Inside the Factory

In this Christmas special, Gregg Wallace, Cherry Healey and Ruth Goodman explore the fascinating factory processes and surprising history behind our favourite festive treats.

Exploring the fascinating factory processes behind Christmas cake, baubles, brandy and more. And why Christmas tree lights are called fairy lights.

In this Christmas special, Gregg Wallace visits a factory which produces a staggering two million tins of festive chocolate assortments a year.

Gregg Wallace is in Nottingham at an enormous party food factory where they produce 200,000 canapes every 24 hours.

Gregg catches up with the Essity paper mill in Manchester, which he visited back in 2018. The coronavirus crisis caused a huge spike in toilet roll sales.

Gregg reconnects with the Heinz baked beans factory in Wigan which he visited back in 2016. The coronavirus crisis caused a massive spike in the sales of tinned goods, and the baked beans factory upped production to deliver almost 50…

Gregg reconnects with the Walkers crisps factory in Leicester, the largest crisp factory in the world, which he visited back in 2016. We Brits love a snack, and when the coronavirus crisis hit, sales of packet treats rose by 32% as…

Gregg reconnects with the Typhoo tea factory in the Wirral near Liverpool, which he visited back in 2017. The coronavirus crisis caused tea bag sales to soar, and the factory has upped production to produce 109 million tea bags in a week,…

Gregg Wallace reconnects with the McVitie’s factory in Harlesden, north west London, which he visited back in 2017. The coronavirus crisis caused a huge spike in the nation's desire for sweet treats, and sales of the firm’s chocolate…

How Woodmansterne produces 35 million greeting cards a year in Watford - from sketching a card design, to creating an aluminium plate for printing, to guillotining the sheets into cards and the final shipping process. Creating a vegan…

Gregg Wallace, Cherry Healey and Ruth Goodman look at the production, science and history of bread in Britain.

Gregg Wallace, Cherry Healey and Ruth Goodman look at Britain's love of chocolate and visit one of the world's largest chocolate factories in York.

Gregg Wallace, Cherry Healey and Ruth Goodman look at Britain's history with milk and visit one of the largest fresh milk processing plants on earth.

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.

Gregg Wallace follows 27 tonnes of potatoes from a farm in Hampshire through the largest crisp factory on earth.

Gregg Wallace helps to unload 27 tonnes of dried haricot beans and follows them on a journey through the world's largest baked bean factory.

Gregg Wallace visits Britain's largest bicycle factory, which produces 150 folding bikes every day, and joins a production line to make his own bike.

Gregg Wallace helps to unload a tanker full of sugar from Norfolk and follows it through one of the oldest sweet factories in Britain.

Gregg Wallace visits the UK's largest sports shoe factory to see how they produce 3,500 pairs of trainers every day.

Gregg Wallace receives some tea leaves from Kenya and follows them through the factory that produces one quarter of all the tea drunk in Britain.

Gregg Wallace is at the world's largest dried pasta factory in Italy, where they produce 150,000 kilometres of spaghetti each day.

Gregg Wallace follows the production of chocolate digestives and discovers that we are all eating them the wrong way up.

Gregg Wallace explores the Grimsby factory that processes 165 tonnes of fish a week and produces 80,000 cod fish fingers every day.

Ruth Goodman investigates the origin of Worcestershire sauce, as told by Mr Lea and Mr Perrins.

Gregg Wallace explores Ribena's Gloucestershire factory. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey is in the lab figuring out why fizzy drinks are so appealing.

How a factory in Derbyshire produces 175,000 jars of instant coffee every day, from green coffee beans to the freeze-dried final product. How roasting alters the chemical composition of coffee. How caffeine affects the body and brain. How…

How a factory in Manchester produces 700,000 toilet rolls a day starting with spruce timber offcuts from Sweden, pulped and rolled onto 1.2-tonne 'mother reels'. How the water treatment works of Brighton remove debris, grease and bacteria…

How a factory in North Yorkshire produces 625,000 sausages a day, using machines that can fill 600 sausages in a minute. How low and slow shallow frying delivers the best combination of flavour, moistness and succulence. How veggie…

How a factory in Nottinghamshire produces 250,000 jars of curry sauce each day. How chillies are harvested on small farms in India, dried, packed down, and processed into chilli powder. How four rules for cooking rice guarantee it will…

How a factory in Lowestoft produces 450 tonnes of frozen food each day. The differences between waxy and floury potatoes, and which you should use for which job. How the potato's nutritional value compares to other fruits and vegetables.…

How a factory in Italy produces 400,000 frozen pizzas each day. The science that makes mozzarella work so well on pizza. How pork is transformed into pepperoni. How freezer ships and trucks create the worldwide cold chain that enables…

How Britain's biggest brewery produces 3 million pints of beer a day in Burton upon Trent. How four basic ingredients – water, malted barley, hops and yeast – are manipulated to make dark, heavy ales; light, fragrant lagers; and…

Gregg Wallace is in Germany at a historic pencil factory where they produce 600,000 writing implements a day. Cherry Healey examines the astonishing properties of graphite. Historian Ruth Goodman traces the origin of pencils to a…

