Gregg Wallace discovers how one of Britain's largest bakeries makes up to one and a half million loaves of bread each week. Following the production of one of the nation's favourite loaves, he uncovers the secrets to baking four thousand loaves at once and reveals the incredible machine that can bag a loaf of bread in midair. Cherry Healey goes inside one of the largest flour mills in the country to discover what it takes to make the perfect flour and reveals the secret science to storing bread at home. And historian Ruth Goodman looks at why we've always been in love with the white loaf and shows the hidden killers that used to lurk in our bread.
Gregg Wallace is inside one of the world's largest chocolate factories in York to discover how they produce a staggering seven million bars a day. He'll follow the incredible 24-hour journey - from bean to bar - of one of our bestselling chocolates and meet the team of people who work around the clock to keep up with that demand. Cherry Healey gets hands on with the hundreds of workers on a production line in Derbyshire where the millions of chocolate boxes they produce every year are still surprisingly handmade. Historian Ruth Goodman delves through the chocolate archives to find out what it was like working in the factories before the machines took over, and she meets the people who found love on the production line.
Gregg Wallace gets exclusive access to one of the largest fresh milk processing plants on earth to see how they get milk from cow to carton in less than 24 hours. He reveals how one factory can process 2,000 litres of milk in under a minute and visits the hi-tech British farms where the cows are milked entirely by robots. Cherry Healey discovers how milk is used to make cheese and ice cream on an epic scale and reveals why most people in the world actually can't drink milk - and what makes us unusual in Britain. Historian Ruth Goodman investigates our complicated history with the white stuff and discovers just how tough it would have been to work as a dairy maid.
Over the course of six episodes they’ll take viewers on a guided tour of the production lines that operate 24 hours a day to make some of the UK’s favourite products on an industrial scale. Every morning in Britain we get through over one and half million bowls of cornflakes. In Cereal, Gregg will be on the factory floor at Kelloggs’s biggest factory near Manchester, which is the single largest producer of breakfast cereal in Europe. We’ll see Gregg receiving corn fresh off the boat from Argentina and following its journey as it is cooked, milled and flavoured to become Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. He'll discover how the factory 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 looks beyond the factory floor to find out why many vitamins are added to breakfast cereal and the resultant health benefits of doing so. She also discovers the effect that skipping breakfast has on our cognitive function and she follows the production of the nation’s best-selling cereal, Weetabix, learning how every single grain of wheat that is milled for these wheat biscuits is grown within a 50 mile radius of the factory. And historian Ruth Goodman looks at how breakfast cereal was invented as a healthy alternative to the average Victorian household’s mind-boggling breakfast feasts. Ruth will also discover the effect of nostalgia, with the six top selling cereals in the UK today all invented more than 30 years ago.
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. Greg 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 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 scrutinizes 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.
Brompton’s bicycle factory in West London is the largest in Britain, producing 150 of its distinctive folding bicycles every 24 hours. In the fourth episode of Inside the Factory Gregg joins a multi-stage manual production line to make his very own bike. He’ll learn how to put together 1200 individual parts. He'll also attempt to braze a bike frame together using extreme heat of a thousand degrees, a skill that takes years to master. He’ll visit a leather saddle maker in Birmingham that’s been making saddles for 150 years and discover 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. She also learns how to paint a bike frame fit for the British weather using an electro-static charge and a 180 degree hot oven. Cherry also 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. And historian Ruth Goodman reveals that folding bikes date back to the 1870’s, and how 70,000 folding 'parabikes' were manufactured during World War II, some of which played a role in the D-Day landings. She’ll also find out how the invention of the safety bicycle in the late 1880’s was used by Suffragettes to ride to rallies and spread the word in their fight for equality.
In the fifth episode of Inside The Factory we see Gregg Wallace helping to unload a tanker full of sugar from Norfolk and follows it through one of the oldest sweet factories in Britain - Swizzels in Derbyshire - 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'll discover how this factory that produces Lovehearts could be the most romantic place to work in the world and how the words on Lovehearts have evolved over the decades. Gregg will also find out how they make 5,000 Fizzers a minute using a tablet pressing machine that uses three tonnes of pressure to create each sweet, and he 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 - plus she researches how the country you’re from has an impact on the sweets you like. She also finds out how they put the letters in seaside rock 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’ll also find 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 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 recives a load of tea leaves from Kenya and follows their journey through the 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.
Gregg Wallace is at the world's largest dried pasta factory in Italy where they produce 150,000 kilometres of spaghetti each day. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey is discovering why the best pasta is made with durum wheat, and Ruth Goodman discovers that the product arrived in Britain much earlier than many would imagine.
