Wilbur’s Chocolate Factory

On our four-day trip to Freeport we went on the Wilbur’s Chocolate Factory Tour.  This is an on-the-factory-floor-samples-off-the-line kind of factory tour!

I didn’t include this tour with the last blog because I wanted to write a blog just on this tour.  I appreciate companies that offer tours and encourage you to take “all the pictures you want.”

While we waited for the tour to begin, we walked around the large gift shop, ate a few samples, and scoped out future purchases.

These are chocolate covered blueberries.  During the tour we got a sample right out of the tumbler, before the shiny coating was added.

This is a very small company.  They have 3 stores.  One of the stores is only opened for a few months during the summer season.  LL Bean is a big customer and today we watched the employees making smores-on-a-stick that LL Bean will be giving away during a promotion.

These marshmallows are waiting to be covered in chocolate and nuts.

It's very hands-on time-consuming work.

Wilbur’s buys their chocolate in these 50-pound blocks that they break up and melt.

They make all the usually candies here.  We saw large boxes of pre-made foods such as Oreos, graham crackers, pretzels, etc.

This machine covers (tops and bottoms) all the pre-made foods along with the other covered candies (such as Needhams).

Covers the bottom

Covers the top

They also make the types of chocolate bars that are formed into various shapes.  The chocolate moose is the most popular.

At stops along the tour we were given much appreciated samples.

Remember our chocolate covered blueberries?

This machine rotates the blueberries with the chocolate until the chocolate is firm enough to hold the round shape.  Blue dye is added to white chocolate and is added on top of dark chocolate.  Our guide reached in a grabbed a few handfuls for us to sample.

After tumbling around in this machine, the blueberries are moved to another machine that sprays on the shiny coating.

We bought a few things and each received a 6-pack of candies for taking the tour.

So far my favorite have been the dark chocolate covered animal crackers, although the malt balls are also wonderful, and of course, the Needhams are to die for . . . .

This is a great little candy shop and worth a stop if you’re ever in Freeport, Maine.