Milo is manufactured by evaporating the water content from a thick syrup at reduced pressure. The thick opaque syrup is obtained from malted wheat or barley. The whole process takes around an hour but operates in a continuous mode. At the bottom of the box the varying sized chunks of soft solid, from fist size to fine powder, fall from the last conveyor into an airlock where they are brought back to atmospheric pressure. The solid is introduced into a hammer mill where it is broken up into the final granular form.
The hygroscopic granular powder is packaged by filling cans from the "bottom", because the "top" end has been previously fabricated with an aluminium foil seal beneath the lid. The cans then have the tinplate bottoms affixed by a roll seam and the paper label is applied to complete the product. Some other chocolate drink bases, such as Ovaltine, are made by similar processes.