Original subtitles

Grab a cup of tea and get ready to dunk.

It's very sweet.

That's what we want in a biscuit.

Hobnobs.

Now that's true original.

For the last 190 years,

there is a company that has been supplying biscuits

to a hungry nation.

It's an awful lot of biscuits.

McVitie's.

They are risking nearly two centuries of biscuit domination

with a bold new strategy...

I'll take it from here.

..a new advert campaign they hope will bring their image

and their biscuits bang up to date for a modern consumer...

WHOOPING

We've got to keep our eye on the ball all the time.

..as they try to sell more biscuits to more people than ever before.

There's nothing moving. Looks like we've got a problem.

Every hour counts. Every case counts.

But this isn't the only challenge facing McVitie's.

There is competition and it's stiff competition.

They took a gamble on a huge research and development project...

That crunch.

..to try and crack the secret of a brand-new product...

So we really have no choice but to get it right now.

So we've got a lot to worry about today.

..the white chocolate digestive...

That's so disappointing.

As McVitie's gear up for their most important year yet...

We're going to absolutely smash that order.

..we go behind the scenes to discover

just how one of the nation's best selling biscuit brands

works their magic.

Patience, patience. As they say, keep calm and carry on.

Great Britain loves a biscuit.

Over half a million tons are eaten every year.

Hobnobs is one of the best product I love.

It's crunchy and it's sweet.

HE LAUGHS

And the competition is tough.

The biscuit business is worth almost £3.5 billion.

I've got to get this right today, because if I don't,

there's going to be a lot of disappointed customers.

To keep up with the competition,

McVitie's have come up with a risky new strategy.

The decision has been made to launch a new version of one of the nation's

favourite biscuits, the digestive,

but covered in white chocolate.

Millions of pounds of development is at risk.

For Managing Director David Murray,

it's a nervous time.

You don't have a way to anticipate how people will respond to it.

I mean, the brand is almost 100 years old, the chocolate digestive.

McVitie's is almost 200 years old.

You imagine we can bring in new biscuit out,

a chocolate digestive that's white.

The last thing you want to do is disappoint them and not deliver.

THEY CHATTER INDISTINCTLY

And that is not an option.

That's good.

That's a really good score.

The stakes are high.

A failed product launch can fatally damage even

the biggest of companies.

Despite the pressure,

the development of the white chocolate digestive

starts in an unusual way.

It smells milky, smells creamy.

Global Lead Product Development Chef Robert Craggs is part of the team

that develops new products for McVitie's.

He's an internationally renowned chef, who, last year,

created a cake that was the centrepiece

at a reception in Windsor to celebrate the King's coronation.

Part of Robert's job when developing anything new for McVitie's

is to hunt down how other products might use a particular flavour

on something called a food safari.

Today's challenge to balance the sweetness of white chocolate

with the hint of savoury found in the digestive biscuit base.

So last week was a great week.

I was out exploring, uh, a city, and my average step count last week

was 26,000 steps a day.

First stop is high-end chocolatier William Curley

to sample an unexpected combination of flavours.

So here we are, the miso and white chocolate.

And this one excites me. This is a clever chocolate.

At the very end, you add a little bit of miso,

so we've got a kind of salty note running through the chocolate.

Miso is a fermented soybean paste found in Japanese soup,

not usually chocolate.

Eating white chocolate on its own can be a little bit sickly

and a little bit sweet, but I thought the miso just brings

a complete different dimension running through it.

And you get a hint of that saltiness.

Yeah, it's reminiscent of our digestive base.

Having a little bit of savouriness in there,

or less sweetness can make those flavours absolutely sing and pop.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Next stop, white chocolate at the other end of the scale.

Maybe we should go with a milky bar.

That's certainly, uh, very nostalgic in the UK.

There's that classic milky bar emblem.

Yeah, the classic milky bar aroma.

Yeah, it's lovely. It's creamy. Those condensed milk notes.

Fabulous. Just what I remember.

For inspiration on combining white chocolate and a crunchy biscuit,

Robert heads to foodie hotspot Crumbs & Doilies bakery.

