The mint with the hole in the middle turns 75
To many people it’s the refreshing sweet with the hole in the middle but this month sees the humble Polo mint celebrate its 75th anniversary. So, we thought we’d look back at some of the vending machine staple’s most interesting facts and figures.
For example, did you know that the Nestlé owned factory in York churns out 22,000 Polo Mints per minute or the of equivalent of over 32 million single Polo sweets per day or 1.37 million packs alongside KitKats, Aero, Milky Bar and somewhat appropriately Yorkie Bars too!
The man behind the Polo Mint was Rowntree’s confectionery legend, George Harris who was also responsible for inventing the likes of KitKat in the 1930s.
In 1994 the manufacturers changed the recipe for the sweets, making them 13.063 per cent more minty. What most people want to know is, of course, what happens to all the middle bits? The answer, of course, is that the senior citizen of the confectionery world is made that way, with a hole. The pressure that is applied to the mints when they are being formed is the equivalent of the weight of two elephants jumping on them (75 kilonewtons), something to bear in mind if you are a cruncher rather than a sucker.