BBC News, Manchester<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The boss of the biscuits factory where McVitie’s chocolate digestives have been made for the last 100 years reckons people have always eaten them incorrectly.<\/p>\n Anthony Coulson, general manager at the company’s chocolate refinery and bakery in Stockport, said the teatime staple was originally meant to be eaten with the chocolate-covered side facing down.<\/p>\n “It’s the world’s most incredible debate, whether you have the chocolate on the top or the chocolate on the bottom,” mused Mr Coulson, who admitted he was a chocolate-on-top man. <\/p>\n The factory opened in 1917, with the chocolate digestive launched eight years later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n About 80 million packets are made every year, with all of the chocolate made in Greater Manchester. <\/p>\n Mr Coulson told BBC Radio Mancheste<\/a>r: “One of the very first things I learnt when I got to join McVitie’s was chocolate side down to eat the digestive.<\/p>\n “Now up until then I’d always eaten it the other way round…You can do it exactly how you want to do it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mr Coulson said the theory was “it starts to melt, you start to get the flavour and away you go”, adding: “It makes sense, right?”<\/p>\n The chocolate digestive was launched about a quarter of a century after the plain variety, whose name was inspired by the belief that the baking powder in the recipe would help with digestion. <\/p>\n Its creation came two years before one of the food manufacturer’s famous creations, the Jaffa Cake, which itself has become something of a confectionery conundrum<\/a>.<\/p>\n And although people might think of the chocolate digestive as being topped with chocolate, the company has said that as the plain biscuits pass through a “chocolate reservoir”, the chocolate actually coats the underside of it. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lynn Loftus, who has worked at the factory for 36 years, called the biscuit “timeless”, adding that she thought it would be around for many years to come.<\/p>\n Craig Leech, who has worked at McVitie’s for 21 years, started off in the factory by putting the chocolate on top of the biscuits.<\/p>\n “I just come in with a positive attitude. I know the people and the products inside out,” said Mr Leech, who is now a planning manager for the refinery.<\/p>\n Alix Knagg, who has been working there for six months, said the chocolate digestive was “still a great product 100 years on”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Getty](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/02ec\/live\/ac2b75c0-20ee-11f0-8451-0101bb35273b.jpg.webp\")
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