Original subtitles

There you go. Enjoy.

Thank you.

There we are.

Yummy. Sausage, chips and beans.

That is champion.

Cheers. The oven chip.

How easy is life with these?

I don't want a parent without them. Absolutely.

Thing is, though, it's not going to be a very long episode, is it?

Potatoes, chop them up, done.

It's possible there's a bit more to it, Paddy.

Every year in the UK, we get through an astonishing 280 ,000 tonnes of frozen

chips at home.

As a nation, we love them so much that we need massive factories like this to

keep up with demand.

Shall we get our hairnets on? Let's do it.

Hello. Paddy McGinnis here.

This time.

Let me squeeze in there so the people at home can see me.

I'm discovering the mind -blowing technology... That is a modern way of

a spoon.

...that's responsible for making miles and miles of frozen chips.

My word, it's just chips as far as the eye can see. I'm in northern heaven

And I'm delving into the science behind one of our favourite condiments.

The bacteria!

And our resident historian, Ruth Goodman... Cheers!

...serves up the story of our favourite fried fish... So we're processing about

20 ,000 tonnes of fish. Good grief.

...and chips... When did they come together?

...became a national dish.

This factory peels, slices and fries over 80 million chips every single day.

80 million!

80 million!

It's a lot. It's a lot of chips. Welcome to Inside the Factory.

This is the McCain factory near Scarborough, and they've been making

since the 1960s.

Look at that! It's like a favourite version of Tipping Pond.

Not for the world, Ma!

They make all sorts of spud -based delights here.

Not often you see a robot playing chess with potatoes, is it?

From skinny French fries, Chip Nirvana.

It's a chunky chip.

Two jacket potatoes here as well.

Well done when you're whacking the microwave, very nice.

But I'm looking for a classic family favourite.

Today I'm following production of the bestseller, the straight cut frozen home

chips. Lovely stuff.

Now, there's no prizes for guessing the main ingredients for chips is potatoes.

And bang on cue is a lorry packed with 28 tons of them.

Operations manager Mike Hartnett is in charge.

Morning, Mike. Morning, Paddy. Paddy, okay.

Let me squeeze in there so the people at home can see me.

Spuds. Spuds. This is where it starts, Mike. So, we've got a lorry load of

potatoes from the West Midlands, one of our 250 growers from the UK that supply

into us. I don't know why I thought they'd be like a Marist Piper.

I've never heard of daisy potatoes.

Why daisy? What is it about the daisy potato that makes a really good chip?

Daisy just process the best way possible to make the chip that we're looking for

today. How many daisies are on there, then?

This lorry will make 1 .7 million ships.

And how many of those wagons come a day?

So we get between 60 and 70 a day.

Yep.

Daggering.

These farms must be absolutely constantly churning them up, sending

Yep, it is constantly, mate. It's one of our busiest times of year as well.

We're currently straight off the field. So, straight from the farmer's field,

from loading these potatoes to being put in the bag, frozen, how long's that

process? In two hours' time, they'll be in a fresh bag of chips. Two hours?

Better get them on. Better get them on. So if you want to press that green

button there.

and we'll start unloading.

As the clock starts on this super -speedy process, the spuds are unloaded

clever conveyor belt that runs right along the bottom of the lorry, gently

carrying them into the factory.

Go on, you little daisies.

You've got to be careful, though. You don't want to bruise them, do you?

We have got to treat potatoes very carefully.

We love, within the factory, of not having anything more than a 30cm drop

that exact reason.

Nobody wants a bruised chip.

Nobody wants a bruised spud.

To me, it feels like a really simple, quick process.

Potatoes, chop them up, out they go.

It's certainly a quick process. There is a little bit more to it. You'll see

that later on.

Well, if you say so, Mike.

But if this lot's going to be chips and frozen in just two hours, surely it

can't be that complicated.

I still can't get my head round the amount of potatoes that go through this

place every single day. The mind boggles, really.

So I've sent Cherry Healy off to a farm that supplies this actual factory to get

involved with the harvest.

This farm in the West Midlands provides the factory with almost 9 ,000 tonnes of

spuds every year.

In charge is fourth -generation potato farmer Nigel Adams.

Nigel, lovely to meet you. Morning. My hands are dirty, sorry. I'll swab that

one.

And the harvest for Paddy's potatoes is already in full swing.

So why is Daisy so good for chips?

It's quite a durable variety. It can handle various different conditions.

lovely shaped potato and it can produce that nice, round, long, perfect potato.

So they're going to make that into lovely long chips once it goes into the

factory. So Daisy is low maintenance, not a fast bag, perfect shape, cracking

chips. Very good, yes.

