All language subtitles for Inside.The.Factory.How.Our.Favourite.Foods.Are.Made.2of3.Chocolate.720p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org.eng

We are, without doubt,
a nation of chocolate lovers.

We eat, each of us, on average,
this much chocolate every year.

'That's a whopping 266 bars each.'

And the British love affair
with chocolate begins here,

Liverpool port.

Around 70,000 tonnes of cocoa beans
arrive into the UK every year.

They're trucked to factories
all over Britain

and they're used to feed
our insatiable sweet tooth.

But how do you produce
chocolate on this scale?

Whoa!

We've come to one of the world's
largest chocolate makers

to find out.

'I'm Gregg Wallace...'

I love chocolate.

Whey!

'And I've been given exclusive
access to this giant factory

in York...'

Oh, my word.

'..to reveal how they make over
seven million bars in one day.'

How much of a chocolate
geek have you become?

Well, if I went on Mastermind

I reckon I could
get through that quite easy.

'I'm Cherry Healey
and I'm going to get hands-on

'on a production line in Derbyshire.'

What is this Willie Wonka
contraption?

And historian Ruth Goodman will
delve into the factory archives

and meet the people who found
love on the production line.

And I said, "I'd love to take him
to bed and cuddle him..."

cos he was like a teddy bear.

From bean to bar, we're going
to follow the amazing journey

of one of our
bestselling chocolates.

You'll never look at a chocolate
bar the same way again.

This is the incredible story
of the factories that feed Britain.

This is the Nestle factory in York.

It's one of the largest chocolate
manufacturers in the world.

800 production staff
work around the clock to produce

millions of bars a day which go to
every corner of the UK and Ireland.

On this site, we'll see how
raw cocoa beans arrive by truck and

leave just 24 hours later
as chocolate bars

ready for the supermarket.

And tonight, I'll be following
the journey of the Kit Kat.

This is one of the most popular
chocolate bars in the world.

We eat one billion of these
every year in the UK alone.

'That's a staggering
1,900 every single minute.'

But whether you like
your chocolate dark, milk or white

it all starts with the cocoa bean.

Every day, 120 tonnes of them
arrive at the bean processing plant

to start the production.

I'm going to roll up my sleeves

and help cocoa bean expert Steve
Calpin unload his latest delivery.

He's been here for over 40 years
and has worked everywhere

from the chocolate production line
to the maintenance department.

So, Steve, you pretty much
are at the start

of the whole chocolate bar process?

This is where it all starts.

The beans get driven in here,
we process them,

start making chocolate.

Do you know how many beans
are on this truck?

I've never actually counted them but
I think there'll be about 28 tonne.

Just short of 30 tonne?
Just short of 30 tonne.

Let me help you unload them.

We've hooked it up
to the electric, now what?

We just need to push the button

and start off-loading
the beans into the system.

Can I press the button? Yes.

Whey! That's an avalanche of beans!

In just 24 hours,
these beans will undergo

an incredible transformation

and leave York
as finished chocolate bars.

But their journey
began thousands of miles away.

90% of British chocolate begins life
as cocoa beans in West Africa.

The main harvest of pods
from cocoa trees happens in March.

Once the beans have been collected
they're dried in the African sun

for seven days and then packed
and shipped to the UK.

GREGG LAUGHS

It looks like a handful of
grubby pebbles. Yeah.

So this has literally
been transported

straight from the Ivory Coast.
Straight from the Ivory Coast.

And these have dried by the road
so they've got bits of grit in it...

They've got bits of grit... Dirt.
Yeah. We've had shoes, snakes...

Really? Yeah.

'Now the beans begin
a nonstop three-hour ride.'

'The aim is to crack
their hard outer shell

'and release the cocoa-rich centre.'

Come on.

'But first, they
need to be cleaned.'

'Specially-sized holes
in metal plates allow the beans

'to fall through but capture
larger pieces of rubbish on top.'

It separates all the string
and bits of rubbish.

I get it.

The beans you want drop through
but anything bigger stays.

And that's the way. Brilliant.

But it's not just grit and
rubbish that have hitched a ride

over from Africa with the beans,

sometimes there's treasure.

I tend to get coins.
Get yourself a drink.

Thanks, mate. Do I have to go to
the Ivory Coast to buy one?

To the Ivory Coast, yeah.

Next up is the de-shelling.

What happens here,

we have a series of rollers
in this machine here

and as the beans go through,
it crushes them

and takes the shell off the nib.

The nib in the centre of the bean is
the Holy Grail of chocolate making.

It contains all
the cocoa solids and fats

that are the basis of chocolate.

There you are, Gregg.
That's the nib?

That's the nib.

'The last remaining shell pieces
are vacuumed off the nibs

'and the clean ones are fed into
three giant ovens...and roasted.'

The temperature of the ovens

is so critical to the recipe,
it's kept a closely guarded secret.

After an hour, the roasted nibs

are fed into a giant
food processor...

..which transforms them into
a thick brown liquid called liquor.

The thing that's made
it liquid like that

is the fat
that's come out of the nib.

The same way that
oil comes out of an olive,

your fat's coming out
of the chocolate nib?

