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A new wave of ‘adult’ ice lollies is promising to liven up future summers
thanks to a new way of moulding detailed shapes. Jet-stream extrusion moulding
could replace Zoom, Sparkles and other favourites of generations of British
lolly lickers with risque lines including lifelike images of Madonna and
other sex symbols.

Sean McKee, a researcher at the University of Strathclyde, says the
new technique paves the way for companies to increase the size of the £150
million water ice lolly market by targeting adults.

‘Just imagine Madonna or Marilyn Monroe on a stick,’ says McKee. ‘We
could get at least half the adult population wanting to lick ice lollies.’
Spaniards have already taken to licking Hot Lips, a red lolly shaped like
a large pair of lips.

Since Snofrut, the first mass-market ice lolly went on sale in 1922,
lolly companies have struggled to improve their moulding techniques. But
until now they have only been able to make blurred shapes. Current production
lines pour flavoured water into crude rubber moulds which are frozen and
turned inside out to release the lolly.

Jet-stream extrusion moulding squirts a slush of almost-frozen water
ice into a hard mould at high speed. How the lolly comes out of the mould
remains a trade secret. But Birds Eye Wall’s, a division of Unilever, put
the world’s first extrusion-moulded lolly on sale in Britain this summer.
Boomy, a sort of fruit kebab, is distinctly unsexy, but the company has
more of the new lollies in the pipeline.

‘This is a novel method of making lollies,’ said a company spokesman.
‘But it is still commercially sensitive.’

McKee says one of the biggest production problems for extruded lollies
is structural weaknesses caused by air bubbles trapped in the mould. ‘If
the character’s nose is missing, there will be no repeat sale,’ he says.
For this reason, he has developed a computer program which models the flow
of the jet of water ice as it splashes into a mould. By examining the flow,
engineers can alter the design of the mould to reduce the chance of air
bubbles.

Clarke Foods which makes Lyons Maid lollies is dubious about the value
of the adult market. David Brown, a marketing director, says lollipops are
a family product. ‘What sort of adult audience you would attract I’m not
quite sure,’ he says. ‘We would not want to do anything that was too risque.’