All language subtitles for Inside.The.Factory.S01E03.Milk.1080p.PMTP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H264-BTN_track3_[eng]

As a nation, we consume

over 20 million liters
of milk every day.

And right now, factories
across the country

are processing milk from
nearly two million cows.

[cheerful bright music]

[cow mooing]

It's a modern day miracle that
we all take for granted,

but it's a race against time.

Cow to carton in 24 hours.

How do they do it?

Well, tonight we are
taking you inside

one of the largest fresh milk
processing plants on earth

to find out.

[bright music]

[Gregg] I'm Gregg Wallace and I
have been given

exclusive access

to see how this dairy
factory can process

2,000 liters of milk
in under a minute.

When you see all of
this hi-tech machinery,

it's easy to forget it's
actually coming from the cow.

How cutting edge science
is used

to create the perfect drop.

We do a bit of a taste,

just like you would taste a
good wine, it's just milk.

[Gregg] And how new technology

will change the future
of milking.

Mate, I love this, I
absolutely love this.

[Cherry] I'm Cherry Healey.

I'll be following
the milk off-site

to help me discover
what is it about milk

that some of us can't tolerate?

That's the difference between me

being able to have
a milkshake or not?

[Mark] Yeah.

And revealing how milk makes

the nation's favorite dessert.

That may be the most beautiful
thing I've ever seen.

[Gregg] Along the way
historian, Ruth Goodman

will investigate our
complicated history

with the white stuff.

[Ruth] A maid might
have to milk

as many as 10 cows
in the morning

before she could even
start making the butter.

[Gregg] We'll be
meeting robots.

Whoa, whoa, ah.

And people who have worked
in dairies all their lives.

Been in this business
18 years, in a fridge.

I effectively was a robot.

Most days 1 1/2
million liters of milk

will pass through here on the
way to your supermarket shelf.

This is the incredible story

of the factories
that feed Britain.

[cheerful bright music]

[upbeat music]

Tonight I'm gonna show
you the remarkable journey

of milk through Arla Dairies,

one of the biggest
producers of milk,

cheese and butter in Britain.

It's a cooperative, owned
by thousands of farmers

across Europe, including
Neil and Jane Dyson.

They're cute, aren't they?

I've come to their third
generation dairy farm

in Buckinghamshire to
see how it all begins,

with a herd of 500
Holstein Friesians.

Here's your Uncle Greggy,
come to give you some lunch.

The Dysons rear 120
young heifers a year

that are especially
bred to produce milk.

How do we go from
baby cow to milk?

When they're 15 months old

they'll get pregnant
for the first time.

Then they'll have
their first calf

when they're two years old

and then they'll
start producing milk.

'Cause obviously
no calf, no milk.

[Gregg] How can you guarantee
that every different heifer

is gonna fancy the
same looking bull?

It's not been a
problem in the past.

[Gregg] After calving, cows
produce milk for 9 months,

then they need to be
artificially inseminated,

keep having more calves
and keep producing milk.

I have to confess to being
slightly uncomfortable

with so many big cows.

-[Jane] 700 kilos.
-[Gregg] Don't let 'em get me.

That one's gonna slip over,
fall over and crush me.

[cow mooing]

-[cheerful music]
-[Neil] Come on, girls.

[Gregg] Milking starts
at 4:30 in the morning

and every day the Dysons'
milk for 16 1/2 hours.

This one's hiding at
the back, come on.

I'm going to help.

[Neil] Are you ready?

[Gregg] No, I'm a
little bit nervous.

[Neil] It's not tricky

once you've done it a few
hundred times.

[upbeat music]

So you're now looking at
the backside of 34 cows.

Would you like to
choose your cow?

-This one.
-Okay.

You hold her there
and you squeeze down.

[Gregg] Before we can get
started, we need to check

for something that all
dairy farmers fear.

[Neil] Right, her milk's good.

If she's got mastitis,
which is an infection,

then it would be watery
with horrible clots.

If they have mastitis
we must make sure

we give her some antibiotics,
and if we do that,

then she mustn't be milked
with the rest of the cows,

she must be kept separate,

'cause you and I must
not have that milk

that's had the antibiotics in
it, we must throw that away.

Put your finger inside here

and can you feel
pulse, pulse, pulse?

That's the sucking, like the
baby calf would suck you.

Take this and put
it onto her teat.