This hardy crop was planted just four months ago using potatoes or tubers from

the previous year's harvest as seeds.

If I could just show you over here.

When we planted the potato, we actually put this mother tuber that we call into

the ground. A mother tuber. A mother tuber, yeah. So she's sort of like gone

from the solid potato.

She's used all her energy to produce these roots and leaves and then the soil

and the sunshine feeds it.

And so she produces the little babies.

Oh, look, look.

That's incredible. So she's produced 15, 20 new potatoes.

Yeah, yeah.

Once planted, they take 16 weeks to grow.

So these are the little babies that are grown into big babies. Yeah, they're big

babies, aren't they? Look at that.

So the perfect size, perfect shape.

A whopping 750 trailer loads of spuds are harvested here between July and

October every year.

Come on, enough chat. Let's get on and do some work on harvesting, please.

So they need some serious kicks.

OK, so this is the beast that harvests Daisy.

Look at that. She's a monster.

So we'll fire her up.

Oh, there she goes. Yeah, we're off.

The harvester uses a blade to dig into the soil, scooping up around 35 tonnes

potatoes an hour.

Then the spud is separated from the mud using a mesh conveyor.

So before these huge machines were invented, how did they used to harvest

potatoes? So I remember coming to a field to see my granddad harvest them

had his spade and they used to literally loosen the soil, pick them up by hand,

put them into buckets and then into the trailer.

So you used to harvest potatoes when you were a kid?

Yeah, yeah. What you don't know about potatoes isn't worth knowing.

Yes, maybe.

We're actually nearly full now. We are nearly full. Look, they're mounting up.

They are, yeah. Lots of potatoes, all ready to go to the chip factory.

Transferring the spuds from the harvester is a carefully choreographed

operation.

This is like a piece of ballet.

This is amazing.

The harvester and tractor must move in perfect unison.

Travelling in tandem as the crop is gently dropped into the trailer.

But the performance isn't over yet.

Every potato must travel through another monster machine.

It's quite the setup, isn't it?

Yeah, it's impressive.

As the buds trundle through, this optical sorter removes rocks and any

potatoes.

How does that machine tell between a rock and a potato?

Five cameras that's looking at every individual potato as they go through the

machine, and it's saying, you're a good one, you're a bad one.

And what's a good potato and what's a bad potato?

You get the odd one that has a bit of a green on it or something. What's a green

potato?

The soil that we have over them gets washed away a little bit, lets a little

of sunlight in, and it's like a little bit of a sunburn on it.

OK, so it's pretty harmless, but we don't want that going into the factory.

Potatoes with green marks are edible, but here they go to animal feed.

Meanwhile, the spuds for the chip factory are being loaded, and I want to

inspect the goods.

Right, so where is this perfect potato?

Yes. It's had the right amount of sunlight, the right amount of rain.

And will that make the perfect chip?

I reckon so, when it goes to the factory, yes. Well, as the potato

can't argue with that.

Perfect. Can I have this? Of course you can.

It's got a pocket.

Yes, it's got a potato pocket right here.

Potato pocket.

Very fancy.

Thank you.

Not for me.

I'm old school.

Anyhow, potato pockets aside, just look at the size of this place.

This factory is spread across 50 ,000 square metres, with ten enormous

buildings, and most of them chocker with chips.

But first, me and my batch of spuds are heading to the receiving area.

Fresh from the farm, 28 tons of them are rolling along conveyors and

into one of 14 huge storage containers.

But before they can be made into chips, every single load coming into the

factory is put through some rigorous tests.

Oh!

So, Paddy?

this is where we sample our potatoes so this is the first part of the process

where you said it's not quite as simple exactly yes right okay so what are we

doing in here exactly mike so every lorry that we get of potatoes we will

a sample into this lab and then we will test for things like natural blemishes

And we will also check for any levels of naturally occurring sugar that come in

the potatoes.

Where did the sugar come into it?

So the sugar is made up within the starch and glucose, and that's where the

sugar comes from. So it's naturally occurring within the potato.

Am I right if potatoes just predominantly water and starch?

That's exactly right, yes. So a potato generally is 20 % solid, which is

80 % water.

The higher the sugar or starch content in the spud, the browner the finished

chip will be.

So the levels are carefully checked by technical operator and chief test fryer,

Sarah Thompson.

Are you all right, Sarah?

I'm good, thank you, Paddy. Yeah, I'm good, Tara.

How many chips are there?

There's 18 there.

18. So that's usually what you get out of one potato?

No, this is 18 separate potatoes.

You've took one chip out of one potato.

My days.

So we do that so we can get a good idea of the colour of that complete load, not

just one potato.

Why are we frying it?

That will indicate the level of naturally occurring sugar that we have.

In they go.

