Open pans and an operator at every batch
There's no continuous line here. Every batch of sticky toffee, caramel and fudge is cooked in an open pan in our kitchen in Chalgrove, from start to finish.
Three FireMixers, one built in 1969
We cook on three Savage Bros FireMixers: heated open pans with scrapers that sweep the base and sides as the batch cooks.
The oldest was built in 1969 and still cooks for us. They're simple, tough machines, and in the hands of someone who knows them they make caramel the traditional way.
What happens in the pan
Every step happens in our own kitchen in Chalgrove.
- 01
Weigh and load
Sugar, dairy, fats and glucose are weighed out for each batch and loaded by hand in the order the recipe sets.
- 02
Cook in the pan
The pan is heated directly. Scrapers sweep the base and sides so nothing catches.
- 03
Add in stages
Further ingredients go in by stage. The operator watches the colour and texture as it cooks.
- 04
Finish at temperature
Each recipe finishes at a set temperature. The scraper head lifts out and the batch is ready to pour.
- 05
Pour through the sieve
The pan tips and the batch runs through a 6 mm sieve into food-grade pails. The sieve is a critical control point.
- 06
Lid, label and cool
Pails are lidded, labelled with the batch number and left to cool at ambient temperature.
Every pail traces back to its ingredients
Each batch gets its own number. The lot codes of the ingredients that went into it are recorded against that number, so any pail can be traced back to its ingredients, and any ingredient forward to the pails it went into.
Pails then go onto pallets, which are wrapped in Chalgrove and collected by arrangement.
Want to know how yours would be made?
If you're serious about working with us, we're happy to talk you through how your product would be made.