Inside The Factory

Gregg Wallace follows a load of corn as it becomes Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Gregg Wallace receives a load of corn fresh off the boat from Argentina and follows its journey through the largest breakfast cereal factory in Europe as it is cooked, milled and flavoured to become Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. He discovers how they can produce more than a million boxes of cereal every 24 hours and distribute them all over the UK, Europe and across the globe, as far away as Malaysia. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey finds out about the immunity-boosting powers of vitamin D, which is added to many of our breakfast cereals. One in five of us is deficient in the sunshine vitamin and yet the latest research shows that having optimum levels can potentially prevent you from getting the common cold by up to 50 per cent. Cherry also discovers the effect that skipping breakfast has on our cognitive function - studies show that breakfast skippers perform seven per cent worse in attention tests - and she also follows the production of the nation's best-selling cereal, Weetabix, and learns how every single grain of wheat that is milled for these wheat biscuits is grown within a 50-mile radius of the factory. Historian Ruth Goodman sits down to a Victorian breakfast of lobster and pig's head to reveal how the average Victorian was gorging down a mind-boggling 4,500 calories a day and that breakfast cereal was invented as a healthy alternative. She also discovers that when it comes to advertising cereal, nostalgia certainly seems to pay - the six top sellers in the UK today were all invented more than 30 years ago and the cereal industry is now worth over one and a half billion pounds.

Follow potatoes from a farm in Hampshire through the world's largest crisp factory. Gregg Wallace follows 27 tonnes of potatoes from a farm in Hampshire through the largest crisp factory on earth, as they are peeled, sliced and fried to make more than five million packets of crisps every 24 hours. Once the crisps are flavoured, they are put into bags in one of the craziest rooms Gregg has ever seen, with over 100 machines that can fill hundreds of thousands of bags every hour. Gregg discovers how each bag is filled with nitrogen to keep the crisps from going stale and how they are distributed all over the UK - and even as far as the Costa del Sol to satisfy the local expats. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey discovers the secrets of perfect crisp potatoes which are special varieties grown exclusively to make crisps, as well the surprising ways that our brain can be tricked into thinking a crisp is much crunchier than it really is. She also finds out how more than a third of savoury snacks consumed in the UK are made from corn and follows the production of Monster Munch, where the factory transforms 96 tonnes of corn into 12 million monster feet every single day. And historian Ruth Goodman investigates who really invented the crisp - was it the Americans, as is often cited, or the British? Ruth cooks up the earliest known recipe for crisps to uncover the truth. She also discovers how crisp wars between crisp manufacturers erupted in the 1960s and how in the 1980s, they tried to woo customers with strange innovations such as hedgehog crisps. Their determination fuelled our demand, and today we get through over a half a billion crisps every 24 hours.

Gregg follows dried haricot beans through the largest baked bean factory in the world. Gregg Wallace helps to unload 27 tonnes of dried haricot beans from North America and follows them on a one and a half mile journey through the largest baked bean factory in the world, which makes more than three million cans of beans every 24 hours. Gregg discovers how a laser scrutinises every single bean, how the spice recipe for the sauce is a classified secret known only by two people, and, most surprisingly, how the beans are cooked in the can in a room of giant pressure cookers - not baked at all! Meanwhile, Cherry Healey follows the journey of her discarded baked bean can through a recycling centre and on to the largest steelworks in the UK, where she watches a dramatic, fiery process that produces 320 tonnes of molten steel - enough to make eight million cans. She also takes a can that is 14 months after its best before date to a lab at the University of Coventry and is amazed when tests reveal it has the same Vitamin C levels compared to fresh tomatoes. The lab also prove that a 45-year-old tin of Skippers is still fit to eat. And historian Ruth Goodman reveals that in the early 19th century, malnutrition killed more than half of all British seamen, and how tinned food was invented to improve their nutrition and prevent them developing scurvy on their long voyages at sea. Ruth also relates how Henry Heinz first marketed baked beans in the UK in the early 1900s and made them a family favourite. Today, we get through more than two million cans of them every day.

