Sweet Success For Larne Firm's Candy Floss Maker

An innovative fresh candy floss vending system from Co Antrim is to sweeten US consumers with a deal to supply major restaurant and entertainment centre operators.

Larne-based Intermatic Manufacturing - and currently employs four people - has won a series of contracts with new customers such as Dave and Buster’s, an operator of around 60 upmarket entertainment complexes, from Dallas.

The latest contracts, worth more than £500,000, for Intermatic's automatic coin operated system follow the company's participation in a major trade exhibition in Florida, which was supported by Invest Northern Ireland's Trade teams in Belfast and Boston.

The vending system, designed and manufactured in Northern Ireland, is fully automatic and has unique features including a patented moistening process that enhances product quality, bio-degradable paper sticks and global mobile comms technology, for remote management and monitoring of individual machines.

The system was developed by David Hawthorne, Intermatic's Managing Director, an electronics engineer with international companies including Texas Instruments, who set up the business in 1997 to design games and other entertainment industry products.

"I began working on the machine about five years ago and produced a prototype for a trade show at Earl's Court in London earlier in the year.

"Feedback was excellent and a number were ordered by major operators, it was this success which encouraged me to explore opportunities in the US, the world’s biggest market for candy floss, or cotton candy as it is known there.

"Our machine, I am convinced, is currently the only one of its type in the world." said Mr Hawthorne.

Intermatic Manufacturing has also supplied machines to Kuwait and New Zealand and has received enquiries from the Far East. UK customers include Odeon Cinemas, Butlins and Alton Towers.

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