Jelly Belly

The first day my mom was in town we made the 45 minute trek over to Fairfield, California to tour the Jelly Belly Factory. We had wanted to do this last summer but our schedule was so packed we never made it over there. This year we made it the first thing on our to-do list.

The tour doesn't accept reservations and we'd been warned that the line forms early and can get very long. The tour is free so a lot of people want to partake in the tour. They give tour participants free jelly beans so that's a plus!

 

The moment you walk into Jelly Belly you feel like you're having fun! They've got jelly beans hanging from the ceiling. They've got a flying jelly bean, they have people handing out samples and they've got the tours getting set up. Not to mention all the chocolate covered products! They've also got portraits completely made out of jelly beans. Thousands of jelly beans go into each portrait! Here's a few they had hanging around...

 

And their all real jelly beans! How crazy is that? They said each one take thousands of beans and hours to make. I'm pretty crafty and patient but wow! I don't know if I could ever make one of these.

After the tour, you can taste test three flavors from their many flavor list.

 I tried the crème soda, root beer and buttered popcorn. Yum, yum and yum!

Clearly I like the buttered popcorn flavor. It's also celebrating it's 25th anniversary of being a flavor! Sadly, no photos are allowed of the actual tour. I may have snuck and took a few but if you want to experience Jelly Belly take the tour! You get to see how the jelly beans are made, polished, packaged and boxed. You get to see real factory workers making the product and other things that Jelly Belly makes besides jelly beans.