Assembly Line

How jelly beans are made

A jelly bean starts as a soft gel center cast in cornstarch, then gets a hard shell built up in a spinning drum.

stations
6
things upstream
12
raw sources
7
steps from the ground
3

The short version

Jelly beans have two parts. A soft center of sugar, corn syrup and pectin or starch is cooked and poured into bean-shaped dents in trays of cornstarch to set. The centers are then tumbled in a spinning drum while layers of sugar syrup build a thin candy shell, and a final coat of edible wax gives the shine.

  1. Cook the gel centers

    Sugar, corn syrup and a gelling agent such as pectin or starch are boiled together. Tapioca can be included in the mix. Flavor and color are added at the end, and each flavor has its own small adjustments.

    Goes in
    SugarCorn syrupCorn starchWater

  2. Cast beans in starch

    In a starch mogul, bean-shaped dents are stamped into trays of dry starch and filled with the liquid. Starch pulls moisture from the surface while the gel sets.

  3. Let the centers cure

    Trays rest in a warm room until the centers are firm enough to roll around without losing their shape. Extra starch is then shaken and brushed away.

  4. Tumble on sugar syrup

    The centers go into a large rotating pan. Workers or machines drizzle in sugar syrup, which dries onto the beans in thin layers until a soft candy shell builds up.

    Goes in
    Sugar

  5. Buff with edible wax

    Alternating coats of confectioner's glaze and carnauba wax, with beeswax sometimes used too, go into the pan with the finished beans. Tumbling spreads each into a thin layer that makes the shell glossy and keeps the beans from sticking together.

    Goes in
    Carnauba palm waxBeeswax

  6. Sort and pack

    Beans are inspected for dents and blobs, weighed by flavor and bagged. Some factories blend dozens of flavors into a single bag.

End of the lineJelly beans

Worth repeating

  • A Jelly Belly bean takes a week or more to make, because the candies rest three times along the way.
  • The shell-building in the spinning drums makes each candy about 40 percent bigger.
  • In 1910s American slang, a jellybean was a stylish young man with little else to recommend him.

Back to the ground

Follow every input upstream and jelly beans starts as these 7 raw sources.

WaterCarnauba palm waxSugarcaneSugar beetCornHoneycombLimestone

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Keep walking

Soda 5 stations · 22 raw sources Vitamin C tablet 7 stations · 8 raw sources Cotton yarn 6 stations · 1 raw source Tampon 7 stations · 14 raw sources Electric kettle 10 stations · 27 raw sources Corn syrup 6 stations · 2 raw sources

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Sources

Cite this page: "How jelly beans are made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/jelly-beans

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