[machine whooshing]

You can hear it
sucking, can't you?

Oh that's it, yeah, that's
it you got that one.

[Gregg] You're
okay, there you go.

Number three and

number four.

And if you look in here, you
can actually see the milk.

[cheerful upbeat music]

[Gregg] In around 24 hours,
this milk will be bottled

and ready to drink.

Do you refrigerate the
milk straight away?

Before it goes
into our big tank,

it's cooled to 3 degrees C.

When there's no
more milk coming out,

the machine stops
milking automatically.

There it goes,
automatically off.

[Gregg and Neil laughing]

I'm never gonna see a
bowl of breakfast cereal

in the same way again, ever.

[uplifting bright music]

The Dysons' cows produce
12,000 liters a day,

which is destined for the
enormous dairy factory

13 miles away in
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.

1 1/2 hours after milking,
Paula DaSilva Pereira arrives

to collect the milk
in an insulated tanker

which will keep it chilled
at around 3 degrees.

The Dyson's are paid according
to the quality of the milk,

so a daily sample
needs to be taken.

What do we want in the milk?

We want good fat.
We want high protein.

I mean, what does it vary by?

It could vary by 10%,
which doesn't sound a lot.

But for us it could mean
a penny or two per liter,

12,000 liters, every day.

-That could be the profit.
-Yeah.

Perfect.

[Gregg] Do we test this
or does this go off now?

[Neil] It goes off, yeah.

[Gregg] They don't
trust us to test it.

No.

Well, I'm a food and
drink expert as you know,

and let me tell you, this
milk looks really good to me.

Oh, brilliant.

All right, don't
worry about a thing.

[Neil] Come on, Gregg.

Oh, crikey.

It's like being a fireman.

I'll catch up with
the Dysons' milk later

at the dairy factory after
Paula

has finished the remainder

of her 96-mile route collecting
from two other farms.

Well, there's a truck full
of milk just left the farm,

but that is just one
of tens of thousands

delivering milk all
over the nation.

And we go through milk
in huge quantities.

Actually the fact
that we can drink milk

in that much quantity really
makes us quite unusual.

[gentle lilting music]

[puppies yapping]

Almost all of us can
digest milk as babies,

it's a trait we share
with other mammals.

But amazingly there's
only one mammal

that can keep digesting
milk into adulthood

and that's us.

Even then up to two thirds of
the world's adult population

find milk difficult to stomach.

Every time you try
and get to sleep,

it feels like a
witch's cauldron's

going off in your stomach.

If I have a lot of it,

then I can spend some
time in the bathroom.

[Cherry] What is it about milk
that some of us can't tolerate?

Whole milk is made up of
87% water, 8.3% protein,

fat and vitamins combined,

and 4.7% milk sugars
called lactose,

which can cause problems.

During childhood many of
us stop producing an enzyme

called lactase, which helps
break down the milk sugars

and they become
lactose intolerant.

It's a condition that's
surprisingly common.

About 50 million Americans
struggle to digest milk.

In the south of France half
the locals must say "Non"

to a glass of the white stuff.

[lilting music]

And for the Chinese,
astonishingly,

90% of them are
lactose intolerant.

[gentle upbeat music]

So why is it that so
many people in the world

have a problem with milk?

The man who should know
is Professor Mark Thomas,

he's been studying evolutionary
genetics for over 22 years.

What is this?

Okay, so this is the piece of
DNA sequence around the bit

that controls whether you
digest the sugar in milk.

So this DNA sequence is
what most people have?

[Mark] Most people
in the world, yes.

[Cherry] And most people who
have this DNA sequence

cannot digest lactose,
they cannot drink milk.

That's right, as adults.

So if the norm is to not be able
to drink milk, what happened?

How come most of us
here in Britain can?

Well, we're unusual.

People in northwest
Europe are generally

what we like call
freaks of nature.

[Cherry] Scientists think

the reason most
Europeans can drink milk,

is because of a random
genetic mutation

that first occurred in Hungry
thousands of years ago.

There's been a change
in this DNA sequence,

somewhere in the last
10 or 12,000 years.

This one here will
be changed to that.

And that's only one in 3,000
million of these letters

in your genome, it's just
one, just that one change.

That's it? That's the difference
between me being able

to have a milkshake or not?

Yeah.

[Cherry] Some theories suggest
being able to drink milk

would have been a huge
advantage in times of famine.