That's correct.

Have you added anything
at all to this nib?

Just a bit of love and care
and attention.

We all need a bit of that, mate.
I know.

Eight tonnes of
cocoa liquor is now piped

from the bean processing plant
to the factory next door.

Here they will turn the bitter thick
liquid into hundreds of tonnes

of sweet milk chocolate.

First it needs to be
mixed with the other ingredients.

Sean Conricode is the factory's
chocolate specialist

and has been the keeper
of recipes for over 38 years.

All those stainless steel vessels
contain our liquid ingredients.

So there's cocoa liquor,
cocoa butter,

vegetable fat and then we take
all our dry ingredients so sugar...

our milk component...are
all fed across into this mixer.

The result is a coarse,
chocolaty powder

churned out at a rate
of nine tonnes an hour.

Conveyor belts drop
the mixed ingredients

into the top of a giant,
heated blender, called a conch.

'After seven to eight
hours of mixing

'those ingredients will be
pumped out as liquid chocolate.'

The smell in here - it's so strong.

It's very distinctive.

So that's the cooked aroma of
chocolate I can smell.

It's like consuming, it's like
it's almost... Well, it's heady.

It is.
Smell is just as important as taste

so the chocolate's got to smell
right as well as taste right.

'But what makes up that smell?

'While I help Sean
prepare the chocolate,

'Cherry's in Reading
to find out the secret

'behind that unique
chocolate aroma.'

Yes, please, thank you.

'Food scientist Ashleigh Stuart

'spends hours every day
sniffing chocolate.'

You are a PhD student
studying chocolate.

Is that the best job in the world?
Yeah, I think it could be.

'Ashleigh thinks the reason we love
chocolate so much is the smell.'

If you try the chocolate dessert
while you're holding your nose

you shouldn't get very
much flavour at all.

It's got a great texture.
I can taste that it's sweet.

And then if you
unblock your nose,

the flavour should suddenly
hit you. Oh, yeah.

That's really good. Wow.

'Like coffee or fine wine,

'chocolate has hundreds
of different smells

'that make up the aroma
we recognise.'

To help me discover some
of those individual smells,

Ashleigh has an instrument
called an olfactometer

that can separate them out.

So you'll get all
of the compounds individually

rather than all in one go.

'She gently warms the chocolate to
release the smell molecules inside

'and then captures them.

'These smells are then fed through
a tube one after another.'

You should be able to smell some
quite strange things.

Oh, there's something.

That is really yummy, it's
like...butter popcorn.

That's really delicious.

It's a little bit earthy...

Moss?

Well, it's a mushroomy compound...
Oh, mushrooms.

Once you know, it's really obvious.

Raw potato.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

'These molecules are not
added to the chocolate,

'they're found naturally
in the ingredients

'and some of them
aren't very pleasant.'

I want to say burnt rubber.

Eurgh! What is that?!

That is smelly feet.

Like worse than after I've been
to the gym smelly feet.

Bleurgh!

That one stinks.
It's a very stinky cheese.

In fact, the smell of chocolate
is made up of a whole host

of different molecules.

Nutty, popcorny, woody...

And then you've got some
of the horrible ones

that you've just smelt,
the cheesy, the sweaty feet.

But they're all in there.

And when you're smelling
chocolate as a whole,

all of those different smells
are hitting it all at once

and it's the combination that gives
you the smell of chocolate.

That's amazing.

And that's the job
of a chocolate maker,

to design each part of their process
so they release the different smells

that combine to create the
chocolate aroma we all love.

After cooking in the
conches for seven hours,

the liquid chocolate is pumped
out into giant vats.

And I cannot wait to taste it.

So that batch of chocolate
will end up in this tank here.

How many Kit Kats in here?

This storage tank
holds 28 tonnes of chocolate

so you can make two million.

That tank will empty and
fill again today.

Four million a day?

Yeah. Put your sample jar under
there and just unwind that.

Whoa, whoa-whoa-whoa, how do I...?

GREGG LAUGHS

And here we are. Here we are.

We've got 28 tonnes
of liquid chocolate

and a very happy,
bald television presenter.

Fantastic.
Do you sell it by the pint?

Unfortunately,
we don't sell it by the pint,

we sell it by the bar.

They make 16 different chocolate
recipes here at the factory,

a different one for each product.

But what I don't understand is,
why do they bother?

Why not just get one great recipe
and use it for all of them?

Vicky Geal
is the senior confectioner

in charge of developing
new flavours and products.

And she's going to show me

why the chocolate recipe
is so important.

Kit Kat chocolate is designed
specifically for Kit Kat.

What I've done here is made some
with some different chocolates

to prove that other
chocolates do not work.

What different chocolates?

The first one, I've used
a standard Kit Kat chocolate.

The second one is a Yorkie chocolate

and the third one is a competitor
chocolate which I shall not name.

See which you think's the best.

Well, I can't really taste
the chocolate on this one.

Let me try the middle one.

The chocolate's...creamier...

rounded...deeper.

Let me try the last one.

That's the Kit Kat,
that's the original Kit Kat.

That is the original...
Whey-hey-hey!