So what's really important, certainly in the world that I'm in,

is that crunch of the biscuit.

What you can see there is some of the soft, oozing

white chocolate chunks.

Absolutely fabulous.

Lovely, fatty, milky, creamy.

Yeah, you can smell.

And some of those malty notes from the cereal.

Yeah. Yeah.

That crunch. Mm-hm.

And the immediate hit of, like, the sweetness of the white chocolate.

You can hear it and you can feel it,

you can... texture in your mouth, you can feel the crunch.

You can hear it in your ears.

Most like a biscuit.

Fabulous, absolutely fabulous.

Full of sugar and spice and probably some indigestion tablets,

Chef Robert returns to McVitie's HQ.

So what I've learned today with white chocolate is that it...

The key things are we need some of that condensed milk flavour,

that fatty mouthfeel and a little hint of vanilla.

But it also needs to work with salt and the base of our biscuit.

The launch of a single new biscuit presents significant challenges,

even for a company the size of McVitie's.

But not content with that,

they are about to undertake another risky endeavour

- a massive new advertising campaign

that repositions their entire range of products.

So the new ad campaign that we're working on right now is...

..um, I guess it needs to be fitting for a brand that's almost 200 years

old, but relevant today.

David has a clear vision of what he wants,

and it's quite the balancing act to take a heritage,

much-loved brand and make it relevant.

It's got to be modern, it's got to have the ability to

cut through and be remembered.

Um, it's got to drive sales.

So who could you ask to deliver a message as complex as that?

None other than a true broadcasting legend.

That OK?

DIRECTOR: The guy pretending to be you, Trevor.

He's going to say "Me, Trevor McDonald."

Yeah. And that's your cue to say...

The man behind the idea is Executive Creative Director Paul Jordan.

We thought it'd be a brilliant idea because if we think

about all of the own-brand biscuits that are impersonating Mcvities,

we thought it would be really fun to have someone

impersonating Sir Trevor.

So the way the commercial will work,

it will be a little bit like a rug pull.

So we'll cut to what we think is Sir Trevor McDonald

doing the voiceover.

But it's actually an impersonator.

And as the viewer feels a little bit let down,

then we then hit them with the real thing,

THE original Sir Trevor.

A 100-strong crew are filming in a secret London location

to bring the new McVitie's commercial to life.

This is a big production, with a lot riding on its success.

..one, take one. Mark.

And quiet on set.

Ready, and action, Alan.

Me, Trevor McDonald.

Actually, it's SIR Trevor McDonald and I'll take it from here.

Cut. Cut, good. Playback.

Reset.

MIMICS TREVOR: He's so... well versed

in diction and so clear and clipped, and he always ends each sentence

with a definite full stop.

NORMAL VOICE: So he's nice to do once you get the rhythm of him.

Sir Trevor soon discovers there are right and wrong ways

to eat a biscuit.

So show the camera at the back of your hand. That's...

That's better. Much better.

OK. That's more natural then. OK. Thanks.

But Director Sam Pilling is on hand to get the best performance.

Obviously, he's very good in front of the camera,

but it's doing something that's slightly out of his comfort zone.

Um, so I'm making sure that he feels very relaxed.

That's the biggest thing that we really have to nail today.

Actually, it's SIR Trevor McDonald, and I'll take it from here.

Trevor's a newsreader. He's not an actor, but he did a brilliant job of that for us today.

And he smashed it. And he bit the biscuit 20-30 times

and looked like he loved it each time.

TREVOR LAUGHS

But Sir Trevor isn't the only star on the set of the advert.

When we actually shoot the biscuits, we've actually...

Because obviously a lot of them are made with chocolate,

under lots of lights, they're going to get hot, they might melt.

So we've actually got a model biscuit.

Um, a one model biscuit, which is 200% of the actual size.

That's the fastest they can do.

Come back, Pete, come back.

At the end of the day, we're here to sell biscuits,

so they have to look delicious.

And, um, and also a bit fun as well.

You know, it's biscuits, it's sweets, it's a treat.

