For many of us, Roald Dahl’s classic novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—as well as, to a greater or lesser extent, the various movie adaptations—was an iconic part of childhood. It was easy to love the magical, candy-colored world of the factory, and there’s no doubt that most of us daydreamed about how it would be to win that golden ticket and go on the tour of Willy Wonka’s factory.
But as practical-minded adults, the real questions surface: How much exactly would that world of the chocolate factory cost? How much would the Wonka company be worth? How much would the Oompa Loompas get paid?
Below is an examination of every element of Dahl’s story, which was then used to calculate the costs of bringing his world of pure imagination to life today.
Here’s how things add up:
Unsurprisingly, to build and operate Wonka’s Chocolate Factory is extremely expensive. Estimates for the yearly energy costs alone for the factory reach $2 million. If Willy Wonka decided eco-friendly was the way to go, powering his factory using solar energy, it would take approximately 3,221 solar panels to supply about 1,180,692 kWH per year—which would cost a whopping $2.37 billion.
And that’s just the base costs of keeping the lights on.
Throughout the rest of the factory, Wonka certainly spares no expense when it comes to the “wow” factor. At best estimate, the famous chocolate river needs 150,000 gallons of chocolate, which would amount to a staggering cost of $32.6 million (which includes the cost of purchasing and running the pump to ensure the chocolate is flowing).
If Wonka wanted to pull in more food-conscious customers and go for organic chocolate, he would be looking at a cost of $47.1 million to keep the river flowing.
Some of Wonka’s other luxuries, such as the lick-able wallpaper (about $2,600 to cover 653 square feet of hallway) and a golden goose egg (about $6,032 each), are less expensive—but the costs still add up.
Of course, the most luxurious and expensive item in Wonka’s factory (and by far the most iconic image) would be his flying glass elevator, with an estimated cost of about $109 million. This is for when you combine the costs of an average elevator and a low-end market rocket from Lockheed Martin.
However, if Wonka ever wanted to up the ante and go with a premium rocket (for example, Elon Musk’s SpaceX BFR), the glass elevator costs would skyrocket to about $10 billion.
And what about the Oompa Loompas? Thankfully, Wonka takes pretty good care of his trusted employees, spending about $8 million per year on their healthcare and about $73 million per year for their salaries, which average about 50k per Oompa Loompa per year.
Also, if Mr. Wonka wanted to boost morale and treat the Oompa Loompas to Taco Tuesday every week, we estimate it would cost about $25,000 each time (but hey, those guys work hard!).
All told, it appears that Mr. Wonka and his company are looking at a grand total of $224.6 million to keep the factory running each year. These costs may be exorbitant, and there are doubtless a few ways to pare it down—but what fun would that be?
So, after all of these enormous costs to run the chocolate factory, what is the company’s worth? The estimate here is that Mr. Wonka’s company is worth $21.5 billion—which is about on par with the worth of real-life chocolate mogul, Cadbury.
Would you want to work in the Wonka Chocolate Factory? Let us know in the comments!
Interested in the technology being used in real-life chocolate manufacturing? Check out Additive Manufacturing and the Chocolate Factory.