Gregg Wallace investigates Europe's largest biscuit factory in London, while Cherry Healey looks into the chocolate added to the beloved digestive. Plus, Ruth Goodman examines the link between biscuits and digestion.
Exploring the fascinating factory processes behind Christmas cake, baubles, brandy and more. And why Christmas tree lights are called fairy lights. Ruth Goodman adds her own Christmas revelations by investigating how our early industrial heritage inspired Charles Dickens to write a Christmas Carol, and why we call Christmas tree lights fairy lights.
Gregg Wallace visits a factory in Grimsby that produces nearly 80,000 fish fingers a day. He discover how frozen fish is brought to the factory in compressed blocks that weigh 7,484 kilos, and has to remain frozen through every stage of the manufacturing process. Cherry Healey travels to Iceland to find out how cod are caught and prepared for the factory, and Ruth Goodman discovers the origin of fish fingers.
Gregg Wallace investigates the production of sauces in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey lends a hand with making the glass jars needed for mayonnaise, and Ruth Goodman discovers how Brits first fell in love with mayo in the 1960s.
Gregg Wallace explores Ribena's Gloucestershire factory, which turns 90 per cent of Britain's blackcurrants into soft drinks, producing three million bottles a week. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey is harvesting the berries on a 543-acre farm in Kent - one of 40 that supply the factory. Plus, historian Ruth Goodman investigates the origins of fizzy drinks. Last in the series.
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.
Gregg Wallace is in Cornwall at an enormous bakery where they produce 180,000 pasties a day.
Gregg Wallace is in France at an enormous foundry that produces a cast iron pot every five seconds.
Gregg Wallace is in Wigan at an enormous soup factory, where they produce more than two million tins a day.
Gregg Wallace is in Ireland at an enormous liqueurs factory, where they produce 540,000 bottles a day.
Gregg Wallace is in Essex at an enormous cereal bar factory, which produces 400,000 fruit- and nut-packed treats a day. Gregg follows production from the arrival of two tonnes of macadamia nuts all the way through to dispatch.
Gregg Wallace visits the world’s biggest cider producer, which produces more than 350 million litres each year.
In the second episode of the series, Gregg Wallace visits a sock factory in Leicester that produces one and a half million socks annually.
Gregg Wallace visits a factory in rural Somerset that produces one million pots of it every twenty-four hours, while Cherry Healey helps out with the UK’s biggest blackcurrant harvest.
Gregg Wallace visits the Woodmansterne card factory in in Watford. It’s one of the largest greeting card companies in the UK, a family business sending out 35 million cards a year. He gets stuck into all aspects of the card creation process - from sketching a card design, to creating an aluminium plate for the printing process, to the guillotining of the sheets into cards and the final shipping process, which takes the cards as far afield as Australia and Singapore. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey creates a vegan Christmas feast, and historian Ruth Goodman unwraps the story of the year when Christmas was cancelled.
Gregg Wallace and Cherry Healey get special access to the JCB factory in Rocester in Staffordshire, where as many as a hundred iconic yellow diggers are made every single day. Gregg follows the production of their best-known model, the backhoe loader, so-called because it has got a loader shovel on the front and a hoe arm for digging on the back
Malt loaf has been a popular teatime treat for more than 80 years; these days we get through a staggering 130 million of them every year. So to get to grips with how this sweet and squidgy cake-cum-bread is made, Gregg Wallace is rolling up his sleeves to get stuck in, following a production line of massive dough mixing, mind-boggling tin filling and intensely hot baking. Meanwhile, historian Ruth Goodman reveals the surprising story of a British baking company that cooked up the first business computer, as well as visiting Cambridgeshire to find out how wheat flour was ground the traditional way, until the Victorians’ demand for white bread brought about the demise of Britain’s iconic windmills.
Gregg Wallace visits the Ercol factory in Buckinghamshire, an area associated with furniture making since the 19th century. We Brits spend a staggering £300 million pounds each week on furniture, and Gregg is following the production of one of this factory’s best sellers, the Windsor chair. Starting life as ash trees from European woodlands, they're cut, drilled, steamed, curved and sanded until they're ready for delivery to shops and homes. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey investigates how sitting too much could be very bad for our health, and she helps to manage a sustainable woodland at the Rushmore Estate in Wiltshire. And historian Ruth Goodman discovers how utility furniture made during the Blitz is still influencing the designs we buy today, as well as learning how a humble British carpenter went on to make the most expensive piece of furniture ever sold.