How a cheese factory in Gateshead produces 3,000 tonnes of spreadable cheese every year - making cheddar, chopping and blending it with whey, water, and other ingredients. How bacteria affect the aroma, flavour and appearance of cheeses.…

How a factory in Stoke-on-Trent produces 250,000 little cherry bakewell tarts every day - from what makes a shortcrust pastry 'short' to the team of 12 precisely placing the cherry on top of every one by hand. How to swerve a soggy pastry…

How a factory in South Shields produces 650 water-resistant waxed jackets a day - from 500-metre-long rolls of undyed cotton, to dipping the finished fabric into baths of heated wax, to assembling each jacket from 23 pieces. How a…

How a factory in France produces 336,000 croissants every day - from the 21 tonnes of butter, to the 83-year-old strain of yeast that packs a flavourful punch, to the layering of very thin slices of butter between sheets of dough to…

How a factory in Leeds produces 600 bouncy beds every day - from making steel into springs, to their placement in individual pockets and covering in natural fibres like hemp and wool designed to wick away sweat. How a short, twenty-minute…

How a bakery in Cornwall produces 180,000 Cornish pasties a day. There are rules: A Cornish pasty must be made in Cornwall; the filling can only contain onion, potato, swede, beef and some seasoning; and each ingredient must be cooked…

How a foundry in France produces a cast iron pot every five seconds - from the arrival of 20 tonnes of crude iron right through to brightly coloured orange casserole dishes. How a South African iron ore mine - one of the largest in the…

How a factory in Wigan produces two million tins of soup a day. Vegetable soup is followed from a pea harvest in Yorkshire right through to the finished soup going into cans and being dispatched. How the vitamin content of frozen…

How a factory in Ireland produces 540,000 bottles of liqueurs a day. From grain, to barrel aging, to mixing cream and whiskey together, the show traces the production of a cream liqueur over the span of three years. How Ireland’s bottles…

How a factory in Essex produces 400,000 cereal bars a day - from nuts to cranberries and sultanas to puffed rice, with a carefully balanced blend of honey and glucose binding it all together for the ideal texture. How macadamia nuts are…

How the world's biggest cider producer makes more than 350 million litres each year - from orchards in Herefordshire, to the mill in Ledbury, to fermentation and bottling at the factory. How grafting is used to create a new sweet apple…

How a Leicester factory makes one and a half million socks annually. What causes smelly feet, and which socks tackle it best. How a cotton spinner in Manchester produces 4,200 miles of yarn every hour. A revolutionary eco-cotton supplier.…

How one million pots of yoghurt are produced every 24 hours in rural Somerset - from the Friesian cows that provide the milk to the processing, culturing, and packing processes. How blackcurrant are harvested. Plant-based alternatives to…

How Woodmansterne produces 35 million greeting cards a year in Watford - from sketching a card design, to creating an aluminium plate for printing, to guillotining the sheets into cards and the final shipping process. Creating a vegan…

How JCB make as many as a hundred iconic yellow diggers every single day in Rocester, Staffordshire, requiring just 45 hours to make a digger from scratch, and consuming 650 tonnes of steel, 170,000 bolts, 5,000 litres of paint and 236…

How the largest malt loaf factory in the world makes the sweet and squidgy cake-cum-bread, a popular teatime treat consumed at the rate of 130 million a year. How a British baking company cooked up the first business computer. How wheat…

Gregg Wallace visits the Ercol factory in Buckinghamshire to follow the production of a Windsor chair. Cherry Healey investigates how sitting too much could be very bad for our health. Historian Ruth Goodman discovers how utility…

Gregg Wallace visits a bootmaking factory in Wollaston, Northamptonshire to follow the production of a pair of Dr. Martens, while Cherry Healey gets to grips with the machines that make shoelaces.

How the biggest tortilla factory in Europe makes 60,000 tonnes of snacks every year in Coventry, including their UK bestseller: chilli heatwave flavour tortilla chips. Tasting the hottest chilli in the world at the UK's largest chilli…

How Denby - potterymaker since 1809 - produces one of their best sellers, the Halo Heritage mug, in Derbyshire. The journey starts at the factory's 100-metre-long, 100,000-tonne mound of clay.

How a family-run factory in rural Aberdeenshire churns out fifty thousand litres of dairy ice cream every day. How best to stop 'brain freeze.' How sprinkles are made. How ice cream vans made soft whip a favourite on Britain's streets.

How a 32-acre site in Somerset makes 1.2 million Henry vacuum cleaners every year.

How Alstom builds a 187-tonne, five-carriage electric train on their 84-acre site in Derby. How the train's aluminium is made at the UK's last remaining smelter in Scotland. How tunnel boring machines are digging ten miles through the…

How London's famous red double-decker bus - including a fully electric model - is built in Scarborough, Yorkshire, highlighting the tough laminated heated windscreens and bright red coat of paint. How the turbines at an offshore wind farm…

How a factory in Manchester churns out 6 million Jaffa Cakes every single day - 1.4 billion per year. The legal significance of whether Jaffa Cakes are cakes or biscuits.