The insides are exactly the
same on every product,

it's just the chocolate
that's changed.

You've made your point, Vicky.
There you go.

In a delightful way.
Let's have a hug.

So, it turns out,
even without realising it,

we consumers expect
a certain chocolate flavour

to be on a particular bar.

So to keep us happy,
this factory uses a number

of different chocolate recipes,
each tailor-made

for the product
it's going to end up in.

This 28 tonnes of melted chocolate

is all going to end up making
just one kind of chocolate bar.

But Cherry's getting
her hands dirty in Derbyshire

to learn how you make
a chocolate box

full of many different varieties.

I'm at Thornton's,

the largest British-owned chocolate
manufacturer in the country.

They've been making chocolates
for over 100 years

and produce a colossal
25 million boxes every year.

Most of the chocolate
made at Thornton's ends up

in boxes like these.

And while your first thought might
be to scramble for your favourite one

you might be surprised to know

how much work goes into
making each and every one.

Over 1,000 people work
in this Derbyshire factory

and today I'm getting stuck in too.

You need to put four blocks in.

Operations manager, Nathan Worth,

is teaching me
to make a vanilla truffle.

I don't think
even I could eat all this in a day.

Oh, I could easily.

'The truffle begins with the centre

'made from chocolate,
sugar and butter.'

And now we'll mix it
for a few minutes.

Oh, wow.

'100 kilos of filling
needs to be handfed

'into the start
of the production line.'

Oh, look at that massive blob.

That's it, I think we're going to
lose you in there in a minute.

Bye.

It's like Willie Wonka's
chocolate factory.

It's Willie Wonka
without the Oompa-Loompas

and the chocolate fountain,
I'm afraid.

'Then the mix is forced
through a cutter,

'slicing into more centres
than I've ever seen.'

How many of these are in one row?

So there's 16 rows on here. 16 rows.

And on this line, on this product
we run 62 rows a minute.

So, an hour on here we're making
55,000 chocolates an hour.

In a week, we could be making
up to 25 million.

That is a staggering
number of chocolates.

Yeah, and I think I eat
a large percentage of those

while I'm working.

I'm right there with you.

The centre gets individually
drizzled with a drape of chocolate.

This is an enrober.

Enrobing is where we put a curtain
of chocolate over the centres.

So what we're doing is,
we're drizzling the chocolate over.

So instead of moulding it
as a lot of people do,

we're actually coating
the chocolate. Wow.

And the secret to perfect chocolate
is a process called tempering.

So we take chocolate at 45 degrees,

cool that down to 25 degrees,

heat it back up to 30 degrees to get
the correct crystal structure.

What would happen if you didn't heat
up and cool the chocolate down?

What you'd find is it'd start going
white, go a little bit greasy,

it wouldn't snap if it was a bar of
chocolate and it wouldn't eat nice.

So sometimes you'll see chocolate
that's gone a little bit grey,

that doesn't mean it's going mouldy,

it just means the crystal
structure has broken down

and it's not how we want it to be.

Those grey bits are still
perfectly safe to eat

but to keep their chocolate
looking its best

all factories like this rely
on their giant tempering machines.

In this kind of machine here
that's behind you,

it's the workhorse of the factory

but, actually,
nobody ever really sees it.

Oh, no, it's the unsung
hero of your factory.

I appreciate you turbo ther...temper.
NATHAN LAUGHS

I appreciate you.

Once the first milk chocolate
layer cools and sets,

it's ready for a smothering
of white chocolate.

The vibrating conveyor belt
shakes off the excess chocolate

to make sure each one
weighs exactly the same.

Wow. It's a river of chocolate.

'But what comes next is
the real magic.

'Every one of the truffles
is skilfully hand decorated,

'with not a machine in sight.'

CHERRY GASPS

Oh, wow.

It really is done by hand.

No machinery at this point.

And away you go.

Oh, that's really fun.

Oh, no, I messed it up.
No, no, they're fine. Very good.

Ah-ah. Got it. It goes really quick.

I missed one... No problem.

You're going to have to
pick up my slack.

That's no problem at all.

Do you think that people don't
really appreciate

how much work goes
into a piece of chocolate?

I think when people buy chocolates,

they don't realise
how much we do do here.

I think they probably think
a machine does this,

do you know what I mean? Yes.

Look at you go.
I mean, you're a demon.

Years of practice.
Years of practice.

How long have you been doing this?
Well, I've worked here for 21 years.

21 years. So you're a pro?

I hope so by now.

Is it hard to be doing this
and not take one?

It's extremely hard
and I'm a total chocoholic.

I love it.

One down but they're still 11
varieties short of a chocolate box

so the team keep on going.

I'm blown away by the effort
to hand decorate the chocolate

but I do worry for whoever
has to pack them into boxes.

It turns out this is the one area
where even humans need a hand.

A team of lightning-fast robots
pack the chocolates into trays.

The robots have laser-guided eyes

that can tell the shape
of each chocolate

and where it is
on the conveyor belt.

They then rotate the chocolates
to match them up exactly

with the shape in the trays.

This area last year did over
30 million finished boxes.

And they can do it with
absolute precision -

over and over again.