Gregg visits a boot factory in Wollaston, Northamptonshire to follow the production of a pair of Dr. Martens, while Cherry gets to grips with the machines that make shoelaces.
Gregg visits the biggest tortilla factory in Europe, while Cherry takes on the hottest chili in the world and Ruth reveals how the Elizabethans treated their ruff collars.
Gregg visits the Denby factory in Derbyshire. Brits drink 195 million mugs of tea and coffee every day, so Gregg is following production of one of the factory’s best sellers, the Halo Heritage mug.
Gregg visits a factory that churns out fifty thousand litres of dairy ice cream every day, while Cherry Healey enlists an ice hockey team to test the best methods of stopping brain freeze.
Gregg Wallace visits a huge vacuum cleaner factory in the heart of Somerset and follows their biggest seller, the Henry vacuum cleaner in bright red.
Gregg Wallace accesses huge factories that use extraordinary engineering processes to make our most iconic vehicle.
Gregg Wallace gets exclusive access to a factory that builds red London buses, while Cherry Healey visits a bus windscreen factory and Ruth Goodman learns about London’s earliest double-deckers.
Gregg Wallace visits a factory that churns out 1.4 billion Jaffa Cakes a year, while Cherry Healey is in the city responsible for growing the fruit that gives these cakes their name.
Gregg Wallace explores the Vale of Mowbray pork pie factory, which began making pork pies in 1928. Cherry Healey reveals hacks for the perfect vegan shortcrust pastry.
Gregg Wallace visits a factory making 432 million crumpets every year. Cherry Healey learns the science of making batter for pancakes, and Ruth Goodman reveals how crumpets got their bubbles.
Gregg visits a factory that churns out up to 90,000 vegan sausages a day, while Ruth Goodman uncovers the green shoots of the vegetarian movement in Britain.
Gregg Wallace explores the Ambrosia factory in Lifton, Devon, to reveal how it makes up to 360,000 rice puddings every single day.
Gregg Wallace visits a factory with a menthol scent. Cherry Healey visits the largest sugar beet factory in Europe, and Ruth Goodman explores minty mouthwash marketing.
Gregg Wallace steps inside a huge Yorkshire puddings factory in Hull to learn how Aunt Bessie’s produces a staggering 500 million Yorkshire puddings every year.
Gregg Wallace visits a jelly beans factory in Dublin to reveal the astonishing processes used to make ten million of these colourful little sweets every day.
Gregg Wallace visits two factories in Italy and Wales to learn how denim cloth is made and then transformed into one of the world's most popular items of clothing - jeans.
Gregg Wallace visits a food factory in Hertfordshire that produces 500 million parcels of stuffed pasta every year.
Gregg Wallace visits a huge brewery in Dublin to learn how two million litres of an iconic Irish stout are produced every day.
Gregg Wallace visits the colourful and fragrant Lush factory in Dorset to learn how an astonishing 14 million bath bombs are produced every year.
Gregg Wallace visits a huge carpet factory in Devon to learn how it weaves 46,000 square metres of carpet every year.
Gregg Wallace visits an enormous factory in York to learn how millions of peppermint-flavoured bubbly chocolate bars are produced every year.
Gregg Wallace is in West Yorkshire visiting a huge factory that makes more than 5,000 sofas every year. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey learns about the science of light bulbs.
Gregg Wallace visits a colourful factory that produces 200,000 litres of paint and 10,000 metres of wallpaper every week.
In this Christmas special, Gregg Wallace, Cherry Healey and Ruth Goodman explore the fascinating factory processes and surprising history behind our favourite festive treats.
In this Christmas special, Gregg Wallace visits a factory which produces 2,000,000 tins of festive chocolate assortments a year.
As many UK factories face unprecedented demand, Gregg Wallace catches up with some of the factory workers who are toiling around the clock to make sure our cupboards are stocked.
As many UK factories face unprecedented demand, Gregg Wallace catches up with the baked beans factory producing 15 million tins in a week.
As many UK factories face unprecedented demand, Gregg Wallace catches up with some of the factory workers who are toiling around the clock to make sure our cupboards are stocked.
Gregg reconnects with the Typhoo Tea factory in the Wirral. The coronavirus crisis caused tea bag sales to soar, and the tea factory have upped production to produce 109 million tea bags in a week.
Gregg Wallace reconnects with the McVitie's factory in Harlesden, London, who sold an astonishing 12.5 million packets in just two months during the coronavirus crisis.
