This film was made by Yorkshire Television in the 1970s and offers a valuable insight into the production of one of Rowntree/Macintosh's most famed products: Smarties. Title - Yorkshire television. Colour production. Title - My World. Title - At the sweet factory. The film opens with an elevated shot of the Rowntree/Macintosh Factory and York stretching out in the background, and particularly visible is the Minster. A presenter gives a piece to camera; first he opens a packet of...

This film was made by Yorkshire Television in the 1970s and offers a valuable insight into the production of one of Rowntree/Macintosh's most famed products: Smarties. Title - Yorkshire television. Colour production. Title - My World. Title - At the sweet factory. The film opens with an elevated shot of the Rowntree/Macintosh Factory and York stretching out in the background, and particularly visible is the Minster. A presenter gives a piece to camera; first he opens a packet of Smarties, taking some of the chocolates out, and then he declares that he wants to know how these are made. The next shows a container filled to the brim with Smarties and the voice over states that we are going to see how they are made - right from the beginning. The presenter does another piece to camera and he is now wearing white overalls. He talks about the main ingredient of Smarties: cocoa, which he pulls from a sack and holds up for the camera. Cocoa runs down a conveyer belt and the voice over adds that the cocoa is on its way to be roasted. There is then a shot of a roasting control unit, which is used to operate the various ovens that roast the beans. A machine with several rollers is then captured by the filmmaker; it crushes the cocoa bean which contains the all-important cocoa. A mechanical mixer is then shown whisking the chocolate and milk, which the voice states is done until the mixture is perfectly smooth. The chocolates are then poured onto freezing cold rollers that have Smartie sized moulds. The chocolate has now been moulded into the correct shape and travel down another conveyer belt; the voice over remarks that they are called chocolate centres. The chocolate centres are put into a mechanical mixer and the ingredients to produce a white coating are added. Colouring is then added; the filmmaker captures shots of a worker scooping up red colouring and dropping it in the mixer, where it turns chocolate centres red. There are shots of other colours of Smarties - all mixing - and then the Smarties are all mixed together and travel down another conveyer belt. The following sequence shows the packaging process, which is all down by an automated machine. The correct weight for a single packet of Smarties is dropped from above into packets below, which move down the line thanks to a conveyer belt. The packets are then wrapped by mechanical arms pressing the wrapping together. The finished product is pushed out at the end and put into boxes by factory workers. There are also shots of the finished tube style packaging. Cutting away from the factory, the Rowntree train moves down a track carrying the Smarties. The final piece to camera from the presenter tells us that almost 40 million sweets are made every day. Credits roll over shots of the workers exiting the factory site. Title - Yorkshire Television. Colour production.