Despite all the machinery
and hi-tech robots,

it still takes over a 100 people
to make a box of chocolate

like this one.

So think about that
next time you're squabbling

over who gets the last one.

Later, I'll be back at Thornton's
to reveal the secret

of how they make Easter eggs hollow.

Back in York, I've moved from
the chocolate factory to wafers.

Wafer line manager Mark Barratt
has worked here for over 20 years.

He used to make the chocolate,
but for him now,

the filling is more than just the
middle, it's everything.

What's better, chocolate or wafer?

Wafer. Why?

That's the beginning of it,
that's the middle.

If you don't get that great snap,
you haven't got the bar.

Do you think you might be
turning into a bit of

a chocolate bar anorak, Mark?

I think I'm there.
I've been there a while.

What is the first step
to making wafer?

So we start off making a batter
mix with flour and water

and a few...few pretty
special ingredients

that we like to keep to ourselves.

Flour from giant silos outside
is fed into the mixers.

These mixers work around the clock,

producing 40 kilos
of batter every minute.

But mixing all that is one thing.

How on earth are
you going to bake it all?

You start by piping it into
100 hinged waffle irons

called carriers.

The top of the carrier shuts down.

As it shuts down, the batter spreads
and it fills the rectangle.

Got ya.

Conveyor belts take the
squashed batter squares

directly into 100-foot-long ovens.

After just two minutes at
150 degrees, the carriers leave

the ovens, open up and spit
out rich, golden wafers.

Oh! There they are, popping out.

Mate, they're like carpet tiles
or they're like lino tiles.

Yeah.

Shall we have a look at one?

There you go.

It's like an enormous poppadom.

It doesn't seem that crispy.

No.

Sorry. I'll
clean...I'll clean it up.

To crisp up the wafers,
they're fed into a cooling rack,

snaking 30 feet into the
air to save space.

Over an arch on the second floor.

Then back downstairs.

After cooling, they come down
that ski slope, come along here

and then the filling is spread
on top of the sheet.

The sweet filling is made of
cocoa liquor and sugar.

It's like a perfectly precisely
buttered piece of toast.

That's right.

The same level all the time,
the same thickness.

Then the machine stacks
one coated wafer

on top of another coated wafer.

OK. One, two, and then we've
got some coming over the top

which haven't got filling on.

And the results, every five seconds,
a perfectly lined-up square

of two layers of filling sandwiched
between three layers of wafer.

Perfect every time?

Perfect every time, yeah.

Almost every time?

Almost.
HE LAUGHS

A team of robots
then stacks the wafers...

..cuts them into blocks...

..and then sends them off
to be covered in chocolate.

It's hard to imagine a time without
our favourite chocolate bars,

but where did they come from
in the first place?

Historian Ruth Goodman's been
looking at chocolate's magic decade.

One of the earliest memories
we probably all share

is visiting the sweet shop.

It's usually the first
time as children

we get to spend our own money.

But the chocolate bars we buy today
are likely to be exactly

the same as those that our parents
bought, or our grandparents,

even our great grandparents,
when they were young.

They all originate in the same
amazing ten-year period.

Roald Dahl once likened it as
"the chocolate equivalent of the

"Italian Renaissance for painting."
And that decade was the 1930s.

The 1930s witnessed a huge social
shift in British society.

Improved working conditions
meant people had more time off.

And this new concept of leisure time
brought a shift in buying habits.

Until now, chocolate had been
an expensive treat for the wealthy

and mostly only bought on
special occasions.

In the '30s,
cheaper manufacturing costs

meant it could be made
for a lot less.

Suddenly, 90% of the country
could now afford

to buy chocolate regularly.

A new mass market had been created
at the beginning of the decade

and now it was up to the
chocolatiers to feed it.

Amongst the first off the
block was an American.

In 1932, the Mars Bar
caused quite a stir.

A so-called combination bar,

it added a core to the standard
chunk of chocolate that

Britain was used to.

An American invention,
they were considered

low-rent and faddish by chocolate
makers on this side of the Atlantic.

But British consumers had other
ideas and happily scoffed them up.

The snobbery soon turned to envy
as British manufacturers

realised that they would
have to respond.

And so began what had been called
"the chocolate wars."

Terry's gave us the
Chocolate Orange in 1932.

Rowntree's responded with both
the Aero and the Kit Kat in 1935.

Cadbury's contribution was the
Whole Nut and Roses in 1938.

And Mars fought back with
the Milky Way and Maltesers.

Suddenly the high street was
choc-a-block with chocolate.

Chocolatiers knew that they couldn't
rely just on their packaging

to sell their bars.

They needed to come up
with some really

imaginative advertising campaigns.

"Where have you been to,
sir?" she said.

I've been York milking,
my pretty maid.

To entertain cinema audiences
Rowntree's created a world first,

an animated advert
with synchronised sound.

Ooh!

Mr York's York.

Isn't it lovely?

Nothing like this had been tried
before to sell a product.

Not to be outdone,
Cadbury's hit back.

At seaside resorts across
the country,

Cadburys sent the
chocolate mystery man.

If you spotted him
roaming the streets,

you'd win a chocolaty prize.