And that is a wrap.

For McVitie's biscuits mean business.

They've been baking for almost two centuries and despite being one

of the oldest biscuit companies in the country,

they never stop innovating.

It's something that is always on Managing Director David Murray's mind.

The biscuit market is changing, like every market,

for good and for bad.

You know, we could say a lot of things change.

Um, there's a lot of choice out there.

Um, there's a lot of great products out there.

Um, so our job in McVitie's is to continue to provide

the best biscuits.

And they have taken a gamble with the launch of their new take

on one of Britain's favourite biscuits - the digestive.

Global Lead Product Development Chef Robert Craggs,

is the man charged with creating the white chocolate

for the new digestive, and he has done his research.

Back at McVitie's research and development lab,

Chef Robert is ready for the next stage of the process.

Right, then, so what we've got on the table today

is some white chocolate.

From drinks to bars, cookies and doughnuts,

it's this palette of flavours that will help Chef Robert decide

what he wants his recipe to taste like.

So what we will do today is we will get under the skin

of the flavour of white chocolate,

and then we work out what we want our biscuit to taste of.

He is starting with Britain's favourite - Milky Bar,

which sells 1.9 billion white chocolate buttons every year.

One of the favourites was the Milky Bar, one of a tried and trusted,

I suppose, benchmarks and, uh, um, widely recognised white chocolates

of the UK market.

So how this is going to help inform the white chocolate digestive

is each one of these products, uh, display different attributes?

Maybe some are very caramelised, some are very buttery,

some are very milky or dairy,

some have vanilla, some have less vanilla.

Next for Chef Robert is to identify the flavour attributes

he likes for a white chocolate recipe that will work

with the slightly savoury digestive base.

I'm really looking forward to what we do next

with the white chocolate digestive.

Over days and weeks of testing, the recipe will be refined.

The next stage of the process

is taking the perfect tasting chocolate

and making sure it can be applied to the biscuit base.

It's the biggest launch of the year, so it's one of our real priorities.

And it's a lot trickier than you might think.

It's not a case of just putting white chocolate on the top

of a digestive.

We need to really understand how we can really optimise

the overall eat experience.

At just 29, Lead Product Development Manager Sophie Steels

already has an impressive track record in the food industry.

She has helped create some of the country's best-loved

new products, from breads to pesto and now biscuits.

So a lot of work has already gone in behind the scenes on us choosing

the best chocolate.

And now, today, I really need to work on making sure

that chocolate is processable in the factory.

Chef Robert has asked Sophie to look at three different

white chocolate mixtures.

They taste the same, but have different consistencies.

So we've obviously made the biscuits,

and now we're going to look at some different chocolate options

to see which one sticks to the biscuit best.

A number of things can affect the consistency of chocolate,

including quantity of key ingredients,

like fat and emulsifiers.

So this is one of our options of different viscosities that we've...

we're trialling today.

So it's really starting to drip down the sides here.

So I think that'll be really challenging in automated process.

Obviously when it turns over at the end,

that's going to be quite challenging around the sides,

if the chocolate's that liquid.

Yeah, it's likely to slide over the rollers.

And it also might be flicking bits off.... Yeah.

..and I think we might see challenges there.

So batch one, the chocolate covering on the biscuit is too thin.

So we can see that it's not spreading as nicely as the last one,

and you can see the lines of the palette knife in it.

And it'd be very difficult when the chocolate goes

through the line.

So in the factory the biscuit comes like this through the chocolate

pushed by a wire belt.

So that's how the chocolate gets stuck on.

And so because this being thicker, that will be more challenging for us

to use in a factory setting.

So this one is going to have to be a no,

because it is too thick for us to use.

And batch two is too thick.

Hopefully the final one is just right.

So let's try that third one and hopefully that gives us

a better visual.

I think it's the clear winner of the three of them.

I think it's giving us the best coverage.

We're not seeing any drips down the side.

This is the best option we have going into the factory,

and I can't foresee any major challenges.