You were much more
likely to survive

if you were able to digest
such a nutrient-rich food.

So the lucky mutation from
C to T in the gene sequence

quickly spread across Europe

where most of us
can now drink milk.

So do I have this
genetic mutation

that makes me tolerant to milk?

A few weeks ago, I took a
simple home DNA swab test

to find out.

I sent it off to the lab and I
believe you have the results.

[Mark] I do indeed, yes.

I wish I had a drum roll
or some kind of crescendo,

but I don't.

Right, so you are.

-Yay, I'm a mutant.
-You're a mutant.

[Cherry] Hurray.

Not only are you a mutant,
but you are a mutant mutant.

You actually get
two copies of this,

one from your mother and
one from your father.

So you get a double
shot at being able

to digest the sugar in milk.

Wow, I want a double latte.

Yeah, there you go, an
excuse for a double latte.

To match my double
genetic mutation.

Exactly.

[gentle upbeat music]

So one single mutation that I

and most people in
Britain have in our genes

has turned us into a
nation of milk lovers.

Pretty good for a random chance.

[jaunty music]

[Gregg] I'm at one of the
biggest fresh milk dairies

in the world.

Here people work 24/7,
processing up to a whopping

650 million liters a year.

Enough to fill 260
Olympic-size swimming pools.

And two hours after
leaving the cow,

the milk tanker full of the
Dyson's milk is arriving.

It's one of the 75
tankers that deliver

to the milk intake
area every day,

overseen by technician
Colin Keyes.

Give me some idea of the scale.

How much milk is
coming through here.

Well, roughly this site does

about 1.5 million liters a day.

See, that's really hard for me

to get my head around
that sort of scale.

It's massive, it's massive.

[Gregg] There's Paula.

-You all right, love?
-Hiya.

[Gregg] What
happens here, Colin?

I'm gonna make sure the milk
that goes to the customer

is good quality, that is my job.

You're the bouncer.

-I am the bouncer.
-Nothing bad gets past you.

I'm not a very big bouncer,
but I'm a bouncer, yeah.

And what Paula's gonna
do is get a sample.

So why are we checking again?

Well, you just checked one farm,

but now you've got other
farms throwing in their milk

where it could be contaminated.

[Gregg] We check
it before we know

whether she can unload it.

That's right, because
if we don't check it,

the milk goes into the system
and we don't want that.

Will you send the truck
away if it's not right?

Yes, it will be rejected.

If the temperature
was incorrect, it's gone,

the whole lot.

If it's over eight
degrees, it's gone.

Antibiotic failure, it's gone.

24,000 liters of
milk will be rejected

on one farm messing up.

Mate, that is mental.

So I'm gonna go
and check your milk

and we'll be right
back to let you know

whether you can unload
it or not, okay?

Okay, perfect, I will wait.

[upbeat music]

[Colin] Now we need to
do a bit of a taste.

With all this millions of
pounds worth of kit here,

you still have to taste it?

Yeah, I have to taste
every single tanker.

I just microwave it, we're
basically pasteurizing it.

Just like you would taste
a good wine, this is like,

it's just milk.

I'm gonna smell it.

Smell that, it smells malty.

It smells good, doesn't it?

It smells like a bedtime
drink I had as a kid.

Exactly, exactly that.

Just checking for any taints,
can you taste anything?

Does it taste nice and clear?

To me it tastes
absolutely lovely,

I just wanna put
some sugar in there.

[Colin] It does, it does
taste good doesn't it?

Can we cook up some more?

We can have as much
as you want, Gregg.

Put some chocolate powder
in there, be excellent.

That tastes very good.

Now I am gonna check there's
no antibiotics in the milk.

So I'm gonna put it on a
heating block, 180 seconds.

We're testing for antibiotics,
what is the danger to us?

We don't want antibiotics
in the milk chain,

so people sort of become
immune to the antibiotics.

Now I understand why
you get so strung up

-about this stuff.
-[Colin] We do.

[Gregg] Antibiotics are
given to cows that are sick,

just like humans, and need
to be carefully controlled.

By using an indicator
strip, Colin can tell

if antibiotic molecules
are present in the milk.

We've got the fat
line at the bottom

and the thin line at
the top, so we know

that the milk is a good quality.

We can go out to the tanker
now, we can open the valve,

push start and get that milk
into one of those silos.