Oh, I love that noise. Yep.

Oh, that's fancy.

Automatically lowers for a more standardised process so we know that

sample is the same.

These are all those things that I never thought about.

After 90 seconds in the oil, if the test batch comes out pale in colour...

They're looking a little bit anemic at the minute.

It means that the starch levels are in the correct range.

They are on the paler end, which is a good thing.

And the colour of the fully cooked chip will be perfectly golden.

But even these pale ones must be checked against a colour scale.

Can I just say, I'm loving this.

This is like when you go in the old DIY place looking at the paint chart.

Where's the perfect chip on there?

Anything below that four there.

But because of the time of year we are, we'll be around here.

This is our first indication of...

how we set up our manufacturing process to deliver that consistent product.

Are they all passed?

They're passed.

Right, Mike, what next, pal? We can now release these potatoes through to

manufacturing. So we have a radio, if you want to do the honours, Paddy.

It's a modern world, isn't it?

Am I releasing... Release the potatoes.

Hello, Paddy McGinnis here.

You are?

Give them a minute to get over, they'll be a bit starstruck.

Untether the taters.

Thousands of freshly dug, muddy spuds are starting their journey to becoming

frozen chips.

We've unloaded them off the lorry.

We've tested them for the sugar content.

Yep. And we're here now. How long have we been at this, Mike?

So, at this point here, we've been 30 minutes.

So, 30 minutes. So, you're saying in another, what, 90 minutes, hour and a

they're going to be on the back of a wagon and drawn and off.

Exactly, yeah. Yeah, frozen, finished, in the bag, ready to go.

I mean, I know we're against the clock here, Mike, but before we go any

you've got a plate of chips.

What are you putting on them?

Brown sauce all the way.

Tell you what.

It's amazing how quickly you can go off somewhat.

Brown sauce on chip.

To get rid of any residue from the field, the potatoes tumble into a de

which splurts the spuds in water and sinks any remaining stuff.

Then it's onward into a washer to remove the last bits of soil.

Spotlessly clean. They've just got a lovely bath.

What's the next stage now, Mike? Because I know we've got to keep this moving.

We have yet. So that's me done now. So that's where my responsibility ends. And

I'm going to hand you over to my production colleague, Ashley.

Ashley. Right.

Lovely to meet you, Mike. You too. Far from the brown sauce.

That's unforgivable.

Great. I'll follow the potatoes.

My spotless spuds are as fresh as... Well.

The daisy.

And are now sorted by size.

Any that are too small for chips drop away between the rollers to become other

products.

The rest continue at a rate of 50 tonnes every hour.

Right to the peeling area.

Production director Ashley Borsley is the man in charge.

You all right, Ashley?

All right, Paddy?

Nice to meet you, mate. Nice to meet you.

I tell you what, a bit noisy up here.

There is, there is, there is, because this vessel, it's a steam vessel.

Hang on, I thought I was coming to the potato peeling bit.

Yeah, this is.

What we've done with technology, we've changed it to rather than a person using

a potato peeler, we now steam peel our potatoes.

You steam peel a potato. I have never heard of this in my life. How does that

work? The potatoes go into a vessel, into here. Steam is injected.

The potatoes are made up of 80 % water.

And what happens is the water behind that skin is then heated up and the

is generated behind it and then it explodes the skin off the potato.

The steam is added at such high pressure that it quickly heats the water under

the skin of the potatoes.

The pressure inside the vessel is then released, causing the water to suddenly

expand, loosening the peel from the flesh of the potato.

That makes perfect sense. I can't believe no one's thought of that before.

long have you been steaming your spuds? That sounds wrong, but you know what I

mean. We steam the potatoes for between 5 seconds and 15 seconds.

What a time to be alive.

That is a modern way of peeling a spud.

The taters are lifted into a washer, which removes any loose skin before they

tumble out.

32 tonnes of squeaky clean shiny spuds a minute.

Me and Ashley have been getting on famously, so I wonder how we'd feel

little day trip.

You know, I know we're in Scarborough.

You get down to the seaside much?

Every now and then I get there.

Oh, I love it. I mean, obviously fish and chips are the main thing, but I do

love a sugar donut, Ash.

Let's hope he takes the hint.

Meanwhile, Ruth is several steps ahead of us, 50 miles down the coast,

discovering the origins of this belter of a dish.

Lovely. Cheers. You're welcome.

Fish and chips.

By the seaside, you can't get a much more British institution than this.

But where did our passion for deep -fried fish and chips come from?

To find out, I'm meeting food anthropologist Dr Mukta Das.

Mukta, hello!

Oh, how lovely.

On Cleethorpe's historic pier.

This is the British seaside, isn't it? Fish and chips and a brief.