While the development of the white chocolate digestive

might have passed the lab test and be one step closer to production,

elsewhere, McVitie's are busy making their tried and tested favourites.

Whether it's a new version of white, dark or milk,

chocolate is a key ingredient for McVitie's.

Almost half their biscuits contain it in some form.

They use so much of it they own their own chocolate refinery

in Stockport, where they produce 74 tonnes a day.

It's a good job, really, isn't it, that I like chocolate.

Looking after all that chocolate falls to refinery operator,

Tracy Cusack, who started working at McVitie's almost ten years ago,

making Jaffa Cakes.

We've got to keep our eye on the ball all the time.

Quality and the product being correct is essential.

The key ingredients in milk chocolate are cocoa butter,

cocoa mass, sugar and milk powder, which are all mixed together.

So you just feel the consistency now that there's not any hard lumps

in it, or not any big lumps of sugar or one ingredient.

That's just what we're looking for.

Next, they are ground to a fine chocolate flake.

It is a tough job, I was 8st when I started.

The final stage is conching.

Six hours of mixing and heating to form liquid chocolate

and develop flavour, texture and aroma.

Once mixed, the chocolate is stored in heated tanks.

So each tank holds 36 tons and we've got 16 tanks.

So at any one time we've got over £1 million worth

in chocolate in this room.

Which is quite a lot of chocolate, isn't it?.

Tracy needs to test each batch of chocolate

for viscosity or runniness.

With 26 tons of chocolate riding on this test result, it has to meet

McVitie's exacting standards.

So the viscosity is the thickness of it.

It's got to be in a certain spec, otherwise it'd run

off the Chocolate Hobnobs.

Obviously they wouldn't be Chocolate Hobnobs they'd be just Hobnobs.

So everything's got to be correct.

You don't want it looking dull and motley as such.

You want it looking nice and shiny.

Obviously, you eat with your eyes, don't you?

Test is ready.

So that's spot on, we'll be able to send it

down to Harlesden this afternoon.

With the chocolate ready, Tracy hands over her precious cargo

to truck driver Paul.

All right, Paul, are we loading Harlesden, then?

Yeah. For milk chocolate, yeah?

This batch of chocolate is destined for McVitie's factory in Harlesden,

west London, the largest biscuit factory in Europe,

where it will find its way onto a Hobnob.

Right, you want to get this done, Trace? Yeah.

With the tanker heated at 50 degrees, 26 tons

of liquid chocolate is loaded.

That should be running now.

So today's chocolate is worth about £50,000.

That's quite a lot of money, isn't it, to be sending down.

You've got a lot of responsibility, Paul.

Well, it's just all in a day's work.

That's it, now everything's done and we can go back in

and start it all again.

Back at Mcvities HQ, managing director, David Murray,

has gathered his marketing team to give his opinion on the new advert

starring Sir Trevor McDonald.

This a big day for us.

Very excited.

Er, I think a tad nervous because we've such

huge shoes to fill in the legacy of the McVitie's advertising

over the years, but this is a brilliant team.

I have no doubt they'll have done a wonderful job.

And, yeah, really looking forward to seeing the new ad.

Ready.

There can be only one.

There's only one king.

One goat...

GOAT BLEATS

One hedgehog...

..and only one biscuit for your biscuit break.

The true original and one person to tell you about it.

Me, Trevor McDonald.

Actually, it's Sir Trevor McDonald.

And I'll take it from here.

McVitie's, true originals.

Brilliant, brilliant, well done! Absolutely brilliant.

I'm blown away.

I'm blown away by the ad.

Uh, it's exceeded my expectations.

The final edit is just incredible.

It's come together so well, I think the guys

have done an amazing job putting it together.

And I think the end, the end with the British icon,

the true original, Sir Trevor, I mean, it is just brilliant.

I just couldn't have asked for a better outcome.

So super chuffed.

The advert is a hit with David, but for the development

of the new white chocolate digestive,

there are still important tests to overcome.

Including being signed off by McVitie's very own team

of professional biscuit tasters.

OK, and what about bitterness?

OK. Very little amount of bitterness?

