It is 80 years since the maker of Rainbow Drops and Love Hearts moved to Derbyshire to escape the London Blitz – and it’s still going strong. Steve Brown reports.
MANY readers might be surprised to know that the largest independent, British-owned sugar confectionery business in the UK, which is also still family-owned, is located here in Derbyshire in the shadow of Kinder Scout. On a sloping site in New Mills, between the Peak Forest Canal and the former Midland Railway line between Manchester and Sheffield, located in a former Victorian textile mill, is Swizzels Matlow, the maker of such well-known sweet treats as Love Hearts, Parma Violets, Drumsticks and Fizzers. Yet why are they here? And what’s the secret of their success with some of the longest-running brands, so fondly remembered by so many?…