This looks fabulous.

So what was it then that gave rise to the unrivaled popularity of fish and

chips? We can't really be 100 % sure about the history of this dish, but we

be sure that it wasn't an entirely British invention.

And in fact... Possibly the most compelling origin story is that fried

across to England with the Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal.

Sephardic Jews began to arrive in London at the beginning of the 17th century,

fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, which persecuted people who didn't share its

Christian faith.

And with them came one of their favourite foods, fried fish.

Initially, it's the food of an immigrant population, and then gradually it

spreads out. That's right.

By the middle of the 1800s, fried and very likely battered fish began to

as the popular street food.

It took its place among the jacket potatoes and the meat pies and

else. Jelly deal.

Jelly deal.

Absolutely.

To discover how a simple fish snack became one of our most celebrated

dishes, Mukta has brought me a couple of miles up the road to the industrial

port of Grimsby.

So what's so special about this dock, though?

These docks were the first docks to incorporate both the port plus railways.

So this was an all -in -one, we're going to build a dock with railway?

That's right.

The once small fishing port was expanded in the 1850s to include its own

railway, running straight from the dock.

So freshly caught fish could be loaded onto waiting trains and sent all over

country.

Innsby became one of the largest fishing ports in the world.

Would it have been as busy as this?

Yeah. Around the first year of operation, they were landing and

around 3 ,400 tonnes of fish, about double the amount from the year before.

And within ten years or so, they were processing about 20 ,000 tonnes of fish.

Good grief.

By the 1870s... Technology was advancing out at sea as well, as the

traditional sail power of most fishing boats was replaced.

What you had were the introductions of these trawlers, as you see here. Oh,

a steam trawler. That's right, and they're larger, so they're able to go

longer around Greenland, around Iceland, and then just capture as much as they

can through their trawl.

And then these fast clippers and cutters would then ferry these fish back and

forth to be sold in markets like this. So that's a well -thought -out system.

This industrialisation of the fishing industry made fried fish much more

available.

And so it became an affordable meal for the masses.

We've talked about the fish. What about the chips?

There are chip restaurants.

that emerge at this time in the Victorian era.

So not fish and chip, just chip?

Yeah, it becomes a really classic working -class staple where you have

deep -fried in the same way that you'd have fish deep -fried. So the two are

happening separately.

When do they come together?

The crux of it is when we have an emergence of a sort of new technology of

-frying.

In the late 19th century, the development of new, larger, deep -fat

that for the first time, fish and chips could be cooked side by side, much like

they are today.

And so you have the birth of this new type of establishment that combines both

fish and chips.

Arguments remain about where the very first fish and chip shop was opened, but

one thing's for sure, they proved a big hit.

By 1910, there were more than 25 ,000 around the country.

That said, it still doesn't explain one thing.

And what about the seaside? I mean, I definitely associate these fish and

with the seaside. When did that begin?

The same railway that transported fish... across the country would have

same railways that would have carted people into seaside towns. And here,

the fish and chip industry growing as it did, this would have been the ultimate

sort of holiday food for those folk as well.

We're at the seaside.

We've had our fish and chips. You know what we need now, don't you? What's

An ice cream. Come on, I'll treat you.

Ooh, I'll have a 99 in two pony feet, please, Ruth.

I'm still no closer to getting a plate of chips here.

Here we are. Oh!

My freshly peeled potato pals.

I can feel they keep licking up.

Are passing through another optical sorter.

Cameras detect any naturally occurring green marks and bruises revealed by the

peeling, and it flicks them off using computer -controlled levers.

Right, there's another.

Hey!

I mean, I could stay here all day.

But time is ticking, and while the blemished spuds are sent for animal

and my pristine potatoes need to get a wriggle on.

Now, your mate, Mike, from earlier, told me the whole process is going to be two

hours, Ash.

How far into this are we now?

So we're currently 65 minutes into the process.

Excuse me, maths, but I think that leaves us 55 minutes, doesn't it? And

not even chipped yet.

At home, I'd have power -boiled these fellas hours ago.

But Ash has something more high -tech.

We need to...

for our pulse electric field machine, which softens the potato ready for

cutting.

Pulse electric field.

So where are these magical electric things happening?

It's that small machine which looks tiny, and it literally goes through

seconds. How does that even work? So what that does is it sends electric

into the water.

That then softens the potato up for us, so it allows it for us to cut the potato

easier. the amount of stuff what goes on with a humble chip in here is amazing

so

what we do now is we actually start cutting the potato

into chips and let me show you and i'll show you i'll get potato off the line

so what happens now is the potato will come down here yeah okay it'll

come into this what we call a tube What this does... Hey, I call it a tube as

well, fully and all.

