How long is the longest stick of rock?

The biggest stick of rock ever recorded was made in Blackpool, which is about as fitting as it gets.

The record breaker

On 6 December 2000, the Coronation Rock Company made the largest stick of rock on the Guinness World Records books, at its factory in Blackpool, Lancashire. It weighed 424.5 kg and measured about four and a half metres from end to end, roughly the length of a family car. Its circumference was 1.14 m, which makes it about 36 cm across.

The recipe was the same as an ordinary stick, just scaled up: 67% sugar and 33% glucose syrup. It took 12 people 24 hours to make.

How that compares with a normal stick

An everyday stick of seaside rock is usually 20 to 25 cm long and 1 to 2.5 cm across. Blackpool rock tends to be chunkier, at least 2.5 cm thick, and for special shop displays it can be made up to 17 cm across and 2 m long. The record stick was roughly twenty times the length of the one in your holiday bag.

The weight gap is even bigger. Weighed out in the 100 g scoops we use for pick and mix, 424.5 kg comes to 4,245 scoops.

Why rock can be made so long

Rock starts life as one big, warm batch called a boiling, usually too thick for a person to get their hands around. A sugar boiler then spins it out, stretching it along a long flat slab while rollers keep it round, until it is thin enough to cut into sticks. The letters run through the whole boiling from the start, so they survive the stretch and shrink with it. There is more in how seaside rock is made and how the letters get into rock.

Where rock comes from

Rock is sold at seaside resorts all round Britain and Ireland, from Brighton and Scarborough to Llandudno and Blackpool, and lettered rock is usually credited to Ben Bullock, who sent a batch to Blackpool in 1887. The full story is in where seaside rock comes from.

If you like your sweets supersized, the biggest gobstopper is quite a story too: see the biggest gobstopper ever made.

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