Yeah?

McVitie's might be the country's biscuit market leader with sweet

treats in 75% of all UK homes.

But they aren't complacent.

They are counting on the success of their new white chocolate

digestive to deliver them an even bigger slice of the biscuit market,

and things are looking good.

The chef likes the taste.

Very caramelic, a little hint of vanilla.

It's very tasty.

The scientist likes the texture.

I definitely think this is the best option that we've seen today.

Just one hurdle left.

It needs to get past people with possibly the very

best job in the world.

My name is Rachel and I'm a professional biscuit taster.

To be honest, to become a professional biscuit taster,

I think you have to have a particular palate

and to be able to differentiate certain flavours,

certain tastes and textures.

And to be honest, I'm not so much of a biscuit fan any more.

I don't really eat them myself much.

I get enough at work.

You all right, Karen? Yes, thank you, you good?

Yeah, not bad, you know, the usual.

These are McVitie's very own crack team

of professional biscuit tasters.

People with highly developed taste buds who can tell the difference

between tiny amounts of salt, sweet, bitter and sour.

If they don't like how a biscuit prototype tastes,

it won't go into production.

We have such a diverse group within the panel because we're all

brought together through our taste buds, which is quite an unusual...

..grouping of people.

They are led by sensory panel leader, Tom Holmes.

Hello, guys.

So today we are going to start off with some training

on some sweet biscuits. So just one sample.

Then we will try that with some dunking in some tea.

The super-tasters start each session with some training to ensure

that they are tasting and reporting flavour in the same way.

So we've got sample 361 for us today.

Sweet, salt, bitter. Sweet, salt... Bitter. Yeah.

So where did we score sweetness for sample 361?

54. 50. I'm on 50, yeah.

OK. And what about bitterness?

Ten. Very little amount of bitterness.

No great surprises.

This is what we like to see for something

like a digestive biscuit.

I'm a big fan of the white chocolate digestives.

Yeah, having a sweet tooth is, er, makes it all the better.

Yeah, and good for the job as well.

The white chocolate digestives, a good combination

of your basic digestive

and then it's got that fabulous topping.

Training complete, they can move on to dunking.

It is vital for the success of the white chocolate digestive

that its flavours work with a cuppa.

The dunking we do in our sensory booths, and this is an area

that we've designed that's really neutral,

so it really dulls all of our other senses,

so the panellists can really just tune in to

what the biscuits are giving them.

It's really white, it's really quiet and we've got specific lighting

that allows us to just make sure we're assessing things in the most

accurate way possible.

Yep. So I'll just pass these through.

Here's your first sample.

You just get started when you're ready.

Thank you.

Here's your first sample. So if you get started whenever you're ready.

Certainly the sweetness and the vanilla for me are enhanced

in this dunking experiment.

Job done.

All that is left is for Tom to analyse the results.

The bars are from an early taste test without dunking.

The dots from today's dunking test.

It's really good to see that before the dunking, throughout

we had some strong flavours picked up.

Then even after it was dunked into the tea, the flavours

were becoming even stronger, which is really good.

So the sensory science behind this is showing that the white

chocolate digestives are improved by dunking into the tea

and hopefully will be still really well liked after it's been dunked.

Proven by science,

a biscuit and a cup of tea - a match made in heaven.

All that is left is to see what the great British public think

of the finished biscuit.

To gauge reaction

McVitie's are releasing the white chocolate digestive initially

in a limited number of supermarkets.

With the first weeks of sales so important, managing director

David Murray can't help himself and pops to the local supermarket

to make sure every packet is being properly displayed.

Clearly, you know, it's a new product, right?

So it's only got two facings, versus, you know, the daddy

of our portfolio, which is milk chocolate digestives.

But, you know, it's our hope and our goal that that continues

to grow in spaces in time.

But white will hopefully eventually get there.

But, yeah, right now we're very happy

even just to have it on the shelf.

You know, McVitie's is not just the only biscuit company.

I mean, there is competition and it's stiff competition,

but that drives us on.

