Willy Wonka’s Factory Not Feasible In Real Life, but All Is Not Lost

For decades, Roald Dahl’s concoction of a magical chocolate factory, both in his book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and in numerous film adaptations, has been a source of delight and fantasy for readers and viewers. The factory has fantastical things existing nowhere else in the world — Oompa Loompas, rivers of chocolate, and real-life Candylands to just name a few things. But would such a place be possible in real life? Over a year ago, I produced a Quora answer (one of my favorites) that spelled out how such a fantasy place would not likely be possible in real life. This was much to the chagrin of some readers but a nice analysis for most. For my attempts to transform some of my Quora answers into Medium articles, I am redrafting that analysis here.

In the film, the chocolate river was real chocolate, water, and cream. But it was reportedly bad smelling at the end of filming. Another fact site states a lot of the river was just colored water. Whether more real chocolate or more water, the chocolate doesn’t really look that tasteful either.

And could you actually have a chocolate river with waterfalls? This was the magic that Willy Wonka stated in the earlier film — how his factory was the only one to churn chocolate in this way to produce it as the world’s finest.

In real life, once cacao beans are fermented, dried, and roasted, the nibs of the beans are ground into actual cocoa liquor. But as this picture shows, the cocoa liquor is actually pretty thick like a paste and becomes solid at room temperature.

So yes, seems very difficult to have a “river of chocolate,” which would be continuously flowing like water for miles as depicted in the film.

We could imagine a gigantic fondue fountain, but the chocolate would have to run through temperatures about 32–40 degrees Celsius (89.6 to 104 degrees F) to keep the chocolate in a more liquid state. Alton Towers Resort produced a temporary Mt. Rocky attraction in 2012 that was a 32-foot climbing wall of chocolate with a waterfall flowing down the side at 70,000 litres per hour. This was in effect, a large fondue fountain flowing down the side of the wall, much less liquified than in the film. Below shows the side open to climbing.

Now, it is hard to believe there could be real plants of sweets like in Willy Wonka’s factory. Most often, candy and sweets are artificial. In real life, nature already has provided humans with thousands of different types of fruits and vegetables over tens of thousands of years.

Any sort of artificial sweets garden that has actual living plants would be an extraordinary feat of genetic engineering or synthetic biology, some point humans may not really ever get to. Scientists might argue a more effective and realistic approach would be to alter existing plants’ traits and behaviors which would then yield different results. Of course, humans have already been altering or modifying fruits and vegetables for thousands of years. This has brought us numerous fruits, nuts, and vegetables including oranges, peanuts, and almonds.

So, things even more magical are already provided by nature which humans can alter or modify some. But we really won’t see a “Candyland” like that in Willy Wonka’s factory any time in the foreseeable future.

And what about those fanciful magical products, like a soda that would allow someone to float? Scientists warn that although this might be possible with some extreme gases, it would be highly dangerous. Not only would objects like fans be outside dangers for floaters, but many of the gases that could help humans to float would be extremely harmful or even fatal in the required quantities.

Or what about everlasting gobstoppers? You suck on them and they will forever keep their flavor?

Not possible, many scientists would argue. Sweets break down and dissolve. There could be changes in the confectionery makeup of the gobstopper to lengthen the lifetime of the candy, but in the end, it would always end up losing its flavor.

So most things in the film would not be possible in real life. Just fantasy and imagination would make it possible. And let’s not forget the real world has its own magic and mystery just the same.