[upbeat music]

I knew that lot would be fine

because I actually
helped milk them.

Two hours, 10 minutes
after milking,

thousands of liters of the
Dysons' milk can now be pumped

into one of the 12 raw milk
silos that I'm underneath.

[Gregg exclaims]

There's 300,000 liters above
us in each of these silos.

[Gregg] Between
them, these silos

can hold over
six million pints.

-It's a little James Bond.
-[Colin] It is a little James.

But I feel a little
bit uncomfortable

underneath such a
volume of liquid.

If that now split open, I'd
know what a Coco Pop feels like.

[laughs] Exactly.

[Gregg] The Dysons' milk is
stored in these raw milk silos

for almost 16 hours waiting
for its turn to be processed.

Once released, the
critical next stage

is the processing zone,
where raw milk is treated

under the watchful eye

of Process Technician,
Mario Salvador.

Welcome to the
process control room.

[Gregg] What on earth is this?

Well, the thing is that on
this process control room

things happen very fast.

One drop of milk is able
to go from that silo

into this silo, which is
finished milk, in 55 seconds.

So let me get this right.

-We have got raw milk here.
-Yep.

And it will go through all
of this in 55 seconds time,

it's milk in here ready to
be drunk by me, the customer.

That's correct.

Are you lying to me?

No, definitely not,
I'm gonna show you.

[cheerful music]

This is the processing floor

where the Dysons' milk
arrives 18 hours, 10 minutes

after leaving the cow.

Here, 1 1/2 million
liters of milk,

enough to fill two
jumbo jets, is treated

in over six miles of pipes
by a state-of-the-art,

fully automated system
running 24 hours a day.

When you see all of
this hi-tech machinery,

it's easy to forget it's
actually coming from the cow.

All the milk here is put
through a four-stage process,

starting with separation,
then standardization,

homogenization and
finally pasteurization.

The first thing we need to
do is to get rid of the fat.

The milk comes into this
machine, which is separated.

That is spinning
around at 4,500 rpms,

all the fat globules
will go in the top,

the skim will go at the bottom

and we're gonna be able to
separate the fat from the skim.

You take all the fat
out at this stage

and then you can put
it back in again.

At the end, yes.

[Gregg] Once the
milk is separated

it needs to be
precisely standardized,

by now adding some fat back in.

In the standardizing machine
the computer controls

how much fat is added back
into the skimmed milk.

3.5% for whole milk,
1.7% for semi-skimmed,

and unsurprisingly
0% for skimmed.

But the next problem they face
is the fat won't mix evenly.

If you have a glass of raw milk

and you leave it
for a few hours,

you're gonna have
a line on the top.

We don't want to do that,
we wanna perfect solution,

clear and white.

[Gregg] To solve this
predicament,

the next step is
homogenization,

which became common practice

because consumers
preferred their milk

without a layer of
cream on the top.

The milk is forced through
small holes at high pressure,

smashing the fat globules
till they become tiny

and dispersed.

That cream that we used to
get on the top of the milk,

that doesn't happen anymore.

That's not gonna happen.

[Gregg] The final step
is pasteurization,

which kills off the majority
of bacteria in the milk.

This is happening
on these plates,

so what we do here is
we heat up the milk,

up to 74.5 degrees, and
then the milk goes through,

very fast, through those pipes

for 28 seconds at 74.5 degrees.

And that's pasteurization.

That's correct.

[Gregg] The Dysons' milk has
now moved

into a chilled holding
tank, to be mixed

for about 30 minutes
before the next stage

of its remarkable journey.

Who knew all that?
I most certainly didn't.

You see a cow, you
know it produces milk,

you think it goes in a carton.

I had absolutely no idea
our milk goes through

so many processes.

[jaunty music]

-[machine whirring]
-[machine banging]

Back at the dairy factory,
the next vital stage

for our milk is for
it to be bottled.

40,000 plastic bottles
an hour are blow molded

in a process so secret

that it has to be
kept from competitors,

so I'm not allowed to see it.

And there's no point
making them somewhere else,

you'd just be transporting
air, so they're made here,

in a factory on site.

A million bottles a day.

Once they're created,
the empty bottles

are transported to the
colossal filling hall.

[uplifting music]

It's the size of the
pitch at Wembley Stadium,

containing six filling lines.

Brilliant, all of a sudden
it's got milk in it.

Up until now milk has
just been in vast volumes

that I can't compute.