Gregg visits Britain's largest bicycle factory, which makes 150 folding bicycles each day. Gregg Wallace explores the largest bicycle factory in Britain, which produces 150 folding bicycles every 24 hours, and joins a multi-stage manual production line to make his very own bike. He learns how to put together 1,200 individual parts and attempt to braze a bike frame together using extreme heat of 1,000 degrees, a skill that takes years to master. He also visits a leather saddlemaker in Birmingham that has been making saddles for 150 years and discovers how they use cowhide from UK and Ireland cows because the cold weather means they have thicker skins. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey gets some tips from Cycling Team GB to help us all improve our pedal power, including how lowering your body position can make a 10 per cent improvement to speed and efficiency. She also learns how to paint a bike frame fit for the British weather using an electrostatic charge and a 180 degree hot oven, and investigates why cyclists and trucks are such a deadly combination - in London alone there have been 66 fatalities since 2011 and half of them were collisions with a truck. Historian Ruth Goodman reveals that folding bikes date back to the 1870s and discovers how 70,000 folding 'parabikes' were manufactured during World War II, some of which played a role in the D-Day landings. She also finds out how the invention of the safety bicycle in the late 1880s was used by suffragettes to ride to rallies and spread the word in their fight for equality.

Gregg Wallace follows a tanker of sugar through one of Britain's oldest sweet factories. Gregg Wallace helps to unload a tanker full of sugar from Norfolk and follows it through one of the oldest sweet factories in Britain to see how over 500 workers, as well as some mind-boggling machines, transform it into over a hundred million individual sweets within just 24 hours. He discovers how the factory that produces Love Hearts could be the most romantic in the world because one in four of the people who work there are in a relationship with each other, how they make 5,000 Fizzers a minute using a tablet-pressing machine that uses three tonnes of pressure to create each sweet, and meets the man in charge of making three-quarters of a million Fruity Pop lollies every day. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey is let inside the research and development department and experiences for herself how hard it is to come up with a new product, as she attempts to invent her own version of sherbet using citric acid and sodium bicarbonate. She also finds out how they put the letters in seaside rock by making a giant version and then stretching it to the right size, and is given special access to the Fisherman's Friend factory in Lancashire to discover how a local family turned a niche product into a worldwide success. And historian Ruth Goodman investigates how sweets were first invented and discovers that, in the Middle Ages, they were used as a medicine and thought to reduce flatulence. She also finds out about the human cost of Britain's sweet tooth in the 18th century and how an abolition movement instigated a sugar boycott which helped to end the slave trade.

Gregg Wallace joins a human production line in the largest sports shoe factory in the UK. Gregg Wallace joins a human production line in the largest sports shoe factory in the UK to see how they produce three-and-a-half thousand pairs of trainers every 24 hours by sewing 32 million individual stiches and using 140 miles of thread. He makes his own pair of shoes and discovers how they put together 27 different pieces made from eight different materials which require auto and manual stitching and finishing with a 'roughening' robot and a hot oven. He also meets the man who comes up with new designs, including trainers inspired by the three most popular pub names in England. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey gets hands on in a tannery to help them process thousands of rawhides into finished leather for the nation's shoes, and finds out how a ballet shoe company painstakingly turns 37,000 square meters of satin into a quarter-of-a-million ballet shoes - some of which only last for one performance. She also gets to design her own court shoes at Cordwainers College in London, where she learns how to turn creative ideas into commercial products - last year, sales of women's designer shoes topped £532 million. And historian Ruth Goodman reveals how, when the sewing machine was first introduced into shoe factories in the mid-19th century, traditional shoemakers went on strike, rebelling against joining a restrictive production line. She also traces the surprising origins of the humble trainer to the back streets of Bolton, where Joe Foster invented his running spike in 1895, above his father's sweet shop, and discovers that Reebok trainers were originally British.