With the white chocolate digestive on sale at last, it doesn't take

long for the all important biscuit influencers on social media

to feed back.

Well, it looks nice.

And, by Jove, it tastes nice.

I will give these a nine out of ten, and I give nothing a ten.

Not the strongest of flavours.

I don't think there's actually a patch on milk chocolate

or dark chocolate.

First off, without a dippy.

And these were amazing.

Then obviously I had to have a little dippy in my tea

and they were even better.

That's so disappointing.

I'm literally getting the tiniest bit of white chocolate.

All I'm tasting is digestive.

The instant verdict on social media may be mixed, but the real test

comes with the first weeks of sales.

And back at McVitie's HQ the results are in.

We originally thought we'd be making about 444 tonnes this year

of white chocolate digestives.

At the moment I've got a figure that I'm working to that probably

sits well over 1,200 tonnes.

I think that's pretty impressive.

Alexandra Chitty is a supply chain planner.

It's her job to analyse sales and make sure factories are producing

enough biscuits to meet demand.

As you can see, there's a few red squares appearing on my sheet

already this week. These red cells here,

as you can see, this top line, this red top line here, is...means

that we are performing considerably above forecast.

For McVitie's, red is good.

A red number means that demand from a shop

is outstripping available supply.

That means that we are going to be looking to ramp up

production in this area.

I'm happy from a business performance perspective, but it does

create a challenge of how are we going to make it next week?

Even social media is finally coming on board.

We're going to try and find the white chocolate digestives.

McVitie's have a big hit. So big, that some customers

are having trouble tracking down an elusive pack.

Are they all gone?

No!

We've been violated.

# Dance through the sadness. #

It's a great problem to have, but it is a problem.

They are proving so popular that McVitie's need to quickly ramp

up production to meet increased demand.

Right, time to get my clothes on.

The challenge of making more

falls to the McVitie's factory in Stockport.

I'm putting my hairnet on to make sure I keep all my hair,

what little hair I have, in place.

A 35-year veteran of the food industry, process development

manager Bill Marsh is leading the ramp-up in production.

His first priority?

A huge delivery of liquid white chocolate.

I've got concerns about this delivery coming in today,

when it's going to arrive.

We're very short on stocks.

There's a real risk here that it might come in too late.

We might end up stopping production.

This is a massive launch for the site and for the business.

So it's very important that it all goes well.

So we've got a lot to worry about today.

All right. Let's go and get on with it. Cheers, guys.

Cheers.

The sales are insane, and we've done quite a lot of work to make sure

we can keep making those biscuits, 2.5 million biscuits every day,

to keep up with consumer demand.

So I've got to get this right today, because if I don't, there's

going to be a lot of disappointed customers.

2.5 million biscuits are going to need a lot of white chocolate.

And with the delivery of 20 tonnes of the stuff every two days,

Bill is faced with a storage problem.

This tank just isn't big enough.

He's had to switch over to a huge tank capable of holding 20 times

the capacity of the smaller one.

This is where the white chocolate's been delivered to.

This is our enormous new tank.

So right now in this tank, we have 20 tons of white chocolate.

That won't even last us two days.

With the new super tank coming online, the increased demand

should be comfortably met.

Morning, Steph. Morning, Bill.

As you know, we've changed over to the new bulk

chocolate system today. Yes.

But with any change in production

there is the danger of a hiccup in the system.

So Bill and enrobing expert Steph are watching closely

for quality and consistency.

We've got a good temper, we've got a great coverage.

We're keeping the weight. All under control.

Obviously, this is a key part of the speeding up of the line

so that we can make enough biscuits to keep everyone happy.

Exciting.

Once the biscuit is cooled, the new batch of white chocolate

sticks perfectly to the biscuit.

Yeah, very happy with that.

Well done, Steph. Thank you.

The next step is packing.

Production team manager Debbie Carter and her team are ready

and waiting for the increase in production.

We've got the process spot on now.

Chocolate coverage is really good.

It runs round the line really well.

Packets are fine. Everything's perfect today.

Oh, good. Let's hope it stays that way.

