Leaving nothing to the imagination

WEARING a purple velvet coat, brown top hat and matching oversized bow tie, Gene Wilder brought to life the fantasies of millions of children across the world.

Escaping to a world of pure imagination, the actor, as Willy Wonka, encapsulated Roald Dahl’s tale of a chocolate factory in the 1971 film with a simple rhyme, singing: “If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it.”

Walking around R&R Ice Cream, in Leeming Bar, near Bedale, North Yorkshire, the creations aren’t quite as outlandish, but the effect is the same. After all, this is Europe’s largest own-label ice cream maker.

The full spectrum of frozen fancies is present across the company’s 14 production lines, which churn out five million litres of ice cream a week.

Ice cream on the production line at R&R Ice Cream

While one delivers thousands of tubs of Morrisons chocolate sundae ice cream, another pours Aldi-branded Cheeky Monkey ice cream into smaller pots.

I’m given the task of taking the packaging from its cardboard box housing and dropping it into the machines.

The lines work quickly, and it takes only seconds for a pot to be filled before it is whisked along a conveyor belt, scanned, and sealed.

The boxes them make their way overhead to be put on a pallet in the loading bay.

Further along, white-coated workers tend to a separate division that oversees orange-flavoured Asda chocolate lollies.

The production line continues in a giant loop, reminiscent of a Wonka invention.

Next, I’m charged with separating the lollies into batches of three, which is how Asda are selling this particular brand.

As they come around the corner, I place them in different sections, which allows them to be put into packaging like an oldfashioned amusement arcade penny pusher.

The Echo’s Steven Hugill tries his hand as a production worker at the plant

But they don’t just disappear under a plastic curtain, they slide from view upwards on a helter-skelter that takes them to waiting dispatch workers and eventually the supermarket freezer.

R&R, which employs about 350 workers, and up to 600 in peak times, holds the licences for a number of well-known brands, including Skinny Cow and Kelly’s of Cornwall.

IT also had an agreement with Great Britain Paralympic team sponsor Mondelez International to make ice cream brands for Milka, Toblerone, Daim and Oreo across ten countries in mainland Europe, and paid £49m to acquire rival Fredericks Dairies and its licences for ice creams and refreshments for Cadbury, Del Monte and Britvic.

Great strides for a firm founded in 1985 as Richmond Ice Cream and initially used equipment from Teesside-based Cardosi to get started.

The drive and determination to keep growing is clear, and you only have to look at its history to appreciate that.

After merging with Leeds-based ice lolly maker Treats in 1998, the company, then called Richmond Foods, bought the ice cream division of Allied Frozen Foods in 2000, before acquiring Nestle UK’s ice cream business a year later for £10m to make and distribute Fab, Mr Men, Smarties, Yorkie and Rolo products.

Chocolate ice cream on the production line

Earlier this year, private equity firm PAI Partners completed a takeover of R&R, and said it would support the firm through its next phase of growth, investing in international expansion of the company and its brands.

Sitting in a conference room, its walls filled with ice-cream packaging, Peter Pickthall, R&R’s group HR director, says the firm has one simple goal – to be the best.

He said: “We aim to be the number one in the European ice cream market.

“We work incredibly hard on manufacturing our products and bring in systems that can improve what we do.

“As a company, we are known as the leading innovator in the market, and we also take great pride in our workforce, many of whom are long-standing workers who have grown up with the business.

“We are in a very good position and hope to use this as a springboard to further consolidate what we do in Europe and expand upon it.”

After helping package R&R’s goods, I’m now given the opportunity to make my own ice cream mixtures in its test kitchen, though I doubt my creations would have Wonka’s rivals sending in the spies.

Armed with brightly coloured sundae glasses and a multitude of confectionery treats and sauces, I’m given three large buckets of vanilla, chocolate and toffee ice cream.

The kitchen has a vast freezer of ice creams, lollies and treats that are tasted and used to develop future products, with peanut butter-flavoured lollies, cookie dough ice cream and Disneyinspired ice lollies brought out for inspection.

My work mixes chocolate with toffee and raisins, sees vanilla doused in strawberry sauce and toffee ice cream hit with a barrage of Hundreds and Thousands.

For me, this is all great fun, but for R&R, the test kitchen is majorly important, with every ice cream that makes it to people’s freezers having spent months being pored over in these laboratory conditions.

Keira Riordan, R&R’s new product development manager, says products can take a long time to come to fruition, because clients demand exact specifications and customers’ choices fluctuate.

She said: “We are already working on products for next summer – the process can take about 40 weeks, and starts when we get the brief.

“It is all about developing the product, constantly checking to see if the flavours are correct.

“There is a strong demand for fun products, with big chunky additives and sauces for that indulgence factor.

“Retro products are also very popular and the success of cooking programmes such as The Great British Bake Off has also seen more ideas coming into ice cream.”

After transferring my work from the table slabs into containers, my day comes to an end.

Taking off the white coat and hair net, Willy Wonka’s notion of paradise is over.

But, just like his fictional heir, I still manage to leave with my own souvenir.

Charlie Bucket got Willy Wonka’s factory, while I had to make do with three tubs of ice cream.

Still, it’s a sweet feeling . . .