Gregg Wallace receives a load of tea leaves from Kenya and follows them through a factory. Gregg Wallace receives a load of tea leaves from Kenya and follows their journey through the factory that produces one quarter of all the tea we drink in Britain. Gregg turns his 20-tonne batch into 6.9 million bags. Along the way, he discovers that there can be up to 20 different teas in your bag and that the recipe for the blend is altered every day, measured against a standard created in 1978. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey discovers the secrets of the tea leaf in an African tea-processing plant. She learns that 40% of each leaf is made up of chemicals called polyphenols. She is surprised to find that white, green and black tea are all made from the same leaves. She also discovers that the bag surrounding your tea is not ordinary paper, but a highly engineered fabric made up of hemp, wood and polypropylene. She watches as a 60-kilometre-long roll is produced. And she gets some scientific tips on making the best possible cup of tea with a tea bag. Historian Ruth Goodman investigates tea adulteration. In the 19th century, there were eight separate factories in London which existed solely to dry and recolour used tea leaves. She discovers that it was 'honest' John Hornim who put that right and ensured we could trust our tea. She also finds that in the military during the Second World War, armoured divisions had to leave the safety of their tanks to brew up - a habit that resulted in many casualties. She climbs on board a modern-day tank to make a cup of tea with a boiling vessel, the innovation that solved this problem.

Gregg Wallace is at the world's largest dried pasta factory in Italy. Gregg Wallace is in Italy, hitching a lift on a train carrying over a thousand tonnes of wheat to the largest dried pasta factory in the world. It produces 60 per cent of all pasta made in Italy and supplies 3,000 tonnes to the UK each year. Gregg traces the journey the wheat takes through a seven-storey mill and into the production zone where it is mixed with water, pushed through moulds and turned into spaghetti. Along the way, he discovers that the perfect string of spaghetti is 25 centimetres long and examines the technology that allows them to produce 150,000 kilometres of it each day - enough to stretch round the earth almost four times. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey discovers why the best pasta is made with durum wheat. This is a hard wheat that, when it is milled, turns into the granular yellow flour known as semolina, which translates as semi-milled. This is the essential basis of pasta as it retains its shape and texture when cooked. She also helps to harvest 15 tonnes of tomatoes, turning them into 3,000 litres of pasta sauce. Along the way, Cherry is surprised to hear that the British habit of pairing spaghetti with bolognese outrages many Italians. She learns why different shapes of pasta are ideally paired with different sauces and promises in future she will serve her spaghetti with a more suitable topping, like carbonara. Historian Ruth Goodman discovers that pasta arrived in Britain much earlier than we imagined. She heads to the British Library to look at a manuscript from 1390. It is a cookbook written for King Richard II which contains a recipe for something called lozyns. Ruth cooks up a batch and is convinced that this is an early version of lasagne. She also navigates the streets of Soho armed with a 1958 restaurant guide to find out how we first fell in love with Italian food.

Gregg Wallace learns that we are all eating chocolate digestives the wrong way up. Gregg Wallace is in London at Europe's largest biscuit factory, where they produce 80 million biscuits every day. He follows the production of chocolate digestives, from the arrival of 28 tonnes of flour right through to dispatch. Along the way, he discovers that the biscuits are shaped by a bronze roller costing up to ten thousand pounds, and that the chocolate is added to the bottom not the top of the biscuits, meaning we are all eating them the wrong way up. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey is on the trail of that chocolate. At the refinery in Manchester, she learns that it is transported in heated lorries kept at 50C to stop it solidifying on its way to the factory. She also discovers that this is the most expensive ingredient, at around £2,000 per tonne. And she is in Nottingham University's sensory lab, where she finds scientific proof that dunking your biscuit improves its flavour and that tea is the best liquid to dunk in. Cherry takes to the streets to see if that stacks up in the real world. Historian Ruth Goodman investigates the link between biscuits and digestion. She finds references in Samuel Pepys's diary to biscuits being a cure for flatulence and digestive discomfort and discovers that in Victorian times it was thought that biscuits could cure everything from typhoid to scarlet fever. She also takes a look at an antique biscuit baked at the beginning of the 20th century - one of Huntley and Palmer's notorious army biscuits. These dry hard biscuits were supplied as rations to five million British soldiers on the front line in the First World War.