We all call them tubes.

What we call a tube and what we call a potato. That's a tube.

Right, so it goes into this tube. And it comes through here. What's that called

again? A black tube. A tube, yeah, right, OK, yeah. OK, so it actually

through the tube at 60 miles per hour.

That's going some. Why so fast?

The reason is, is so then, when it goes into our cutter bot...

It goes through here, and then it goes into chips. Can I pick that up? Is that

all right? Yeah, yeah, go.

So all them are razor sharp, and that's what the potato goes into.

See that in there? They're all sort of staggered.

I can see exactly the size of the chips and everything.

I can totally see them there.

So in there now...

Is the chip totally cut what we'd all recognise on our plate?

Yeah. But where can I actually see them?

That's in the next bit.

After you, pal.

Four cutters are chopping 100 kilograms of spuds a minute before they make the

big entrance.

There they are, the little rascals, walking up, just marching out there.

A whopping 1 .7 million chips tumble down this waterfall every hour.

Can I grab one of these?

Yeah, go for it. Very exciting. Here we go. Let's have that little rascal there.

Look at that beautiful chip.

Perfect size.

So that's what we're looking for.

What we've got is a clean cut.

Yeah. And the reason for that clean cut is because of our pulse electric field

machine. It's topping that potato up.

And then what we've got is then a nice clean cut potato.

So now is it just a case of freezing them and getting them out there? No, no.

So after here, what it goes into is the water plume, because what we're trying

to do is stopping the oxygen attack the potato.

So they don't go brown.

Yeah, so imagine like your apple at home, where you bite into it, you leave

on the side, it starts to go brown. In effect, that's what happens to the

if you leave it out.

How far into the process are we now then?

So we're 67 minutes into the process.

Feels like, no, because I've seen the actual chip, it's doable. At the

beginning, when I met Mike and he said two hours, I was thinking...

That's not achievable, but I think we're on it. I think we've caught it up,

Anne. Right, go on, lead on to the next bit. Go on then, Paddy. Come on, Paddy,

follow me.

Take it with me.

I've got to say, it does feel like we're getting into the groove of making chips

at last.

Oh, look at that.

That's a little disco.

What have we got here?

So what we have is another optical sorter.

And what is it doing then?

So what it's doing is it's looking for natural imperfections in the chip, OK?

they're not hiding from anything like that.

This third optical sorting machine also uses high -speed cameras to detect the

contrasting colours of blemishes caused by bruising or sunburn that have been

exposed by the cutting process.

If it sees anything that's not the natural chip colour, it'll then shoot

off with a blast of air.

And the camera's spotting each one of them? Every single one it takes an image

of, yes.

I mean, they're going that fast that when I'm looking at it, you can't even

the chips, it just looks like yellow things.

Where do they go to then? What happens to those, the ones with the little bits

of black and the little bits of green on?

So we save every single chip.

The machine then siphons off the blemished chips for a separate sorting

So they're coming down to there, all the little bits and different colours on

them, the bits are green, bits are black, bits are brown, yeah? And then

there, what it does is go through another camera which takes an image of

chip again.

This final camera pinpoints the exact location of any blemish that needs to be

cut out.

And in here is a big cutting wheel, okay?

You can't see it in there because obviously we've got all the blades.

But what it does, it cuts every single piece out.

I mean, that's a lot. And again, at the speed they're coming through, how is it

cutting them out? So inside what you have is these two blades, okay?

Not just two of these. There's thousands of blades in there. It uses air

pressure to cut these blades out and cut them natural imperfections out.

So in there, that's going to be doing that at, like...

You're not even going to be able to compute it because it's just that fast.

That'll be milliseconds, that.

And then I can see all the little bits that have been cut out.

Can you see that? Look at that.

That's been cut off there.

Have they been then? What happened to them?

Nothing's been. All the small bits will go to animal feed so we don't put

anything to landfill.

Okay. And also, listen, me, where I grew up in Bolton, all those little...

We call imperfections the little green bits, the little dark bits.

They are edible.

Oh, yeah, all of them are edible. They just don't look the best on the eye, do

they? No, all of them are completely edible and you can eat them. Beautiful.

Well, with all this chip chat, I'm definitely starting to feel a bit

I was talking to Mike before about your favourite sauce on chips and it's got a

bit heated, but really, when I think about it, I know it's not technically a

sauce, but...

You've got to start off with vinegar.

Nah, not for me. I don't like vinegar.

You don't like vinegar?

Nah, I don't like vinegar.

I've got Mike with a brown sauce and you with vinegar.

Where's all my friends in here? I love vinegar.

Right, Cherry's doing a bit on vinegar now.

More pee.

More pee. More. Oh, get it on there, Cherry.