In an unprecedented move,

Cadbury's even sent vans selling
hot cocoa to busy public events.

Chocolate was everywhere.

Their hard work paid off.

By the end of the 1930s,
Britain was the largest

consumer of
confectionary in the world.

In the 1920s, the average
Briton consumed 4oz

of confectionary a week.

By 1938, it had nearly
doubled to a full 7oz...

..and the difference was chocolate.

Down through the generations
we are still remarkably faithful

to these original brands first
invented in the chocolate decade.

Here in York, we've gone
bean to liquor to chocolate.

And now the filled wafers

are arriving in the final
production hall by the thousands.

In this final stage,

all the elements of the chocolate
bar are put together.

Phil Ashley, factory quality
manager, is going to show me how.

Can you take me through the process?

Yeah, certainly.
So, you've seen how we've made wafer

and you've seen
how we make chocolate.

Well, this is the plant where we put
both wafer and chocolate together.

The chocolate gets
deposited into a mould.

You can see on the mould here

we have an impression on the
bottom of the mould.

So when the chocolate
gets deposited on there

and the bar finally gets de-moulded,
you can see "Kit Kat" on the top.

Chocolate gets squirted in here?
Yes.

It's travelling along.
Then what happens?

Then we put the wafer into
the mould itself.

And it's the job of Michelle
Jarvis to load those wafers.

Michelle's been working
on this line for 12 years.

Can I come in? Come on.

Could I have a go at this? Yes.

So, I've watched these
wafers get made,

I watched the chocolate being made.

And now I want to put them
in the machine,

see the whole thing happening.

Oh, oh, I can't...

You pick them all up, the whole row.

Pick them all up.

Like that. Don't be ridiculous.

Go on. Your turn.

Yay! Oh, yeah, baby! Oh, yeah, baby!

Call me Mr Wafer.

I'm leaving this to you and
I'm going for tea.

If these go down to nothing,
am I in trouble?

Yes. Bye!

Don't do that, please.

I'm not very confident.

Ah!

I've run out of biscuits!

The filled wafers are cut to size

and dropped into the moulds
on top of the chocolate.

You can now see the chocolate
underneath the wafer.

I don't know how the chocolate
gets on top of the wafer.

OK, so we're going to move further
down the plant to show you that.

Is that a laser at the
end of that machine?

It is, yeah. This is a very
clever piece of equipment.

This is the camera that's showing
the wafers going through.

When there's a wafer missing,
it shows up there in a red light.

Yeah, it's just nabbed one.

That's right. So now the machine
knows exactly which bar that is.

Right at the end of the process then,
it will reject that particular bar.

What's it done, made a recording,
like, row 12, seat 137?

Exactly that. It's a computer, it'll
remember all that information.

There's a misdemeanour here, the
chocolate mould thinks it's got away

with it and it's going to get nabbed
further on down the line there.

That's right.

This snack is gradually
coming together.

What's the next stage?

OK, so now we put chocolate
on the back of the bar.

Chocolate comes down the pipe,
gets deposited here...

..and then just gets spread
across the mould.

That's a beautiful thing.

That's like a chocolate tide
crashing onto a beach. That's right.

How come the chocolate
doesn't stick to the mould?

OK, well, that's the next
important process.

If you just want to
take hold of that mould.

Try and twist that.

No. No, it's solid,
it's hard plastic.

If you look down here...

..can you see how those moulds
are being twisted on either side?

Oh, yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, twisting it one
way at one end,

the other way at the other end.
Correct.

That's very much how we would get
ice cubes out of an ice cube mould.

Exactly, yeah. Twisting it.

Absolutely. Except
this plastic's quite tough.

Does it have to be that
horrible pink colour?

It's pink so we can
differentiate it with the chocolate.

So they're cool by now, aren't they?
They are, yes.

They're cool and they're solid
at this stage.

Give me a mould, I'll get them out.

While I'm helping to de-mould,

back at Thorntons in Derbyshire,
Cherry is having a sugar rush.

Easter is second only to
Christmas for chocolate sales,

and here at Thorntons they make over
nine million eggs each year.

'They've been making Easter
eggs here since 1922,

'but what I've wanted to know
ever since I was a kid

'is how on earth
do they make them hollow?'

What comes first,
the chicken or the egg?

Well, when it comes to Easter eggs,
it's actually the mould. Oh.

So what we do is...

we have a mould that we're going
to actually form the egg in.

'Melted chocolate is squirted inside
one half of the egg-shaped mould.

'Then decorations are added.'

We'll then put a second mould
on top of the first.

We'll put that into a magnetic frame
and we'll put it onto

one of these machines over here,
called a spinner.

Wow.

So it's a chocolate wall
installation.

'The moulds are rotated
in every direction

'to thoroughly coat the
inside with chocolate.'

Because chocolate keeps setting,
it'll steadily build up a layer

of chocolate on the inside of that
mould so it's really nice and even.

That will give you that
perfect hollow shell.

'As the chocolate dries
it sticks to the mould,

'leaving a void in the middle.'

So the machine mixes it around

and around and around?

Yeah. And then just let
the chocolate move to the edges.