Gregg Wallace explores the Grimsby factory that produces 80,000 cod fish fingers every day. Gregg Wallace explores the Grimsby factory that processes 165 tonnes of fish a week and produces 80,000 cod fish fingers every day. Cod arrives at the factory as compressed blocks of frozen fish. The blocks weigh exactly 7.484 kilos, which is a standardised measure in every fish factory right across the world. Gregg watches as each block is cut into 168 naked fish fingers which are then floured, battered and breaded, ready for a quick 45-second trip through the fryer. He also helps take delivery of 25 tonnes of liquid nitrogen, used to flash freeze the fingers at minus 15 degrees C. But Gregg is amazed to discover that the fish inside the finger remains frozen through every stage of production, right up to the moment you cook it at home. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey travels to Grindavik in Iceland where they land up to 50 tonnes of cod a day. She follows the fish through the processing factory, even trying her hand at gutting the fish. Back in Grimsby, she assists with an ancient method of preserving fish - cold smoking. She learns that the yellow colour of smoked haddock is not down to the smoke but instead is produced by the additional of a natural colouring made from turmeric. Also, just like nine out of ten Brits, Cherry isn't very confident about how to safely defrost food, so she heads to the lab to get the lowdown on bacteria and freezing. Historian Ruth Goodman is investigating the origins of cod fish fingers. She finds that Bird's Eye were the first to introduce them to the UK, basing them on a US product called fish sticks. They were introduced in 1955 and were an instant hit. 542 tonnes were sold in the first year of sale. That went up by 600% the following year. But the British public had a narrow escape - the original idea was that fish fingers would have been made with the oilier and bonier fish, herring. Ruth's also looking at Britain's original fish-based convenience food: the oyster. In the 19th century, Londoners could buy four for a penny, but an outbreak of food poisoning after a banquet in November 1902 caused a national scandal and their popularity plummeted.

Ruth Goodman uncovers the origin of Worcestershire sauce, as told by Mr Lea and Mr Perrins. Gregg Wallace is in the Netherlands at one of the world's biggest sauce factories. Its annual output is a quarter of a million tonnes of condiments, and more than 50 per cent of this heads to the UK. Our passion for sauces sees us consume 40 million kilos of mayonnaise every year. Gregg follows its production from a farm near Arnhem, where 23,000 free range hens produce the eggs, to the factory, where he is wowed by an egg cracking machine that can separate the yolks and whites from 1,700 eggs a minute. In the mayonnaise factory 'kitchen' he discovers how the delicate process of combining oil and water - known as emulsification - is performed perfectly every time on huge 480 kilo batches. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey is making the glass jars Gregg needs for his mayonnaise. She is at a vast factory in Maastricht, where a furnace holding 250 tonnes of molten glass has been running continuously for the last 11 years. Cherry is also on the trail of another of our favourite sauces - soy - not in Japan, but south Wales, where a factory churns out bottles and sachets of organic sauce to a 2,000-year-old recipe. And the secret of its taste? A special mould called Koji. Historian Ruth Goodman discovers how Brits fell in love with mayonnaise. She traces it back to the introduction of the bottled sauce in the 1960s and samples a series of unusual mayonnaise dishes, including the 'frosted party loaf' - a glorified club sandwich covered in mayo and cream cheese. Ruth is also on the trail of Worcestershire sauce and investigates the traditional story of its origin, as told by Mr Lea and Mr Perrins.

