We visit Teddy Grays in Dudley & discover a familiar, special and traditional sweet taste of the Black Country
When people talk about the tastes of the Black Country and the conversation goes onto the best sweets, there is one place that always seems to come top of the talk.
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Edward Grays of Dudley have been producing and selling a range of hard boiled sweets, all made from a top secret recipe which has been passed down from generation to generation, since the company was founded by John Gray in 1826.
We took a visit to the company as the region celebrates its heritage during the Black Country Day Festival. Teddy Grays has seen five generations keep the traditional method of sweet making alive, with the herbal tablet the original and speciality product, fragrant and with a distinctive flavour that many companies have attempted to copy, but have failed to match.
Using traditional machinery at the production area on North Street in Dudley, the staff work to produce the herbal tablets, as well as other traditional sweets such as pear drops, rock, rhubarb and custard and many other well remembered favourites, all of which have a distinctive taste.
Just walking around the production area, the smell of the sweets is unmistakable, with a warming menthol smell which clears the nose quickly emanating all around, following from production, which runs from around 7am to 11am each day.
The storage area is one filled with a range of treats and sweets, containers full of rhubarb and custard, menthol tablets, pear drops and the rarely made teacakes, a toffee with coconut, with orders set to go out to places such as Cradley, Rowley Regis and even as far as Wrexham in north Wales.
It's also the office of general manager Dave Healy, who has been working at Edward Grays for 38 years and married into the family through his wife Julie, and who said the place was something very special and spoke about how the herbal tablets became the popular product they are today.
He said: "I think they first developed the flavour for the herbal tablets after starting out with herbal candy because it was something you could tip out of the slab and cut by hand into little squares, then they developed it into what we know today.