How Vale of Mowbray make pork pies - including 425,000 a week of their 75g snack-sized traditional pie - in Northallerton, Yorkshire. Hacks for the perfect vegan shortcrust pastry. How piccalilli, a pork pie accompaniment, is made. The…

How a factory makes 432 million classic British crumpets every year from a precise combination of ingredients, using some clever chemistry to create their famous 'holey' texture. The science of making the perfect pancake batter. How…

The futuristic process by which Heck churn out up to 90,000 vegan sausages a day in Yorkshire. How Canadian soy beans are transformed into protein-packed tofu. How a vegan superfood of the sea is harvested on the Scottish coast. The…

Gregg Wallace explores the Ambrosia factory in Lifton, Devon, to reveal how it makes up to 360,000 rice puddings every single day. How fresh water from the Alps is used to grow more than a million tonnes of rice every year in Italy's Po…

How Polos produce 32 million mints every day in York - part of the 19,000 tonnes of mints consumed every year in the UK. The largest sugar beet factory in Europe. How one of the last surviving peppermint farms in the UK harvest their…

How Aunt Bessie's produce a staggering 500 million Yorkshire puddings every year in Hull. How wheat is tested before it can be milled into flour. How to cook the perfect gravy for a Sunday roast. The history of the roast dinner, and the…

How Jelly Bean Factory make ten million of their colourful little sweets every day in Dublin. The important role glucose plays in our bodies. How one of the ingredients in jelly beans plays a key role in the production of lipstick. The…

How denim cloth is made, and how Welsh jeans brand Hiut transform it into one of the world's most popular items of clothing - jeans. How zippers are made. How denim is distressed to make a new pair of jeans look old, in environmentally…

How Dell Ugo make 500 million stuffed pasta parcels every year in Hertfordshire. How Cromer on the Norfolk coast still use traditional fishing techniques to catch the crab for stuffed pasta. How Italian immigrants in Bedford helped to…

How Guinness make two million litres of Irish stout every single day. How reservoir water is treated to provide clean drinking water to the people of Dublin, as well as to the stout brewery. How hops are harvested at a farm in…

How Lush produce an astonishing 14 million bath bombs every year in Dorset. How taking a hot bath can provide some of the benefits of exercise. How a lab grows human skin for cosmetic testing. The notion that complex perfumes ward off the…

How Axminster produces 46,000 square metres of carpet every year in Devon. The science behind the best ways to remove stubborn stains from carpets such as butter, milk and red wine. How the groundbreaking methods of a Devon-based carpet…

How Nestle make more than eight million bars of chocolate every day in York - the UK's city of chocolate. How a cocoa plant quarantine facility in the Berkshire countryside is preventing a worldwide chocolate shortage. The bitter history…

How HSL make more than 5,000 sofas every year in West Yorkshire. The science of light bulbs, to create the perfect environment to snuggle up on the sofa. How foam padding is produced. The history of the sofa. One of the world's most…

How Farrow & Ball produce up to 200,000 litres of paint and 10,000 metres of wallpaper a week in Dorset. How a key ingredient in paint-making is mined in Devon. The art of hanging wallpaper, and its history. How ships in the First World…

In this Christmas special, new presenter Paddy McGuinness and Cherry Healey visit a chocolate factory in Belgium that produces four million chocolate seashells every day. Cherry Healey is also in Belgium, learning the secrets of white…

Paddy McGuinness makes a wonderfully nostalgic trip to the Warburtons factory in his hometown of Bolton where, thirty years ago, he had a Saturday job cleaning the machines. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey discovers how waste bread is turned…

New presenter Paddy McGuinness visits a factory in Lincoln to explore how they make 500 million packs of Quavers every year. Cherry Healey learns how Bombay Mix is made, while Ruth Goodman reveals the wartime story behind our love of…

Paddy McGuinness visits a factory that makes forty million flapjacks a year. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey learns how oats can benefit gut health, and Ruth Goodman savours the history of the Staffordshire oatcakes and golden syrup.

Paddy McGuinness visits a factory that produces three million books every week. Cherry Healey is learning how an intricate design is printed onto cloth for the hard covers. Meanwhile historian Ruth Goodman uncovers the extraordinary…

Paddy McGuinness visits a factory in Northern Ireland to learn how they make more than half a million sausage rolls every day. Cherry Healey discovers how black pudding is made, while historian Ruth Goodman reveals how the humble sausage…

Paddy McGuinness and Cherry Healey are in the festive spirit as they join factory workers in Market Drayton producing gingerbread Santa and reindeer biscuits for Christmas.

Paddy McGuinness and Cherry Healey visit a factory in south Wales that produces a whopping 4.4 billion biscuits a year.

Paddy McGuinness and Cherry Healey visit a factory near Scarborough that produces an incredible 80 million chips every single day.

Paddy McGuinness visits a medicine factory in Nottingham that’s helping to tackle the nation’s colds and flu, producing 230 million tablets and lozenges every single week.

Paddy McGuinness visits a huge factory in north Wales that churns out an incredible 120 million boxes of breakfast cereal a year.

Paddy McGuinness and Cherry Healey enjoy a summertime visit to a factory in Hertfordshire that produces 15,000 lawnmowers every year.