handle the Drumstick mix lead me to think this is a company on borrowed time before a major accident, despite their years of business.

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