Behind the Scenes: Uncle Joe's Mint Balls
We take a behind-the-scenes tour of a 126 year old sweet factory in Wigan, to see how the famous Uncle Joe's Mint Balls are made.
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00:00 [Music]
00:04 At the end of an unassuming terrace street in Wigan stands a local legend.
00:09 [Music]
00:13 Since Ellen Santus made her first batch of Uncle Joe's mint balls in 1898,
00:18 the brand has become renowned for their strong mint flavour and distinctive packaging.
00:22 [Music]
00:25 Still very much a family business, it's now run by brothers John and Anthony Winnard
00:29 and the methods and long-standing traditions remain the same.
00:32 [Music]
00:35 Come with us for a look behind the scenes as we discover how they're made.
00:39 We'll try and find out who Uncle Joe is, what King Charles thinks about mint balls
00:43 and how this simple little sweet has stood the test of time.
00:47 [Music]
00:53 Myself and Anthony are the fourth generation of the company.
00:57 So William Santus was our great-great-uncle. He started the company, we say, in 1898
01:03 and then it went down to his nephew who was our grandfather and then to our dad.
01:10 Dad made us both work our way through the company so we both know how to sugar boil.
01:15 One of our proudest achievements is sitting gills in sugar boiling,
01:19 which not many people can say they've got that, so yeah.
01:22 So we work on about 16,000 square feet and we always used to have two floors.
01:33 One was the production area and one was the wrapping area.
01:37 We've changed a little bit where we're going to put all the production downstairs,
01:40 so let's go down and have a look.
01:45 Over there we've got all the sugar that we use, which is, it's sugar cane,
01:51 so it's not beet, it's cane sugar, which is the more healthy sugar for you.
01:58 This is the boiling area.
02:01 So we're cooking on open gas stoves as original.
02:07 Obviously the machine is not original, but the way we cook is,
02:14 we're taking it up to around about 160 degrees,
02:18 which is quite a high temperature for the confectionery.
02:23 So we take it to 160, then we pour it onto these tables.
02:29 Now the tables are water cooled, you can see here.
02:34 So when we pour it on, we can cool the toffee down as quickly as possible.
02:40 We're just putting a release on there now so they don't stick.
02:45 So when she comes up to temperature, we'll pour it on here and then we'll add the peppermint.
03:03 We're actually burning, or what the post chefs say, we're caramelising,
03:10 what we do is we burn it a little bit so you get that, a bit of a caramel taste on it.
03:16 So now we're introducing the peppermint.
03:36 Like gorillas in the mist.
03:42 We get a capillary action where the peppermint makes its way through the product.
04:03 So it's now developing a skin underneath, and Danny will just turn it over
04:09 and we'll get it to a point where we can put it in the forming machine then.
04:28 So can you see how it's formed a film underneath there where it's gone colder?
04:42 It's basic physics really.
04:48 I've been here for eight years, nine years, so I've been here quite a while.
04:53 So basically when it gets poured, I add the flavouring, keep mixing it in,
04:59 it's like you're eating dogs, so you're getting all the ingredients in.
05:02 And then when it gets to a nice plasticine state, I can then put it in the roller
05:07 and it takes it from there, then you make your sweet out of that.
05:12 I don't think there's many of a coldness around these days,
05:18 but I can't think of any off the top of my head anyway.
05:21 So it's still used in old equipment in a traditional way,
05:25 so it's all high-tech and modern in most places now.
05:30 Do all your friends ask you to bring bags of peppermint home?
05:33 Yeah, all the time.
05:35 And it's like, I'll go round the house after work and be like,
05:41 "All right, I know, but I can't smell it now."
05:44 It's like immune.
05:47 All this is done by hand, so when it's ready to go into the forming machine,
05:54 which again, it's all done by sight and feel.
05:59 So all this is heated to keep the toffee warm.
06:16 Then it needs to take it down to the right diameter to go through into the forming head.
06:22 All this is air-cooled, so we're trying to cool it down as quickly as possible now.
06:39 [MACHINE WHIRRING]
06:42 I thought you were looking.