Spoken too soon.

The line stops, so does the flow of biscuits.

When 2.5 million biscuits per day need to be packed,

every second counts.

Feel like the captain of the Titanic.

Didn't the Titanic sink though?

We're not going to sink!

McVitie's have decided to launch a brand-new take on one

of the nation's favourite biscuits, taking a much-loved digestive

and covering it in white chocolate.

But at McVitie's top secret R&D lab just outside High Wycombe,

the search for the next big thing in biscuits never stops.

And to ensure that they have the very best taste buds to help them

identify exciting new flavours, sensory panel lead Tom Holmes

is putting two new recruits for his team of super-tasters

through their paces.

So if you want to be a sensory panellist, one of our professional

biscuit tasters, then there's quite a few different exercises

that we need them to pass.

So, today, we're going to be doing a few of these different tests.

And it's not as easy as you think.

So, the first one, we're going to give you four different samples

of squash, two of which are one type and two of which are another type.

Have a taste of them and see if you can pull out

which two go together.

And then if you can describe what the difference is, maybe.

It's quite tricky. They all taste quite similar.

Erm, I wrote one thing and I'm starting to change my mind.

I'm feeling good about this one.

So the next task that we'll be doing, we'll give you a stick

that has some aroma on it

and we want you to try and identify what that aroma may be.

Being a super-taster isn't all down to what we put

in our mouths.

Our sense of smell is responsible for about 80% of what we taste.

Tom has to find out if the volunteer's nose knows.

So this is the first different aroma that we're going to give you today.

So have a smell of this and see if you can recognise

what this may be.

It is something that I've definitely smelled before.

It's just not coming to my mind what exactly this is,

but definitely something sweet.

Hardly a resounding success.

This is harder than it looks.

We'll move on to our last task that we've got for you guys today,

which is going to be seeing if you can pick out texture

differences between some biscuits.

So we're going to give you five different biscuits today

and we want you to rank them from the softest to bite through

to the hardest to bite through.

I'm pretty sure I know which one's hardest

and second hardest and softest.

It's the last two.

I'm just trying to decide which order they should be in.

If you guys have finished that test, that's us all finished for today.

Time for the moment of truth.

To be accepted as a McVitie's super taster, Tom needs the volunteers

to score perfectly in every test.

For the first activity that you did, the different squashes,

so you two managed to both get that test correct.

So well done there. Yes! Yes! Thank you.

One hurdle cleared on the path to becoming

a professional biscuit taster.

So the second task, with the different aromas,

that you were doing. So this one was quite tricky.

I went quite vague.

I said herbal. I wasn't able to identify.

I think it's cardamom.

After giving a thought I was confused between cinnamon

and cardamom, but I think it's cardamom.

So unfortunately both of you got that one incorrect.

That one was black pepper.

LAUGHTER Ah.

That's amazing.

It was all going so well.

So we've got the different biscuits here

that we ranked in terms of the texture.

So which one did you guys have as being the softest biscuit?

When it comes to the final test on texture

our two guinea pigs were in agreement.

Six, two, four. Yeah, six, two, four for me.

Yeah. Yeah, so six, two, four is our Rich Tea.

That is the softest sample to bite through.

Until the third to last biscuit.

I had four, one, one.

Oh, I think I've given four and two. OK.

So the third softest was four, one, one, which is the Hobnob.

A career in professional biscuit tasting foiled by a Hobnob.

What a way to go.

By doing this test, we can see quite how hard it is

to be a sensory panellist.

And whilst Pranav and Karen got close,

they didn't quite pass every single one of them.

So it means that we wouldn't be able to accept them

as sensory panellists.

Bad luck, guys.

Yeah, I've got a new respect for people who do biscuit tasting.

Yeah, they've got some pretty finely tuned senses, I would say.

Some of my responses, I thought they were right, but they're not.

So it is a bit heartbreaking.

That, as they say, is how the cookie crumbles.

McVitie's white chocolate digestives have been launched in a limited

number of supermarkets, and they are proving popular.

