For those looking to package cotton candy, the traditional horizontal throw machines are still the best choice. Unlike vertical throw machines like the RoboJetFloss, horizontal machines eject and collect floss inside the bowl, which allows for faster production because the operator doesn't have to keep up with spinning the floss on a stick or straw. Instead, you can just wait a few seconds while the cotton candy accumulates in the bowl and pull out a complete serving at once.

A while back we made a video comparing the RoboLabs Monster (our fastest horizontal machine) with a Gold Medal Floss Max simply because it was a machine we had access to in order to make the comparison. Needless to say, he Monster trounced the Floss Max by a wide margin.

Recently we had the opportunity to compare the Monster to the top of the line Gold Medal Tornado, a machine that costs roughly $1,000 more than the Monster. Honestly, we didn't expect the Monster to outperform the Tornado, but did anticipate showing that dollar for dollar the Monster was still a better value.

To make the test fair, we preheated both machines and operated each at the highest temperature possible just short of the point at which the floss would become sticky after being ejected into the bowl. We flossed exactly 2.5 lbs of sugar in each machine, collecting the cotton candy in 55 gallon trash cans. Since floss heads are never really completely empty (there's always some sugar left over) we ran the machines until the floss production tapered down to the point that you would need to add more sugar.

In the end, even we were surprised by the results.

Here's what 2.5 lbs of floss sugar looked like at the end of the test:

That's right, the RoboLabs Monster is so fast it actually out performed Gold Medal's top of the line Tornado which took 79% more time to make the same amount of cotton candy! As proud as we are of our machines, for roughly $1,000 less, even we were surprised at the results!