Now I can see a
bottle that I buy.

And in this highly
automated world

the only guy I can find
here is Miles Lord,

Production Team Leader.

Do you know how
fast this is going?

Well, this filler now

is running at 17,000
bottles an hour.

Which is the same
as 4.7 a second.

-Nearly five bottles a second?
-Nearly five bottles a second.

There's three stages
to the filling.

When it first comes in,
it runs at a slower rate

and that stops it
splashing up and foaming.

Then the speed increases,
we put more in.

And the last bit we slow
that right down again,

just so it doesn't
foam at the top.

-And that's how I pour my beer.
-Exactly.

[Gregg] It's got to
keep moving, hasn't it?

[Miles] If we have the line
standing for 20 minutes,

we've got to get rid of the
milk that's on the line.

[Gregg] Just 23
hours and 56 minutes

after leaving the cow, I can
watch our milk get bottled,

although it can take up to
48 hours to reach this point.

What's happening now?

We've filled the bottle
up and within seconds,

within point seconds,
we put a cap on it.

I can't think of anything worse

than milk dripping
all over my shopping.

How can you guarantee
that that lid is on?

[Miles] Everything we do is
checked at every stage

to make sure that
the milk is fine.

We have a camera, it's
looking at every single bottle

that goes out and it's saying
"Is that in the right place?"

[Gregg] And what
happens if it's not?

If it's not it'll reject it.

Can we put one on
there that isn't right

and see what happens?

We can.

[Gregg] To test the camera,
we've taken the foil seal off

and replaced the lid.

[Miles] So it should
be spotting it.

[machines buzzes]

Yay.

There you go, that's our bottle.

Do you load it into
these cartons of milk?

We don't do that here, no.

-Good.
-Do you not like those?

No, the whole nation hates them.

-Okay, yeah.
-This is what we want.

You can open that and not end
up with it over your jumper.

Yeah, absolutely, hopefully.

[serene music]

[Gregg] While I'm bowled over

at the scale of bottled
milk produced here,

Arla makes another
product on a mammoth scale

that gets spread on our
toast every morning.

The cooperative produces
43% of the UK's butter.

And Ruth is retracing the
steps of Victorian dairy maids

to discover just how
butter used to be made.

[lilting music]

[Ruth] Before refrigeration,
milk went sour very quickly,

so farmers had to come up
with ways not to waste it.

[cow mooing]

The answer?
Turn it into butter.

But it was hard physical labor

and as it was
considered indoor work

mostly a job for dairy
maids, many as young as 13.

A maid might have to milk as
many as 10 cows in the morning

before she could even
start making the butter.

That's about 2 1/2 hours work
before you've even begun.

On this working Victorian
farm in Shropshire,

Ingrid Hartung keeps
traditional techniques alive.

She chills milk in cool water

to make the cream
rise to the top

and skims it off to make
butter.

So there it is,
our lovely cream.

And then of course from
this we make yellow butter.

That's right, in
the spring, summer

it is actually a nice
yellow rich color,

because of course the
natural ingredients

that the cows are eating
when they're grazing outside

makes a nice yellow color.

[Ruth] Although grass
looks green,

there's actually a
yellow-orange chemical

called beta carotene found
in every mouthful a cow eats.

In winter, when the
cows eat less grass,

they produce a much
paler butter

which is less
appealing to consumers.

So here we are trying to do
this in the middle of winter

which is, um, challenging.

Challenging. [laughs]

[Ruth] So dairy maids came
up with an ingenious solution

to produce just the
right shade of yellow.

We substitute the carotene
that the cows would eat

in the grass with a good
old fashioned carrot.

Just put a little bit
and see what color.

Not very much, but there we go.

We don't want to overdo it.

[jaunty music]

We're now ready for the
hard graft of making butter.

Now, if we've got everything
absolutely perfect,

and the cream's top quality

and the temperatures
are perfect,

we could expect this
cream to turn in what?

20 minutes?

If it cools down a
bit, half an hour,

but something like that, yes.

The cream needs to
be shaken enough

so that the fat in it clumps
together to make butter.

And if we've got it all
wrong, we could be here.

Two hours plus.

[both laughing]

We'll take turns, go
on, you get started.

Unlike a lot of jobs
for women at the time,

dairy work was well paid,

but you had to have very
strong shoulders and arms.