More. More.

You can't buy class.

More pee. When?

Banging. I also love a lot of vinegar on my

chips. It's the perfect pairing.

But have you ever wondered, how exactly is malt vinegar made?

I'm visiting a factory in Middleton, Greater Manchester, where they know a

or two about making vinegar.

Sarsons have been producing this ultimate chip condiment for over 230

Graham Houghton is the technical manager.

Graham, lovely to meet you. Nice to meet you too. I love the vinegary smell in

here. I just wish I'd bought some chips.

Oh, we can forward some of those later. I just couldn't get them in my suitcase.

Thomas Sarson began making the original vinegar in 1794.

And despite some high -tech kit, the factory uses surprisingly similar

today to how they made it two centuries ago.

I can't wait to see how you make it. OK, sure we're going to look.

Yes, please.

Production starts, as it always has, with the main ingredient.

Milled, malted barley.

Okay, so what's in here is a bed of barley with water. Okay. It's around

63 degrees C.

What's happening is the enzymes which were in the barley, they start to break

down the starch into sugar.

This is quite similar to making beer, is it?

It is. It's very similar to the beer -making process.

Before factories like this dedicated their business to vinegar production, it

was made by brewers who collected excess beer that had soured.

and sold it as a by -product.

We are historically a beer -drinking culture.

Yeah. Hence, they go hand in hand.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's why we're famous for malt vinegar in the UK.

Just like making beer, the barley and hot water mix is strained, producing a

golden -coloured liquid.

Cheers. Cheers.

Bottoms up.

Known as sweet wort.

I mean, hiya.

It's good, isn't it? It's good. It's so sweet, but it's also malty and it's got

a sort of fruity flavour to it. It's almost like a syrup. And that's exactly

what we want at this stage. So that's going to become vinegar.

It is going to become vinegar.

Can I bring this?

Yeah.

The transformation from sweet wort to acidic malt vinegar begins inside these

steel fermentation vessels.

Yeast is added, which gets to work for six days, turning the sugars into

through the process of fermentation, before the liquid is moved to huge

vessels.

This is the other Siberian pine, about 50 years old.

Does it help with the flavour?

We think it helps to round and mature the vinegar, and again, part of the

unitary heritage of our process.

The fermented liquid, now known as bright wort, is similar to a barley ale,

it certainly packs a punch.

Inside of here is 9 .3 % alcohol.

That sounds very strong.

It tastes very strong, but we need that strength because what we're trying to do

is convert the alcohol into acid, which is what makes vinegar.

Cool.

You can taste the alcohol in that, can't you?

You can indeed.

You really can.

Next, the boozy liquid is piped into another set of wooden barrels, where

mixed with something called acetobacter, a live bacteria.

along with another unusual ingredient, which Graham has set up for me in this

glass container.

So what we have here is a smaller version of the big barrel.

Inside this is wood wool.

Wood? Wood wool.

These are shavings from the larch tree. That helps impart a roundness of flavour

to the vinegar as it passes through.

Has a very particular smell.

Yeah. Very fresh and piney. Yeah.

Wood wool has been used to add flavour to vinegar for more than 200 years.

Inside the wooden barrel, the alcohol liquid is passed through the wood wool

the acetobacter bacteria many times.

What we're doing is we're giving the bacteria alcohol, which they need as

consume and that converts to acid so the bacteria are eating the alcohol that is

reducing the alcohol level and increasing the acidity increasing the

that's so clever so it's a really organic process it's a living process

those bacteria will do the magic for you and what's left is vinegar

which leaves the traditional part of the factory for the high -tech bottling

hall.

And after all that, here we are.

Yep. Would you like a taste?

Yeah, I would.

Okay.

Freshly brewed.

Yep. Freshly brewed. To the bacteria.

Cheers.

I wouldn't want a pint of that, but my goodness, is that punty and delicious.

And on your chip, farewell.

Right, to the chippy.

I'm getting ever closer to tasting a few chips myself.

But it looks like I've got to get through an obstacle course first.

There we go.

Crikey.

Not made for people our size. These are the ash. No, they're not for the... Yep,

out the way, son. Trying to make a TV programme.

My freshly cooked chips are travelling along yet another massive system of

conveyors, trying out as they go.

My word, it's just chips as far as the eye can see. I'm in northern heaven

How many steps do you get in a day walking around this factory? You get

this factory 6 ,000 steps a day.

Oh, which means we can eat more chips. We're burning it off. Definitely.

It's a win -win.

And we've got further to go yet, as we're following my chips to the drying

where they're blasted with hot air, reducing the moisture content from 80 to

70%. Look at that. Now, they don't

look as damp as the last time I saw them. So the whole idea is that this

now a little bit tacky, ready for the battering process.

