In honour of National Chocolate Week, we thought we’d indulge our sweet tooth and show you how one of our UNIC mini cranes created a Willy Wonka style masterpiece by helping to build the UK’s largest chocolate fountain earlier this year.

Standing in the middle of a busy shopping centre, this chocolatey construction stood at a grand 9.2 metres tall, 7 metres wide and included several pipes and tubes which streams of bubbling molten chocolate ran through. To make sure this musical chocolate fountain was ready for the thousands of shoppers visiting it over the weekend, a UNIC URW-095 mini crane fitted with a searcher hook was hired to help piece together the structure.

One of GGR’s chocoholic crane operators was on hand to lift various sections of the fountain, weighing up to 100kg, into position ready to be installed. With 20 tonnes of liquid chocolate being poured into the fountain, everything needed to be fitted perfectly so there were no leakages. GGR’s team did well at fighting back the temptation to jump in and swim in the chocolate, fortunately there were no Augustus Gloops on this job!

After working through two nights to install the fountain, the mini spider crane came back after a short and sweet weekend to dismantle it again so it was ready to move on to its next destination. UNIC mini cranes have worked on building a number of temporary exhibitions like this one in shopping destinations around the world, including creating a Santa’s Grotto, installing fairground rides and lifting a statue at Selfridges.