06:45 These are still used to put a coating on the sweets.
06:58 And I would say circa 1950s.
07:07 And it's copper.
07:11 The reason it's warm in here is because we've got to keep the sweets nice and dry.
07:21 So consequently, we have to keep it heated all the time.
07:25 What we're doing is self-feeding it into here, which then drops into pockets.
07:32 And the pockets then are picked up by this rail here.
07:37 The rail then feeds into a six-part jaw system,
07:44 which will cut and seal at the same time.
07:49 So we can run this machine up to about 1,500 a minute if we want to.
07:55 I've been here about five years.
07:57 I started on the cleaning and then come into the factory.
08:00 So I do a bit of everything.
08:03 I love it. I've lost about two stones just running around.
08:06 And every day is different. You're just doing different things.
08:09 Sometimes you don't do a look at the clock and think, "Oh, it's gone. The day's gone."
08:13 So it's good. It's just different things you're doing.
08:15 We're doing these, the bulk bags.
08:17 Then you can do the packing thing. You're setting up that machine.
08:20 I've learned lots of things about the machine and setting it all up and things.
08:24 It gives you confidence as well.
08:26 It's like they're set up in the cleaning bit and then come in.
08:29 Is it better than cleaning?
08:31 Yes.
08:32 Uncle Joe, there's two schools of thought.
08:40 Our grandpa always said that Joe was a friendly term.
08:43 If you didn't know someone's name, you're like Joe,
08:46 and then your favorite uncle bringing you sweets.
08:49 So that's one school of thought.
08:51 The other school of thought was that the Santas were friendly with a family called the Atty family in Bryn.
08:57 And we think that they had a son called Joe.
09:00 I think Mrs. Santas learned how to make sweets off the Atty family.
09:05 And maybe in recognition of changing the recipe and using their ways of making sweets,
09:11 she called them Uncle Joe. So we don't know to this day.
09:16 We treat people who are our workforce as a family.
09:22 And it's not all about getting the full production out of them, you know, the people.
09:29 And we do run it like that. So, yeah, we care.
09:33 We're selling a store as well as a product.
09:36 And you can see from the video that we still make things by hand.
09:40 And it's just the packing side that we've actually speeded up.
09:43 Anything we could do with machines to speed up the process, we have done.
09:48 But we wouldn't like to change the recipe.
09:50 And the sugar we use fluffs up a bit like milk.
09:53 So you can only boil it on open gas fires.
09:57 Most companies vacuum cook nowadays, but then that gives a different flavor to the sweets.
10:02 And there's no hand on. It's all machines that do it.
10:05 So, you know, we've kept it like this for a reason.
10:10 Well, at the moment, we're producing around 33 to 36 different sweets.
10:17 And although the Uncle Joe's is ostensibly our biggest seller,
10:24 and the Winter Nips, all the sort of the usual and tried and tested sweets,
10:31 we try and keep up with the current fads.
10:34 So now we're producing rum-flavored sweets, gin-flavored sweets, cider-flavored sweets.
10:44 Obviously non-alcoholic, just the flavors.
10:48 And people just want to change now and again, which we're quite good.
10:53 And we're small enough to turn it around in quite a short amount of time.
10:57 So we'll try it. If it doesn't work, then move on to the next.
11:02 In 2012, I got my MBE, and Prince Charles presented me with it.
11:09 He said that he really loved old buildings and that.
11:12 So the next day, when I got back to Wigan, I sent a letter to Clarence House saying,
11:18 "Your Highness, if you're ever up in the Wigan area, we'd love you to come in and have a cup of tea,
11:23 and I'll show you around the factory."
11:25 And sure enough, in 2019, we came and looked at the factory,
11:31 and we were celebrating our 100 years.
11:33 So whether that was just coincidence, I'm not sure,
11:36 but he did say that if he ever came to Wigan, he would try and look us up.
11:40 So we gave him a hamper, but also it had a bottle of Uncle Joe's gin as well, for Camilla, for Her Majesty.
11:51 She's known now.
11:52 She's known now, yes.
11:54 [Music]
11:59 you