What it is like to make Australia’s most famous biscuit – the Tim Tam
It’s Australia’s favourite biscuit and the Saturday Telegraph has been granted a rare insight into how the Tim Tam comes together before it hits the shelves.
NSW
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Roughly every 30 minutes, 67-year-old “Nana” Luu eats a Tim Tam. With eyes like a hawk, she watches as streams of chocolate biscuits fly in front of her before snapping up a biscuit.
In another room, just a few metres away, Varol Koysu looks over 800 litres of liquid chocolate. Every so often, he pops a small mould into the vat, pulls it out, waits for it to harden, pops it into his mouth. Delicious.
Some call it heaven, and dieters might call it hell, but for those who work at Arnott’s, home of Australia’s iconic biscuit – the Tim Tam, tasting an endless stream of chocolate is simply called work.
It’s one of the perks of the job when you work at the Tim Tam factory.
Most will smell the Arnott’s factory before they see it. Overlooking the M4, the towering factory became a staple on the freeway. When the wind is just right, drivers with their windows down will catch a whiff of freshly baked biscuits.
Over 24 hours a day the factory churns out more than four million biscuits. That’s 60 biscuits a second, 3000 biscuits a minute and an astonishing 36,760 packets. And behind every single biscuit is an Australian who makes the magic happen.
Frank Orlando is an Italian operator who has worked for the company for over 42 years. He’s eaten roughly 153,000 biscuits over his career.
It’s this very reason that the sprightly worker starts every shift with a walk around the Huntingwood bakery.
“I’ve got to look after my heart, with all those Tim Tams,” he laughs.
Then there is Sathasivampillai Sandrakumar, head mixer. Affectionately known as Kumar, he proudly shows us his computer, where he inputs the exact measurements, watching as more than 10,000kg of flour and 25,000kg of chocolate combine to make a rich, thick, gooey dough.
At this point, the biscuit is no more than cake batter. Two hours later, it will be a fully formed Tim Tam.
The Saturday Telegraph gained a golden ticket inside the elusive chocolate factory to see how the magic happens.
Since it’s creation in 1958 the humble Tim Tam has taken on many flavours – coconut cream, Turkish delight, espresso martini and caramel brownie – though the most popular will always be original.
Some have since faded from memory (farewell Kensington Pride Mango and Cream), and others, like the Vegemite Tim Tam, have been little more than a publicity stunt. Long before the factory, new variants are made in the kitchen. A tiny, minuscule version of the one kilometre factory line, where a group of small, dedicated chefs pour their heart into the next Tim Tam creation.
Among them is Vera Di Giandomenico: Senior Research and Development Manager, also known as the Tim Tam maker.
It’s here in this small kitchen that the mum of two imagines and creates wild Tim Tam flavours – including the controversial vegemite Tim Tam. It’s a far cry from the heavy machinery and clanking of the factory floor. In the kitchen, it’s just Vera, a piping bag, and her love of cooking.
From the recipe room to the factory floor, the biscuit’s journey is overseen by an army of workers – many of whom are migrants who started at the factory at the same time they created a new life.
People like Nga Luu, whom everyone calls Nanna, a Cambodian immigrant who started working at the factory forty years ago and never left.
She watches over the biscuits, plucking them up, measuring them with a ruler and discarding the duds. Any that fail to meet standards are chucked into a bin to be turned into horse and cattle fodder.
The factory is stark, fastidiously clean and a world away from the chocolate rivers of Willy Wonka. Despite all its sterility, there’s a certain magic in the air.
Maybe it’s the ever-present smell of chocolate or the sugar-induced dopamine, but if you ask manager Greg Farrell, the magic comes from something else altogether – pride.
He has only been at the factory for 18 months but said the sense of family at the centre is overpowering.
“It’s Australia’s favourite biscuit, it’s exciting to work here and to be part of that. There’s a real sense of pride that I am a part of this journey, I truly love the product,” he said.
As he talks, cream master and head of chocolate Varol Koysu nods along, a twinkle in his eye.
“I will never get sick of chocolate – because this is the best chocolate in the world. Why would I get sick?,” he said.
Said chocolate is shipped to the western Sydney factory from Adelaide. Huge gallons of gooey, goodness driven across the border before arriving at the factory.
Here, under the watchful eye of “Cream and chocolate master” Varol, it is poured over the biscuits. He offers us a biscuit.
“Good, right?”
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