So shall I take over for a bit?

Yes, if you want to,
that would be very good.

[Ruth] Using a much
larger churn,

a really brawny dairy maid

could make 20 or 30 pounds
of butter in one go.

Now let's just
have a little look.

[Ruth] After churning
until my arms ache,

I'm starting to realize
what a difficult job

being a dairy maid
would have been.

17 pints of milk yields
only a pound of butter.

In my case, no butter at all.

So far, it's just
really thick cream.

-[lilting music]
-[churn clanking]

So we are hitting 2 1/2 hours
and it's still not come.

I mean, this can
happen, can't it?

If the weather's
difficult, and the cold.

Sometimes it's the cream,
but at this time of year

it's more likely to
be the cold, yeah.

[Ruth] Despite butter being
best kept in the fridge,

ideally it needs
room temperature

for the fats to solidify.

So here in the freezing
temperatures of the dairy,

we're having trouble.

It's very disappointing,
but luckily

you had got a batch
you'd already done.

-[Ingrid] Yes.
-[both laughing]

[Ruth] Today, automatic churns

have almost entirely replaced
the muscles of dairy maids.

But our love affair with
creamy butter still continues.

[Gregg] Back at the
dairy factory,

it's taken our milk
just under 24 hours

to get into a bottle.

Now the bottles are
put onto trolleys

and are heading for
distribution

to our grocery shelf.

Now we've just
packed up this milk

the other side of that
wall, and traditionally

in this hall would have
been hundreds of people,

but here they like to do
things a little differently.

[upbeat techno music]

Here, futuristic robots
like these, distribute milk.

In this custom built,
enormous fridge,

75 state-of-the-art
robots transport orders

from the filling zone
to the dispatch bays

to send on to
supermarkets nationwide.

They shift 1 1/2 million
liters of milk per day,

enough to provide daily
milk to Greater Manchester,

Somerset and the West
Midlands combined.

I've never seen
anything like this ever.

This looks nuts to me.

Dispatch Team Leader, Paul
Ansell, is a robot expert.

Somebody is controlling
these robots, aren't they?

I mean, they're not
thinking for themselves?

It's not a human that
controls the robots,

they're controlled by the
warehouse management system

that's in the fridge.

When the milk comes
through the door,

there's an RFID, a radio
frequency identification number

that goes to each trolley
and then the robots will move

or action them orders
around the fridge.

You must have to be careful.

I mean, with robots running
backwards and forwards,

you've got to be
careful where you stand.

Not really, it's got
the sensor in front.

The laser's always
looking in front of it

at any given time.

[Gregg] I'm going to test
out the robot's

laser beam collision
avoidance device.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[machine whirring]

Ah! [laughs] That's just nuts.

You could actually take
your robot for a walk.

Come on, come on, come on then.

Stop, good boy.

-[upbeat music]
-[machine whirring]

And off she goes.

[Gregg] After 35 miles of
work, these robots know

to automatically dock and
charge their lithium batteries.

It goes and puts its feet
up and has a cup of tea.

[Paul] It puts itself on
charge.

If you didn't have the robots
here, you'd need people.

How many people would you need?

Somewhere in the
region of 300 people

in this fridge alone.

I've been in this
business 18 years now.

So I started in a fridge,
I effectively was a robot.

You have to think each trolley
weighs about 240 kilos,

if you're doing that
for a 12 hour shift,

it's very, very labor intensive.

So a robot never phones in sick.

No.

Never takes a tea break
when he shouldn't be.

-No.
-But you can't talk to the robot

about the football
on a Monday morning.

You could try but you
wouldn't get an answer back.

[Gregg] Robots haven't just
taken control in this spectrum.

Out on the farms there is a
robotic revolution going on.

[rousing music]

In the heart of the
Lancashire countryside

is a scene that could
be from science fiction.

On a dairy farm in Blackburn,
the cows are in control.

[cow mooing]

This is a
state-of-the-art Merlin.

[triumphant music]

An automatic, laser
guided, milking robot.

Machines like these
are being used

in about 5% of farms in the UK

and the cows can choose to
use them whenever they want.

Chris Bargh's herd of 180
cows choose to milk themselves

three times a day,
producing 5,000 liters.

[cows mooing]

The cows come in when
they wanna be milked.

And they get milked by robots.

Yes, the cows actually
come and milk themselves

whenever they want to be milked.

