By LINDA KELLETT

C-S-E News Staff

CANAJOHARIE — Viscous, hot and flowing like molten lava, a wide sheet of amber-colored candy rolled off the end of a long machine on the fourth floor of the Erie Boulevard Richardson Brands plant last Thursday.

Slowly but steadily it advanced, the thick, undulating sheet folding upon itself on the surface of a wide table beneath. The aroma of mint perfumed the air as gloved hands lifted the hot, heavy mass to a cart and laboriously transferred it to what looked like an enormous taffy-puller.

There, the cooling candy was transformed: changing color and texture, developing a sheen and a rope-like quality. Moved once again, it was flattened and pressed to form thousands of tiny tiles.

While they still needed to “cure,” a batch of Richardson Brands’ pastel-colored soft sugar mints had been formed.

As noted on the company’s website, www.richardsonbrands.com, “Richardson’s signature pillow mints have been cooked in kettles and cured to perfection, almost since their inception in 1893. Thomas D. Richardson first began selling his home-made mints at the counter of a department store in Philadelphia. Richardson and his two sons soon incorporated, and began commercial production of soft sugar mints as we know them today.”

Another time-honored product still in production in the facility once owned by Beech-Nut is Beechies coated gum. As noted in a May 11, 2006 article in the Amsterdam Recorder about the acquisition of the Richardson Brands Group by the company’s current owners, Founders Equity, Beechies were introduced by the Canajoharie-based Beech-Nut Packing Co. in 1936 and acquired by Richardson’s in 1988.

While not every operation in the plant is as labor-intensive as the sugar mint production, everything is on a grand scale: Rows of stainless steel drums churn colorful, candy-coated chocolate candies; and racks of multi-faceted rock candy crystals gleam.

The candies, along with the Gravymaster seasoning sauce, are the bread-and-butter of the Richardson Brands’ company.