It's easier to put it on a machine

than stand there for
15 minutes doing that.

So we've had hollow eggs
for a long time.

Has it always been done like this?

It's always been done by
a spinning movement.

Right back in the early days when
we first started doing hollow eggs.

'Before the eggs
leave the factory...'

Ah, magic.

'..Nathan gives me one of
the nine million to try.'

That's pretty good.

That is hot off the press.

You can't get a fresher
Easter egg than that.

And it's definitely hollow. Yeah.

We've only got another
8,999,999 to go, then.

Back here on the
production line in York,

the team are pumping out

3,000 two-fingered chocolate
bars every minute.

Before they're loaded on
trucks to come your way,

they need to be wrapped and packed.

But not before a final inspection

by quality control
technician Julie Walker.

What are you doing? You seem to be
throwing chocolates away.

We're picking off ones which are
not of a good standard.

Do you know, they all look
exactly the same to me.

No, well they don't to us.

What's wrong with that one?

Well, we can see the wafer,
so that's wafer reveal.

Apart from wafer reveal...
We have bubbles on the chocolate.

Also, the chocolate is not as
shiny as it normally is.

Mate, you're being a
little too fussy!

Look, I'm a customer, all right?

It doesn't bother me. Right.

How much of a chocolate geek
have you become?

Well, if I went on Mastermind,

I reckon I could get through
that quite easily.

Specialist subject - the Kit Kat.
Yes.

What happens to all of the
ones you're throwing away?

They all go into rework where they're
used for the fillings for the wafers.

What's the wafer filling?

Well, as you can see here,
we have a wafer...

Oh, in between the wafers?

Yes, that's right. I saw that put on.

Right, OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK, brilliant.

Now do you understand that?
Brilliant. Right, good. Brilliant.

It's incredible that we've got
all this hi-tech machinery,

yet you and I are picking out
defunct Kit Kats by hand.

Because machinery is not
perfect either, is it?

I suppose you're right. The only
time I've ever stared at anything

and seen no defect at all
is the shaving mirror.

SHE LAUGHS
I won't comment on that.

It is incredible how many chocolate
bars are being produced here

with so few people.

As hi-tech as all this seems,
they've actually been making

chocolate here for over 100 years,

but back then the factory
floor would have looked

very, very different.

In the shadow of the modern
factory, there's a monument

to chocolate-making past.

This is the old Rowntree's
factory in York.

It was acquired by Nestle in 1987,

and there was so much rich history
that they appointed a dedicated

Rowntree historian -
Alex Hutchinson - to preserve

its significant past.

I've been given access
to the old site

and its archives to discover
just why it's so special.

In comparison to other
factories at the time,

was this a good one, a bad one?

This was a good one.
This was a very good one.

Everybody wanted to work for
Rowntree's. Very good pensions.

If you were ill, there was a doctor.
If you needed a dentist,

you could see a dentist.
And they would look after you.

They would look after you
very, very well indeed.

The Rowntrees were Quakers,

a religious society formed
in England in the 17th century.

The highly moral Quaker grocers
were trusted to produce

unadulterated chocolate.

TRAIN TOOTS

And so a handful of these
Quaker families became the

top chocolate makers in Britain.

Birmingham had Cadbury's,
Bristol had Fry's

and York had Rowntree's.

The Rowntree family are Quaker.

Do you think that made a difference
to how they did business?

Very much so.

They wanted to treat their workers
like they were family.

They didn't want to view them
as cogs in a machine.

To improve their workers' lives,
the Rowntree family designed

a factory that was bright and airy
and chock-full of perks.

You've got your theatre,
library, ballroom,

sports grounds and, of course,
there's a sick pay, paid holiday.

The wage packet
was quite healthy too.

What was it like in production,

inside that factory
when it was at full bustle?

# Pack all your troubles
in your old kitbag and smile... #

It would have been noisy,
you'd have rows and rows of girls

with piping bags
full of liquid chocolate,

hand-piping chocolates.

'There's no girl like a Yorkshire
girl for dexterity and quickness

'in squeezing out the swirls
of rich chocolate.'

And then you'd have had
men coming in and out with

sack barrows, collecting boxes
full of finished products

and taking them off to the railways
to go all over the world.

The welfare pioneered in the
chocolate factories was soon adopted

across Britain.

While the founding members
of the Rowntree family may have

passed on, the community they
created lasted for generations.

I want to meet the people who
lived and worked here

to hear for myself
what life was really like.

Bernice and Eddie Atkinson
worked here for over 40 years.

They married in 1957.

So you met on the same
production line?

Well, I was what they used
to call a "material server,"

being straight from school,

and she worked on the
conveyor packing. Packing.

We'd get talking and that's...
that's how you meet.

And the first time I saw him,
he was little...

I still am.
..with rosy cheeks, small.

And I said to somebody, "I'd love to
take him to bed and cuddle him,"

cos he was like a teddy bear...
Never dreaming I would years later.

RUTH LAUGHS
I enjoyed it all.

I loved working in the factory.

Alex has uncovered some film archive
with a surprise for Bernice

and Eddie, so I've arranged a
special viewing in the old factory.

Oh. Oh, God.

