It sounds like something straight out of Willy Wonka: two workers had to rescued after they did what Under The Counter referred to as an ‘Augustus Gloop’ and fell into a vat of chocolate.
The unfortunate incident occurred at Mars Wrigley’s factory in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania – a sleepy burg of around 12,000 inhabitants best known for its animal feed plant and Masonic retirement village. We think that’s two separate institutions, although UTC darkly suggested someone was grinding down expired funny handshakers and selling them by the sackful to farmers.
Back at the chocolate factory, the workers in question were not Masons, nor indeed Oompa Loompas, but a pair of hapless subbies hired to do some cleaning and who weren’t given proper instructions. Something like: “Here’s a brush. Watch you don’t fall into the chocolate. We’ll probably have to chuck some of it out if you do.”
It turns out binning a few hundred gallons of liquid Galaxy – or Dove as it’s branded in the States – was the least of Mars Wrigley’s problems. It took over 20 rescuers to extract the chocolate-coated cleaners in a process that left a workie-shaped hole in the vat.
The US health and safety bods took the matter a tad more seriously than SLR is. In fact, their official report labelled the incident as “serious”. Seriously.
They also hit Mars Wrigley with a $14,502 fine, which is probably just a drop in the (now ruined) big chocolate bucket to the global confectionery giant.
The saga also prompted the Auld Boy to wonder how many hungry American tourists have wandered into a British shop looking for a bar of chocolate and come out with a bar of soap.
