Chocolate Depositor

This depositor was in use at the Hershey chocolate factory from 1906 until it was donated to the museum in the late 1970s. Markings on the machine indicate that it was used to make milk chocolate and almond candy bars. A set of two depositors would be used to fill stainless steel bar molds with the semi-liquid chocolate mixture, each machine filling alternate rows on the molds. Moving on the conveyor belt, the chocolate would set into bars as it cooled in the molds on a twenty-minute ride through a "cooling tunnel." The molds were subjected to bumpy vibration as they traveled along the conveyor belt; the vibration helped to remove bubbles and air pockets, ensuring a solid candy bar. Once the chocolate had completely cooled and set, the finished candy bars would progress to wrapping and packaging.

The famous factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania was not the original location of Milton Snavely Hershey's candy-making enterprise. M.S. Hershey had attempted a number of business ventures in Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago before settling back in his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the early 1890s, and opening a caramel candy making company.

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