Taffy and other soft candies are hard to cut. They are stretchy so they need to be cut and torn to cut into pieces. That is what this machine does. The taffy or caramels are fed in from one end, cut with the big knives that only touch the candy to cut it (avoiding sticking) and then the brass fly device in the front spins and tears the candy. At this point we are concentrating on hard candies, so this machine has not yet been used, but we hope to go there at some point. This machine came from a candy shop in Michigan.