It's all robotic milking now.

It's absolutely amazing.

[Gregg] That cow
can't wait to get in.

[Chris] Can't wait
to get in, no.

So they're actually
queuing up to get in there.

Yeah, no, they just come
in and queue up whenever.

And the clever cows will look

to see which has
the shortest queue.

[jaunty music]

[Gregg] With the
cow in position,

it's time for the
robot to get to work.

So you'll see now as the,
the brushes come round,

and they go round
and clean the teats.

Oh my word.

[Chris] And then you'll see
the lasers start flashing

on the teats now.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so now it's
pinpointing exactly

where them teats are.

Oh, it's go it.

Yeah, it's got it, it's
got it, it's got it.

These robots are
working 24 hours a day.

[Chris] They never stop, yeah.

[Gregg] The cows can be
milked whenever they want.

[Chris] Yes.

[Gregg] So cows coming out now.

Anybody that's used the
public transport in London

will recognize this, I think.

You put your ticket
in, the barrier moves.

Now how does the robot
know which cow it's got?

Every cow has a little ear tag

and a little
transponder in its ear

and that's measured
on the robot.

[Gregg] Chris's
robots can record

almost every aspect
of his herd,

from each cow's exact diet,
to the amounts of fat,

protein and sugar in the milk.

When I was a lad, or still now
you milking conventionally,

that always had to be sent away
to a laboratory once a month

to be able to get
that information.

Now every single time
that cow's milked,

we know that information.

[bright music]

[Gregg] Merlin needs
to be strong enough

to cope with the weight
of a full size cow,

which can be as
heavy as nine men,

but it also needs to be
gentle enough for milking.

The robot can make
tiny adjustments

to the squeeze on
the cow's teat,

so it feels even gentler
than a calf's mouth.

The first robots were
introduced in the 90s,

but more recently the
technology has advanced

and now about 30% of
new milking systems

in the UK are robotic.

But what happens
if it goes wrong?

If the same fault happened
with three cows on the trot,

the whole robot
shuts itself down

and rings my mobile phone to
tell me there's a breakdown.

[Gregg] And the use of
technology

goes way beyond milking.

It can even offer
a calming back rub

to keep the cows contented.

Aren't we missing out here
on the human interaction

between you, the
farmer, and the cow?

We see the character of
these cows so much more now,

because we're not forcing 'em.

[Gregg] Because humans
aren't really telling them

to do anything.

They're relaxed and chilled.

We've had the robots
in six years now,

and when we first put them in,

everyone was a
little bit nervous.

Ooh, robotic milking the cows,

some of the older cows
wouldn't change their ways.

80% of the herd have never
seen a standard parlor,

they just assume that
milking is done like this

and always has been.

Mate, I love this,
I absolutely love this.

Well, listen, I'm not a farmer,

but they look
pretty happy to me.

And they're wandering
in of their own accord,

no doubt about that.

These cows want to be in
there, they wanna be milked.

I can tell you that.

These are happy cows and
the milk yields are up.

This could well be the future.

[cheerful upbeat music]

[Cherry] While Gregg has seen
the future of milking,

I've come to a
factory in Gloucester

to see how milk is turned

into one of the most
decadent products of all.

This tanker contains
28 tons of milk.

And at this factory
they get through

around six of them a week.

[cheerful upbeat music]

This factory is an ice
cream lover's delight.

Brian Field is the
quality assurance manager.

Why is milk so
important to ice cream?

Milk is one of the
fundamental ingredients

from which ice cream is made.

All our ice cream
recipes use milk.

We use whole milk, we use cream,

we use concentrated milk
and we use milk powder.

Brian takes me to where it all
starts, the mix department.

Whoo, oh my goodness.

There's the ice cream mix.

That smells amazing.

[Brian] We add our milk, our
sugar and our water,

blend it all together to
make the ice cream mix.

Once that's done, we add
some vanilla essence.

[Cherry] Each vat holds 4 tons
of milk.

-There we go.
-Perfect.

[Cherry] What will this become?

This will become Magnum.

-Really?
-Yes.

-So this will contribute.
-This is the center of Magnum.

[Cherry] This is
my greatest dream.

I can't believe I'm at the
center of an ice cream.

Once the ingredients are
combined, they're pasteurized.

And then the mix makes its
way to the factory floors.

Greg Barratt is the
production labor manager.