Batter? Batter, yeah. It's a nice light batter that we pour on to give it that

crispness and also gives it that nice colour.

Honestly, I never realised they had that on.

That's got to be a really thin layer of that.

Who knew?

The batter is made from wheat flour, water, a pinch of salt and turmeric and

paprika extracts which give it a golden colour.

And then what you have is air blowers, which then takes off any excess batter

there, so then it gives us the right amount of crispness.

My battered chips are ready for the big moment.

In the most enormous fryer I have ever seen.

Ah, here we go.

I can see them dropping in there.

For a little fry?

Yeah, because what we've got is a two -stage fry.

I know it's a fried chips at home, but why are you doing them in two stages

here? What's the reason?

So the first stage is we feel the batter onto the fries. So the whole idea is to

get that crispness right.

The second stage is then making sure we then cook it further to get the right

internal texture.

Both stages happen inside this monster fryer.

where vegetable oil is heated to 185 degrees Celsius, doing their job in just

50 seconds, before they emerge.

Uh, are them the ones up there?

No, up there, Paddy, is where the chips will come out of the fryer.

Unfortunately, we can't get up there, for safety reasons.

And never let health, or safety, get between me and a mountain of chips.

Please, don't... Don't... Sam, come round here. Come round here.

Luckily, one of our crew's cameras can get us a closer look.

Sam, set that up, son.

Let's have a look.

Look at that. Lovely stuff.

They're a bit paler than what I thought they'd be coming out of the cooker.

At this stage, we've not actually fully cooked them because that's what you do

at home.

Part two.

Yeah. Makes sense, because obviously you get them on the tray at home, in the

oven, and then you finish them off.

Yeah. So after that, where are they going to?

So they're going into the freezer.

Sam, move along a bit, Sam.

Move along a bit.

They're going into the freezer.

Beautiful. Right, shall we crack on, Ash? Get to the next bit. Yeah, let's

There's a cat up in a tree outside.

Go and give it a lift.

Right, come on.

The sky -high chips are 95 degrees Celsius when they travel into the

But after 15 minutes...

...they emerge

at a chilly minus 18 degrees.

And I've not packed me extra socks.

Oh!

I did that!

I definitely know we're in the frozen section well there they are pal frozen

chips exactly as I know them how long are we in the process now then? so we're

about an hour and 35 minutes into the process now so these are now oven ready

chips these are all oven ready yet which leads me on nicely to a mate of mine

Ruth she's done a history of the gas oven

I can tell the way you look at me you've got electric. Let's go.

Before the 19th century, most people cooked on fire, whether it was a coal

-fired range or an open hearth.

But with the arrival of a brand new fuel, our kitchens would change forever.

And that fuel was gas.

I've come to what remains of Fakenham Gasworks in Norfolk, an industrial relic

from the Victorian era.

To meet engineering historian... Hello, Ruth.

Pleased to meet you. Dr Nina Baker.

What a place.

Oh, Nina, this is fabulous.

You often hear that word, don't you? The gasworks.

This is the gasworks.

This was how gas was made for over 100 years here. What we're looking at is a

load of ovens. They were known as retorts and they were full of coal and

were heated up without much oxygen so that the coal gave off a mixture of

hydrogen and carbon monoxide that was used to make what was known then as town

gas. So all these pipes are collecting the fumes that are coming off?

Yeah.

Unlike natural gas, which forms over millions of years underground, this man

-made gas was stored in distinctive ring -shaped gas holders,

which, by the 1820s, were a common sight in most large towns and cities.

It was piped underground to light factories, streets, and by the 1840s,

homes as well.

So gas lighting becomes, for a short period, the form of modern lighting.

Absolutely. It really takes off and suddenly everybody's got gas in the

And once you've got gas for lights, then people start thinking, well, what else

can you do with gas?

Well, how else can we sell gas to you?

By the 1880s, an invention that could really boost gas sales was gradually

becoming more available.

The gas oven.

Gas manufacturers like London's Gas, Light and Coke Company knew that if

embraced gas cookers, they could sell more gas.

The problem was most people were very comfortable with their solid fuel

If you'd cooked on a coal -burning range, you would recognise the cast

might not have any idea how to use the gas, but it would look like a cooker.

it has this little oven with gas flames at the back and you you could hang your

sunday roast or you can use it to bake a cake yeah in a traditional way

the cookers were connected to gas piped into the home providing an

instant flame and offering the potential to replace dusty coal -fired cooking if

would -be customers could get past their fears

There was concerns about whether the gas would make the food taste weird, about

safety. Why were the people so worried about it then? You've got to control the

flame more constantly, that you can go away and leave coal, but you can't

with the gas.

