Jelly Belly Factory Tour: A Sweet Adventure Awaits!

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The Jelly Belly factory is a popular destination for families with young children. Tita Babie had good memories of it. Anna recommended riding the choo-choo train. Ate Maddie brings her school-age out-of-town visitors there if schedule permits. 

On one of the last warm days of the year, my parents and I took Donan to demystify the Jelly Belly experience. The factory grounds were busy as a fair was going on. We rode the choo-choo train, but it was a letdown after the Tilden steam train experience. We bought a few books about outer space and about Santa Claus in one of the shops. We saw a glimpse of a cultural show.

And then, there was the factory tour. It was worth the visit.

The self-guided tour wound above the production floor. We saw hoppers, packaging machines, conveyor belts, spraying machines, ingredient pallets, and crates and crates of jelly beans. 



The sights all reminded me of my days as a quality assurance supervisor at Antonina Industrial Corporation. I instantly started looking at the ceiling lights to see if they were covered and if there were no spider webs.

To keep the tour interesting, Jelly Belly included interactive exhibits (we smelled a few of the flavours being used there), artwork, historical mementoes (Ronald Reagan loved Jelly Belly jellybeans), and videos of what's going on in each stage of the jellybean production. At some point near the end of the tour, there was an interactive virtual soccer game for the whole family. We then moved to another building to learn a bit more about Jelly Belly's corporate history. Donan was interested in seeing the airplane and the cars so I couldn't really read the captions of the exhibits. Daddy soaked up on the history lesson and was able to give me the gist of it.

Thr tour was short and sweet. A good one for the books.

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