From the mix department, the mix

is pumped over to
these freezers.

And in these freezers
it's almost whisked

like an egg to minus six.

[Cherry] At this point, a
vital ingredient is added, air,

which, believe it or not,
makes up half our ice cream.

And the more air, the
softer the ice cream.

[Greg] As you can see there,
the stick is put in it.

An ice cream at minus six
degrees is quite pliable.

[Cherry] Oh, wow.

[Greg] As you can see by that.

So it's still very
soft at this stage.

Yes, we've got to get
it quickly hardened

into a hardening tunnel.

It then comes out
the other side,

and it's that hard
it's almost brittle.

[Cherry] In this
hardening tunnel,

the ice creams are
blast frozen.

This ultra fast freezing

creates tiny ice
crystals in the mix.

The smaller the crystals,

the smoother the texture
of the ice cream.

And as you can tell,
it's very, very brittle.

I mean, it's rock hard.

Rock hard, yeah.

Absolutely rock hard.

Now we dip it in the chocolate.

But if the chocolate
is hot, I presume.

Yes, it's plus 44 degrees.

Then when you dip that in,
surely the ice cream will melt.

No, it won't melt because it's
been in the hardening tunnel

for half an hour approximately
at minus 40 degrees.

[Cherry] And now the ultimate
ice cream experience,

the frozen vanilla
ice cream is coated

in warm Belgian chocolate.

[whimsical music]

That may be the most beautiful
thing I've ever seen.

That is pure decadence.

Absolutely amazing.

[Cherry] The chocolate-coated
ice creams are wrapped,

boxed and packed ready for
cold storage and distribution.

To fulfill our boundless
love of ice cream,

this factory runs 24/7,
making 10 million Magnums

and five million
Cornettos a week,

as well as many other lines

producing over 1.4 billion
pieces of ice cream every year.

Not bad when you think the
core ingredient is milk.

[upbeat music]

[Gregg] At the dairy
factory distribution hall,

there is good news.

Robots haven't taken
over completely

and Dispatch Manager, Mark
Burrows, is showing me why.

If the customer is
ordering anything other

than a full trolley, we then
have to pick that by hand.

[Gregg] So let's say
there's a 100 in there.

Yes.

If the supermarket orders
103, we have to pick up three.

We do, yeah.

Slip those over your ears.

[Gregg] I might have
spoken too soon.

[Mark] Put this
round your waist.

[Gregg] It looks like computers
are in control after all.

[computer beeps]

[Computer] Talk
now, say, "Ready."

[Gregg] As they're
giving the orders.

[Mark] Just give it
the command ready.

[Gregg] Ready.

[computer beeps]

[Computer] Scan destination.

Scan destination.

So you need to
scan the RFID tag.

You'll hear it vibrate,
so it knows exactly

what product's on
that trolley now.

[computer bleeps]

[Computer] Material description,
Asda four pint semi.

[Gregg] Asda four pint semi.

[Computer] Pick 60.

Pick 60, oh crying out loud.

Right, so I need 60 of those.

[quirky music]

This is hard work.

After my brief training,
I am responsible

for getting the
Weston-super-Mare order right.

[Computer] Material description,
Cravendale two liters.

Cravendale two liter, four.

[Computer] Material
description, organic semi.

[Gregg] Ready.

[Computer] Pick six.

Two pint.

[Computer] Pick 20.

I'm stuck. [laughs]

The milk I've just collected

needs help to get
to the loading bay.

-Is that our robot?
-[Mark] That's our robot, yeah.

[Gregg] Off to
Weston-super-Mare.

Off to Weston-super-Mare.

Somebody's gonna get our
milk tomorrow morning.

The milk I've just
handpicked is about to be one

of the 400 deliveries
made every day.

This is the last stage,

it's on its way to
Weston-super-Mare.

It's gonna be on
someone's breakfast cereal

tomorrow morning.

Come on, boys.

I have regularly
walked into a shop

and just grabbed
a bottle of milk,

whether it be the corner
shop or the supermarket.

I've never even thought
about where it comes from,

I just take it for granted
it's going to be there

and it's going to be safe.

I've followed the milk now
all the way from the cow,

all the way through
every single process,

through all the
testing, the bottling,

the unbelievable amount
of people and technology

that goes in to
making it possible

for me and you to grab a bottle
of milk whenever we want.

Incredible story.

[cheerful upbeat music]