That goes in there and that fondant
comes on top, and that sets,

and then it goes to them rollers
to get covered with chocolate.

Aye, it was marvellous
how they did it.

They did that day in, day
out, hours on end.

Right up until... Yeah.
..the 1980s.

I wouldn't have liked that.

No. Definitely not.

That's all you were doing all the
time, making the cardboard

cartons for Black Magic.

Now, that would have been monotonous.

That's it. Them were the jobs
you did. I know you did.

At its height, the Rowntree's
factory even had

its own railway station to shift
the huge numbers of products

and workers.

After moving off the
production line,

Eddie became a supervisor
of the Rowntree's delivery trains.

Who's that there? Who's that?
I think that's me.

That's you? I think so, yeah. It is!

What, with the shunting pole?
Yeah. Yeah, that's me, yeah.

That is you. Yeah. Film star.

But, by the late 1980s, consumer
demand for cheaper chocolate

saw the beginning of the
end for the old ways.

The more labour-intensive parts
of the production lines

were replaced with mechanised
systems and machines

capable of churning out
chocolates by the millions.

Before retiring, Eddie and Bernice

were amongst the last to
make chocolate the old way.

But the sense of welfare
began by the Quakers

has left a lasting mark on
the British workplace.

The way we make chocolate
may well have changed,

but the legacy of those early
chocolate makers lives on.

# And smile, smile, smile. #

Here at Nestle, we're 21 hours
into the chocolate-making process.

And we've already got millions of
chocolate bars ready to be eaten.

But before that can happen,
they need packing up.

In this factory, 3.5 million
of these chocolate bars

need to be individually
wrapped every day.

First, it's the foil wrap.

And then the paper.

27 feet are used every second.

Then they're bundled
into multipacks.

Ex-army man Scott Robinson
gives the bars

one last inspection
before they're packed into boxes

with military precision.

Why, with all this machinery, are
we packing them by hand?

Because, er, we can actually...

We get a better quality finish.

People can see anything
that's gone wrong.

Machines can go,
you can have sensors,

but they won't feel or see
things that are not right.

Can I have a go? Yeah. Feel free.

Come on, down you come!

Here we go now, lovely.

Like that? Fold it that way now.

Ah, quick! Push it through there.

That's it, nice and gently.
Make sure it's square.

I ain't got time to do
it gently. Right.

'It's not as easy as it looks.'

Oh, my gawd.

For crying out loud, we've got
an avalanche happening here.

How many do you lift at a time?
Five.

What, have you go got
hands like a bear?

I'm just lucky. I have, yeah.

Oh, that's it(!) Just dump another
load at the front, make it harder.

SCOTT LAUGHS

This is actually
physically quite challenging.

It is. Do you dream about it?

Uh, not any more.

Stop 'em, they're going
to roll off the end.

The box really slows you down.

So they've sold the whole principle
on this on having a break,

yet me and you don't get one.

There's a bit of an irony there,
don't you think so, Scott?

Yeah, you need it.

Panic's setting in here.

GREGG LAUGHS
You have to come and help me, mate.

I can't get them done quick enough,
look. Give it a go, then.

I've tried my best, Scott.
Yeah, you've done well.

While Scott shows me how it's done,
Cherry's off to meet an expert

chocolatier to find out why we're
so patriotic about our chocolate.

Chocolate has been our favourite
sweet treat for over 200 years.

But it's not imported
chocolate we buy the most of.

The top three selling
brands in the UK -

Dairy Milk, Kit Kat and Snickers -
are all made right here.

So what is it about
British chocolate

that we all find so irresistible?

To find out, I've come to meet
master chocolatier Paul A Young.

He's won many awards for
making chocolates

with a uniquely British flavour.

I feel like I'm meeting
chocolate royalty.

You are definitely the most
qualified person to answer this.

Why do we love British
chocolate so much?

It makes us really happy.
It does! It does.

It makes me so happy.

It's not just the sugar -
it's the feeling, the texture,

the nostalgic reminiscence of
childhood of when you first had it.

Hand anyone chocolate
and they'll smile.

'These days, we have the choice
of chocolate from any country

'we like, but yet we
still choose British.'

What is it about foreign chocolate
that just doesn't sit right with us?

We are tuned to love British
chocolate from being very young,

but there are chocolates
from all around the world.

America, Belgium, Switzerland,
Holland, France, you name it,

and it's all specifically different

and tailored to the palate
of the country.

So it seems we all hanker after
the chocolate we ate as children.

But can we really
taste the difference

between British and foreign brands?

Paul and I are going to put the
Great British public to the test.

We're going to take
four different chocolates

from four different countries
and see which one people prefer.

But first, we need to melt down
the chocolates and reset them

in the same shape to make sure
they all look the same.

So they all look the same

and no-one will be able
to tell which one is which.

They won't... Mwa-ha-ha.
..it's a secret.

Milk chocolate is made up of
cocoa, sugar and milk,

but the proportions can vary
according to its country of origin.

We've got four varieties
of milk chocolate.

So we've got Belgian,
American, British and Swiss.

The Swiss is very, very milky,
incredibly smooth, light colour.