So much, in fact, that the production

needs to be massively increased.

However, back at the Stockport factory, for production team manager

Debbie Carter, things have hit a snag in packing.

And then relief all round.

It stopped because the blueprints stopped.

The line starts again.

There was a gremlin in the blueprint machine, but that's still cause

for a little celebration.

You all right, Carmelita?

I am, thank you.

You're supposed to do a little dance, back, you know!

I can do my dance... Like, happy!

With the line up and running again, it's full speed ahead.

Our order is for 238 pallets over a four-day period.

The way we're running, we're going to absolutely smash that order.

Terrible twosome. SHE LAUGHS

Well, we can't get in any more trouble, can we?

All that is left is for a spot check by Bill and Debbie to ensure

the biscuits meet McVitie's exacting standards.

We're going to make sure that all the packets are in the case

correctly, facing outwards.

So when it's on the shelf, it looks actually quite presentable and quite

catching to the eye for the consumer.

Then we'll open it...

..to check product quality.

And eat one! And eat one!

Or two. Or three!

Fab.

Lovely.

I could eat a whole packet.

That's why I didn't want to start eating one!

HE LAUGHS Because you just keep going back.

Nice.

The white chocolate digestive is finally ready

to be packed and distributed.

They are just some of the 92 million biscuits that McVitie's produce each

and every day.

When it comes to the coordinated movement of huge

numbers of biscuits,

McVitie's have it down to a fine art.

At their Harlesden factory, they produce so many boxes of biscuits,

they've had to call in the robots.

Costing over £2.6 million,

these eight robots stack 100,000 cases a day.

It's quite a special place.

That used to be done by people.

It's now done by robots.

Machine operator Peter Wright has been working with the robots

since they were installed in 2016.

When anything is in the wrong place, we have to make sure

that doesn't stop the whole facility.

If that conveyor stops, everything stops.

If the pilot collapses, it will stop the whole system.

Never in my life did I think I'd be working with all these robots.

It definitely can seem like there's some of the robots have got

their own personalities.

It can seem like that.

It's like there are definitely instances where the minute

you turn your back, they play up.

You've got to watch them all the time.

As soon as you turn your back, they'll do something naughty.

BEEPING

And as if on cue, one of Peter's robots decides to misbehave.

Did you hear the alarm? Yeah.

I've got to go.

I've got...I've got an issue to sort, OK?

We have a crashed pallet.

A crashed robot.

The case on the bottom is out of position.

But the robot didn't know that. They'd stacked it anyway.

Which means when he comes to stack the case next to it, it's crashed

into the case before him.

So we now need to go and retrieve it to make it good.

It's not safe to go through there.

There's too many moving parts.

Once the robot is working, there's...

..there's no human interacting in there.

It's too dangerous to be in there whilst the robot is doing its thing.

Peter has to shut down the entire system to fix the breakdown.

PETER HUMS

Bad case removed.

Robot unit locked.

Robot restarted and we still need to watch it to make sure

everything is in the right position for it to carry on again.

So far, so good.

All good.

Disaster averted and just in time.

Loaded up and sent out on lorries,

these biscuits will join the white chocolate digestive in shops

up and down the country.

McVitie's increase in production has worked. Millions more

white chocolate digestives can now be enjoyed

by eager waiting customers.

White digestive biscuit.

HE INHALES

9.75 out of ten.

Very tasty.

With over one million in sales from a limited nationwide launch,

the white chocolate digestive is McVitie's biggest new product

of the last ten years.

But success doesn't stop managing director David Murray constantly

monitoring customer feedback.

So this is the McVitie's Instagram channel.

We've another one. That's got to make it into my cheesecake recipe.

Er, the absolute best.

I need them.

Please send them.

Yeah, it's just amazing and to see that level of reaction.

Erm, yeah, it's brilliant. That's shoppers, that's people that buy

them and absolutely love them.

In order to keep up with their competitors, McVitie's

have invested years of development, millions of pounds of investment

and a true team effort.

Finally, the launch of the white chocolate digestive

can be called a success.

Fab!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media