Jelly Belly Factory

Jill's Journal: Surely no visit to Northern California would be complete without a tour of the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield. The kids were very much looking forward to this one and so were we. It must be the closest thing in real life to Willy Wonka’s place.

The girls quickly bellied up to the bar. Yes, the Jelly Belly factory has a jelly bean bar. Anyone is welcome to try any of their flavors (and all their other candies) for free. Like I said, Willy Wonka comes to mind.

The 40-minute tour takes guests on a catwalk throughout the plant and gives detailed information on each stage of the jelly bean-making process, along with a taste of unfinished Jelly Belly beans from each stage. This is one of the many robots used in production, although the human count is high as well. It’s a huge facility, with what has to be hundreds of thousands of Jelly Belly beans flying through conveyer belts during each part of the process. It’s an impressive, well-oiled machine, to say the least.

Here’s the “curing” room, where Jelly Belly beans rest for 24 hours before going through the final processes. No word on how many jelly beans each crate holds, but the factory turns out 1.25 million jelly beans a day.

The girls loved their tour hats. Even the adults had to wear them. Did you know ancestors of jelly beans have been around since Biblical times? One especially similar confection was called the “Turkish Delight.” The first actual jelly bean as we know it was created in America in the 1800s, but the candymaker’s name has been lost to history.

Apparently Jelly Belly art is a big deal. They were all over the place and certain artists exclusively do Jelly Belly art. One of these portraits takes hundreds of hours to complete. Who knew?

In 1960, a 19-year-old, fourth-generation candy maker named Herman Goelitz Rowland Sr. began making jelly beans. In 1967, the Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, discovered them and eventually wrote a letter to Rowland saying “we can hardly start a meeting or make a decision without passing around the jar of jelly beans.” A few years later, in 1976, a candy distributor approached Rowland with his idea of a jelly bean using only natural flavorings. The first eight true-to-life flavors of Jelly Belly beans were born. The rest, as they say, is history as Jelly Belly is now the world’s #1 “gourmet” jelly bean.

Here’s another letter from Ronald Reagan, this one from the White House. When Reagan became president and his love for Jelly Belly beans became an international sensation, Jelly Belly couldn’t keep up with the sudden demand and fell 77 weeks behind in production. They have since caught up. :)

One of the greatest thrills of the day was learning Jelly Belly has gone completely peanut-free! Not only did they discontinue their peanut butter flavor, but they no longer permit employees to even have peanut butter in the break rooms. With the exception of an isolated fudge-making area, the whole campus is completely peanut-safe. The changeover took place on April 1st, so it just happened. Yay, Jelly Belly!! How wonderful it is to have confidence a product is safe for Madelyn. We are not big candy purchasers, but it’s so awesome to know we can use this in the future. Previously, Jelly Belly beans were on the very UNsafe list due to cross-contamination (they use the same equipment for all the flavors). There were even reports of visitors on factory tours who got very ill from peanut oil in the air on their peanut butter-flavor days. I have a food allergy group in Kentucky I’m part of that is going to be very excited to hear about this positive step. When a major company like this makes such a change, it bodes well for future changes in other companies also. Anyone who has a child who suffers from a severe food allergy can relate to our excitement. Yay, Jelly Belly! They’ve just quit ostracizing a growing segment of the population.