Even before walking through the door, visitors to Thomas Tunnock Limited know they’ve arrived somewhere special. Firstly there’s the location, slap-bang in the middle of the small South Lanarkshire town of Uddingston, an unlikely home if ever there was one for such a National Institution as the Tunnock Teacake.

Then there’s the rich, sweet aroma of chocolate mingled with that of caramel which gently enwraps the building. It’s a magnetic, mouth-watering fragrance that’s impossible to pass by without a lick of the lips or a quiet ‘mmm’ under the breath.

But most of all, it’s the little sign above the reception door that gives it away. ‘Still a Family Business’ it proclaims boldly – defiantly almost – just in case you were wondering. And, over the years, many have wondered. In fact, it’s not a bad question. After all, here is an immensely successful firm with 115 years of history under its belt – all of which have been achieved under the stewardship of its founding family. Many other owners would have cut-and-run by now, reaping a personal fortune and retiring gracefully to a beach somewhere to enjoy the fruits of their labours. But that’s just not the way the Tunnocks operate.

Step inside and you begin to see why. If ever there was a business that has had the heart and soul of its owners and workforce poured into it, then this surely is it. The firm’s reception area isn’t actually so much a reception as a living museum. But more than that, it’s a museum of the people – the people who have worked tirelessly over the years to help establish the name of Tunnock on the international confectionery stage and then go on to develop a reputation envied the world over.

It all began way back in 1890 when Thomas Tunnock plunged his life savings into a baker’s shop and began producing bread rolls at sixpence a dozen for the coal miners of Uddingston. Thirty years later Thomas’s son Archie inherited the business and set about the task of developing the family firm. By 1940 he had expanded the bakery, along with a separate catering service, to the point where he was looking for a new challenge.

Focus
As a shrewd master baker, he decided to focus on products others found hard to produce with consistency, a move that gave birth to Tunnock’s Chocolate Teacakes, Chocolate Caramel Wafers and Snowballs. A decade later, the success of these new lines necessitated a move to larger premises and the bakery transferred to its present, and now much extended, location.

Over the years, the number of product lines continued to increase. Caramel Logs, Wafer Creams, Chocolate Caramel Wafers, (milk or plain), …the list goes on and on. Although the raw ingredients for these are sourced from many locations around the world, all preparation, mixing and cooking is done in-house in Uddingston. In terms of scale, suffice to say that Thomas Tunnock now employs 700 workers and delivers more than four million Chocolate Caramel Wafers alone every week.

In deference to its long and distinguished past, a large red sign on the wall declares the company to still be a bakery – although, in truth, it is much, much more than that today. Indeed, in searching for words to describe the place, it’s hard not to draw a comparison with that other well-known and universally-loved confectionery establishment. And rather like Willy Wonka’s, Tunnock’s factory is alive with confectionery.

Surprisingly, the production area is spread over four floors. This means that Tunnock’s own-recipe chocolate, which is produced on the ground level at a rate of 15 tonnes per day (just about enough to fill a six-wheel tipper!) has to be pumped upstairs through a system of pipes which run up and around the walls, snaking around the building like arteries carrying the company’s cocoa-enhanced lifeblood.

On the mezzanine floor, 40 tonnes of caramel is produced daily to the firm’s own top-secret formula. As it slithers off the end of the line it is cooled and gathered in to trucks which are then spirited away to the caramel-wafer laminating plant.

The wafers themselves, (again, made from a jealously-guarded batter mix), are produced on conveyors and roll continuously from their ovens in great 40 x 30 centimetre slabs. As they are transported across to the awaiting caramel, they pass close by a production line where an endless army of marshmallow snowballs march through waterfalls of molten chocolate en route to their passing out parade in the despatch department.