Everybody knew gas was dangerous, that it could gas you and that it might

explode.

Gas companies were desperate to reassure the public that...

Careful use of gas was safe and that cooking with it was the future.

With uptake still slow, they took action and in 1888 put the call out to a group

of women who would become known as Lady Demonstrators.

Here we have the International Gas Exhibition at Earld Court and a Lady

Demonstrator. on the Imperial Stove Company stand.

And these were well -known cooks of the period, often with published cookery

books. And they did tours of different parts of the country, giving cookery

demonstrations.

The gas companies realised that, at the time, it was women who ran the home.

And who better to convince them of this new technology than other women?

So part of the convincing was to get the lady demonstrators to talk to the

housewives direct and show them how to use the gas cookers and show them that

their sponge cake wouldn't be spoiled. So this is women talking to women and

that's part of the point of it.

But these women were using skills that far exceeded a basic cooking demo.

The lady demonstrators had to have quite a bit of technical knowledge.

The gas company in your area would send a lady demonstrator to visit the home

and she would show you how to dismantle the cookers. So there was physics all

about how the gas actually was made, how it worked, how the cooker worked.

By taking on roles traditionally reserved for men, these women, soon

lady demons, helped to sweep aside typical gender stereotypes.

And this is a socially acceptable way for women in the early part of the 20th

century to be interested in scientific subjects.

Yeah, absolutely.

The role of the housewife was changing and the lady demonstrators really made a

difference.

The demos helped to break down barriers for women in the workplace.

But the strategy also worked for the gas companies.

So convincing were the Lady Demons that by 1920, new applications for a home gas

supply had trebled.

Gas ovens are everywhere. People stopped being frightened.

They did. And it was the technical women that really changed it. Clearly there

was nothing to beat woman talking to woman.

Here we all are with our gas cookers.

Right, where's my mate Cherry? She's in here somewhere, I know she is.

Hey, excuse me, I'm looking for Cherry Healy. Have you seen her? She's about

that tall.

Very chatty.

No. I'll find her.

My chips have been frozen at minus 18 degrees Celsius.

Now it's a race against time to get them bagged up.

As they hurtle towards the packing area, they cascade into 11 weighing machines,

each measuring a one kilogram portion of chips.

Before they drop down to meet Cherry, our very own lady demonstrator.

Oh, the bagging machine.

It's amazing. So Paddy, I spent a bit of time in the packing room.

And it's taught me through how it works. So they weigh the chips upstairs, one

kilogram. It falls down. It's this, like, never -ending stream of packaging.

This machine cuts it and seals it, 65 bags a minute. And then it goes down

the conveyor belt, and off it goes.

And do you know what the best bit is? Do you know how much I love air fryers?

Yeah, cut it up.

So on the bag, it says you can air fry them as well as oven cook them.

I... I've nothing to add.

Right, I'll go and brew up.

Does she ever take a breath?

Anyhow... Our freshly bagged frozen chips are loaded, 12 bags at a time,

into cardboard boxes.

Stacked onto pellets, and sent to dispatch, where, after several subtle

Ashley has finally sorted me out with a nice, thick jacket.

Without stating the obvious, Ash, it's freezing in here.

It is. In here, we'll be at minus 18.

Minus 18. It feels it. The whole point of this now is it needs to stay frozen

because now the chips are frozen.

There's nobody around. Is it fully automated?

Yes, everything is automatic.

The pallets come in on automatic track.

It then builds up to a full load, which is 26 pallets, and then it's

automatically pushed onto the trailer.

How many are we putting on the back of that one?

1 .7 million.

Brown Sauce Mike said, when I first met him, two hours in total. Where are we up

to now?

Bang on the two -hour mark.

Bam. And I like that. No gloves on. Proper.

Normally it's a bloat with a pallet truck.

Pump truck.

Is there a button? How do we get them going?

I'll give the signal.

All right, okay.

High tech, love it.

Right, thank you very much, Ash.

But as it's absolutely freezing in here, I suppose we get in the canteen and get

those chips warmed up.

Come on, off you go.

Well, they said it would take two hours, and bang on the dot, 1 .7 million oven

chips are leaving the factory near Scarborough.

Heading out across the UK to be enjoyed with everything from sausages and beans

to pies and pasty.

And I can't wait to try some.

Look at this, Paddy, a great big bowl of chips. Oh, the fruits of our labour.

Do you know what?

It's what the country we're built on.

Oh, so fluffy inside.

Mmm!

I've been waiting to do that all day.

You know what's missing?

Ketchup. Ketchup. Yeah, baby.

Ketchup.

Going from rundown to renovated, Amanda and Alan's Greek job

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