The Cadbury Oompa-Loompas
Cadbury is a Britain located confectionery company ranked second best, next to Wrigley’s. The Dairy Milk Chocolate, the Creme Egg and the Roses selection box is what Cadbury is best known for.
They manage to maintain their high standards for quality through intensive laboratory analysis. At the Reading University campus, over 700 researchers are testing the crispiness of biscuits, analyzing the molecular structure of chocolatey aromas and calibrating the crackability of Easter eggs.
They peer into chocolate eggs through electron microscopes to verify the distribution of air bubbles and sugar crystals and they asses the force needed to bite through them.
The technology they use is the same one used in medical science to locate tumors or bone damage. Their tomograph, a smaller but more powerful CT machine, can make pictures that reveals details as small as a 1,000th of a millimeter.
At another machine, other scientists in white coats and goggles monitor the sweets through a chromatography and olfactory machine that distinguishes the individual flavor components.
‘Our machines allow us to gain understanding on a molecular level and then tweak recipes. It's very important to deliver the signature flavor profile,’ states Andreas Czepa, flavor chemist.
Crispiness is another standard in this special lab. A stable ‘micro-systems texture analyzer’ is used to determine ‘texture, hardness, crispness, key attributes especially for snack products like biscuits,’ explains a senior scientist.
$471 millions have been invested into the sweets laboratory only in the last year and, since 2011, 100 jobs have been created.
The results of this extensive research are joyous as the company has tripled its sales since last year.