I think most people would say,
"That's a nice milky chocolate."

Hmm.

At the opposite end of
the spectrum is the American.

Eurgh! I mean, it is...

This is probably the
biggest-selling American chocolate.

So, what is it that gives it that -
to be polite -

distinctive flavour and taste?

It's the milk crumb,
and they've manipulated it

to create butyric acid.

That gives it the cheesy, sour,
really off smell and taste to us.

And did you know that butyric acid
is a component of vomit?

Oh, that's not OK!

It's not OK for me.

Do you think most people
would be able to tell

the difference between these
four types of chocolate?

I think they will, and I think
the British chocolate

will be the most popular.

But will Paul be right?

With all the chocolates cleverly
disguised, we're taking to the

streets to see if people really
do prefer British chocolate.

Hi, is there any way that we could
tempt you to try some chocolate?

Yeah?

We're doing a taste test.

Yeah, shall we? Yes! Do you want to
try some before your main course?

First, they try the American version.

Erm... No? You don't like that?

There's an aftertaste. There is.
What is the aftertaste?

Oh, wow, like off milk.

And it seems that American chocolate
isn't a hit with British

taste buds anywhere we go.

I'm not particularly
impressed with that.

It's got this really
bitter taste to it.

It's actually a bit sicky.

It's too... It's not nice.

'In fact, out of the four - American,
British, Belgian and Swiss -

'it was the British chocolate
that came out the winner.'

It's just a different texture.
It's creamier.

That's a bit more, like...
More, like...

A bit more Dairy Milk
chocolate kind of taste.

Mmm, it's nice.

'From garages...

'..to hairdressers.'

Creamier than the first
and second one.

Really smooth, really rich.

That's very creamy, I think. Hmm.

We have a winner on our hands.
Yes! Really?

That is the British chocolate.
Well done.

So, obviously, people still
love British chocolate,

but no-one's picked American.

No-one's picked American.

We did find some people
who like American chocolate...

Americans.

MUSIC: US National Anthem

Oh.

I'm going to have to change
all of my answers.

That's definitely American.

That's my favourite.

It's just sort of, like,
bringing home to you

versus you having to go home.

It doesn't taste fake to me,

and that's why I think
it's pretty great.

Whether we want a bar to treat
ourselves, or as a comfort,

we know what we like
and we like the familiar,

but it's those childhood memories
that keep us Brits so loyal

to the chocolate that we love.

22 hours after the beans
first came on site,

the wrapped chocolate bars are
now ready for customers.

A team of 30-foot-high robots now
stack them onto pallets.

And conveyor belts take them to
a warehouse to await distribution.

But, with four million chocolate
bars to deal with every day,

this is no ordinary warehouse.

Distribution manager Sally Wright
has let me inside.

Oh, my word!

Crying out loud.

I didn't realise this much chocolate
actually existed in the world.

Good grief.

GREGG LAUGHS

What do you call this place?
This is the building.

"The building?" The building.

Occupying the land space of
two football pitches

and towering eight storeys high,

every single pallet of chocolate
is stored, monitored

and moved by robots.

Once the stock's been fed
into "the building"

by the conveyor belts,

the humans no longer have any
control over what happens to it.

We don't have human's controlling it.

We don't have fork truck
drivers in here.

The building knows where all
the empty spaces are,

where all the stock is.

When we have orders, it knows
where to go and get the stock.

When we have fresh stock coming in,
it knows where to put it away.

It self controls.

The building runs itself?
Pretty much so, yeah.

We watch over it
with a computer system,

but ultimately, it self manages.

From the moment the chocolate
comes into the building,

the five giant unmanned cranes
stack the pallets, store them,

and then send them to the loading
area when the orders come in.

Do humans get in those?

The engineers do, yeah.

Could I have a ride on one of them?
Yes, we can arrange that.

Whoa!

Wahey-hey-hey!

HE LAUGHS
Wahey!

Whoooa!

Whoa! Ha-ha!

Will it stop before the
wall at the end?

It may do.
GREGG LAUGHS

MUSIC: Song 2
by Blur

This is nuts!

All that to give us a chocolate bar?

Yeah.

It's a strange world.

Wahey-hey-hey!

GREGG LAUGHS

It takes the building just one
week to get through

its entire stock of chocolate.

Every day, up to
60 trucks are loaded

from the dispatch hall
at this site...

..and leave York with chocolate
destined for shops and supermarkets

all over the UK and Ireland.

So next time you open a bar
of chocolate, just think,

it is one very small part of an
enormous, global chocolate empire.

Wow.

'Next time, I'll be taking you
inside one of the largest

'fresh milk processing
plants on earth.'

I've never seen anything
like this, ever.

'I'll meet the people
and the robots...'

Come on, come on.

HE LAUGHS

'..who get the milk from cow to
carton in as little as 24 hours.'

Mate, I love this.

I absolutely love it.

Wow.

'And Cherry will lift the lid...'

Oh, whoa! Eurgh!

Looks like scrambled eggs.

'..on how you produce
cheese on an epic scale.'

Tasting cheese all day,
I am happy as Larry.

'You'll never look at milk
in the same way again.'