Candy cutting scissors GIF

[mklotz]

It looks to me that it is fracturing rather than shearing the candy. If the candy is hard like a candy cane then fracturing would make more sense.

Either way, it's effective although I suspect that it would be easy to design a machine to do it. Small candy makers, though, like to use the old ways. I remember salt water taffy pulling machines on the boardwalk in Atlantic City that had patent dates in the 1880s on them.