Gregg Wallace explores Ribena's Gloucestershire factory. Gregg Wallace explores Ribena's Gloucestershire factory. It turns 90 per cent of Britain's blackcurrants into soft drinks, producing three million bottles a week. Gregg takes delivery of 500 tonnes of blackcurrants at a cider mill in Somerset. The harvest comes in during July and August, when there are no apples to process for cider, so they press blackcurrants instead. Gregg discovers how the aroma of the blackcurrants is captured separately and later added back into the drink. Next, the concentrate and aromas are transported to the drinks factory, where they are mixed with 11 other ingredients before being bottled. Gregg watches a machine that can create a plastic bottle in 0.1 of a second and learns why nitrogen is the secret to creating a bottle that won't get stuck in vending machines. Cherry Healey is harvesting the berries on a farm in Kent - one of 40 that supply the factory. She also heads to the Netherlands to a plant that recycles plastics. It processes two and a half million used PET bottles a day, transforming them into 4mm pellets that can be turned back into drinks bottles. And Cherry is in the lab figuring out why fizzy drinks are so appealing. She learns that bubbles play sensory tricks on us, making fizzy drinks taste colder, less sweet and more flavourful than their still equivalents. Ruth Goodman is investigating the origins of fizzy drinks. Carbonated water was first sold by Mr Schweppe in 1783, but it was a British husband-and-wife team - Robert and Mary White - who were to popularise fizzy pop. In 1890, R White's styled itself as the world's biggest drinks company and they sold 46 million bottles a year. Ruth looks at why we associate barley water with the great British summertime.

Gregg Wallace is at a coffee factory where they produce 175,000 jars of instant coffee every day. He follows the production of freeze fried instant coffee, from the arrival of 27 tonnes of Brazilian green coffee beans right through to dispatch.

Gregg Wallace explores the Manchester factory that produces 700,000 toilet rolls a day. He begins with 940 miles away in Sweden where the raw materials, wood, is harvested from a sustainable forest of one billion spruce trees.

Gregg Wallace explores the North Yorkshire factory that produces 625,000 sausages a day. Meanwhile Cherry Healey is at the University of Chester getting the scientific lowdown on getting the best from your banger. Ruth Goodman is investigates how a German bratwurst became top dog.

Gregg Wallace explores the Nottinghamshire factory that makes 250,000 jars of curry sauce each day. Meanwhile Cherry Hawley is in Guntur, the chili capital of India, where they sell 3500 tonnes of chili each day.

Gregg Wallace is in Lowestoft at an enormous frozen food factory, where they produce one million potato waffles a day.

Gregg Wallace is in Italy at an enormous pizza factory, where they produce 400,000 frozen pizzas each day.

Gregg Wallace is in Burton upon Trent at Britain’s biggest brewery, where they produce 3 million pints of beer a day.

Gregg Wallace is in Germany at a historic pencil factory where they produce 600,000 writing implements a day.

Gregg Wallace is in Gateshead at a cheese factory where they produce 3,000 tonnes of spreadable cheese every year.

Gregg Wallace is in Derbyshire at an enormous cherry bakewell factory, where they produce 250,000 of the little tarts a day.

Gregg Wallace is in South Shields at a clothing factory where they produce 650 waxed jackets a day.

Gregg Wallace is in France at an enormous croissant factory where they produce 336,000 flaky pastries a day.

Gregg Wallace is in Leeds at an enormous mattress factory that produces 600 bouncy beds every day. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey learns whether there are benefits to be had from taking an afternoon nap.

90.000 vegane Würstchen am Tag, da staunt selbst Greg Wallace. Während Cherry in Schottland veganes Superfood anschaut, schildert eine Historikerin die Geschichte der vegetarischen Bewegung in UK.

19.000 Pfefferminzbonbons lutschen die Bewohner des Vereinten Königreichs jährlich. Wer produziert die löcherigen Zuckerwerke eigentlich? Gregg Wallace besucht die Fabrik, in der es herrlich riecht.