All language subtitles for Inside.the.Factory.S10E03.Oven.Chips.1080p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

There you go. Enjoy.

Thank you!

- Ooh!
- There we are.

- Yummy.
- Sausage, chips and beans.

That is champion.

- Cheers.
- Cheers.

- Mmm.
- The oven chip.

How easy is life with these?

I don't want to parent without them.

Absolutely.

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

Potatoes. Chop 'em 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.

- Should we get our hair nets on?
- Let's do it.

Hello? Paddy McGuinness 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
peeling a spud!

..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 here!

And I'm delving into the science

behind one of our
favourite condiments.

To the bacteria!

Phwoar! That will blow
your socks off!

And our resident historian,
Ruth Goodman...

- Lovely. Cheers.
- You're welcome.

..serves up the story of our
favourite fried fish...

They were 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!

- That'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 chips here
since the 1960s.

Look at that. It's like a savoury
version of Tipping Point!

Top of 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!

..to chunky chips.

They do jacket potatoes here
as well!

What you whack in the microwave.

Very nice.

But I'm looking for a classic
family favourite.

Today, I'm following production
of their 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 tonnes of them.

Operations manager Mike Hartnett...

Whoa!

..is in charge.

- Morning, Mike.
- Morning, Paddy.

Pal, are you OK?
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 Daisy 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 Maris 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 chips.

And how many of those wagons
come a day?

So, we get between 60 and 70 a day.

Yep.

Staggering!

These farms must be absolutely
constantly churning them up,

- sending them in?
- 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?
- Yep.

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 'em on.

Let's get 'em on.

So, if you want to press
that green button there,

then we'll start unloading.

As the clock starts on this
super-speedy process...

..the spuds are unloaded with
a clever conveyor belt

that runs right along
the bottom of the lorry,

gently carrying them
into the factory.

Go on, you little Daisies!

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

We have got to treat potatoes
very carefully.

We look, within the factory,
of not having

anything more than a 30cm drop
for 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 'em 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 chipped

and frozen in just two hours,

surely it can't be that complicated?

I still can't get me head round

the amount of potatoes

that go through this place
every single day.

The mind boggles, really.

So I've sent Cherry Healey
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, Cherry.

- How are you?
- Oh!
- My hands are dirty. Sorry.

I'll swerve 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.

It's a 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,

she's not a fussbag,

- perfect shape, cracking chips.
- Spot-on.

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"?
- 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 her
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 little babies that
have grown into big babies.

Yeah, they're big babies,
aren't they?

- They are.
- 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,

- some harvesting, please.
- All right.

..so they need some serious kit.

OK, so this is the beast
that harvests. This is Daisy.

Look at her. She's a monster.

All right. 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
of 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,
seeing my grandad harvest them -

and he 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.

Mmm, yeah. Maybe.

LAUGHTER

- We're actually nearly full now.
- We are nearly full.

- Look, they're mounding up!
- They are, yeah.

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

The Nutcracker
by Tchaikovsky

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 set-up, isn't it?
- It is, yeah. It's impressive.

As the spuds trundle through,

this optical sorter removes rocks

and any imperfect 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 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 bit 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?

Here. This has 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 expert,
I can't argue with that.

- Perfect.
- Can I have this?

- Of course you can.
- Thank you.

- You got a pocket?
- Yeah, got a
potato pocket right here.

Potato pocket? Very fancy!

Thank you.

Not for me. I'm old school.

# I am a mountain

# And down in the valley below

# Is all that I've overcome. #

Anyhow, potato pockets aside,

just look at the size of this place!

# Oh-oh-overcome. #

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 tonnes 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-ho-ho!

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, yeah.
- Right, OK.

So what are we doing in here
exactly, Mike?

So, every lorry that we get
of potatoes,

we will bring 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, in glucose.

That's where the sugar comes from.

- Right, OK.
- So it's naturally
occurring within the potato.

Am I right in thinking...

Are potatoes just predominantly
water and starch?

That's exactly right, yeah.

So, a potato generally is 20% solid,

- which is starch, 80% water.
- Yeah.

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, thanks. Are you, Paddy?

Yeah, I'm good, ta.
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?
- We have.

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.

CHIPS FIZZ

Oh, that's fancy!

It automatically lowers for a more
standardised process,

so we know that every 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...

- These are looking a little bit
anaemic at the minute.
- Yeah.

..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 charts.
- Yeah.

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.

Have they all passed?

They've 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..? Am I releasing...?

Release the potatoes.

RADIO BEEPS

Hello. Paddy McGuinness here.

You what?

Just give 'em a minute
to get over...

- They'll be a bit star-struck.
- Yeah, yeah.

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 their
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 half,

they're going to be on the back
of a wagon and done and off?

Exactly, 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 further,

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 someone.

LAUGHTER

Brown sauce? On chips?!

To get rid of any residue
from the field,

the potatoes tumble into
a destoner...

..which floats the spuds in water

and sinks any remaining stones.

Then it's onwards into a washer

to remove the last bits of soil.

Oh, there they are!

Spotlessly clean!

- They've just had a lovely bath.
- Yeah.

What's the next stage now, Mike?

Because I know we've got
to keep this moving.

We have, yeah.
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.
- Apart from the brown sauce.
That's unforgivable.

Great, I'll follow the potatoes.

My spotless spuds are as fresh
as, well, a 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...

..straight to the peeling area.

Production director Ashley Bowsley
is the man in charge.

You all right, Ashley?

- All right, Paddy.
- Pleased to meet you, mate.

Nice to meet you.

I tell you what,
a bit noisy up here!

Oh, it is. The reason it is
is because this vessel,

it's a steam vessel.

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

Yeah, this is. So what we've done
with technology, we've changed it.

So, rather than a person
using a potato peeler,

we now steam peel our potatoes.

You steam peel a pota...

I have never heard of this
in my life.

How does that work?

The potatoes go into a vessel
into here,

the 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 steam
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.

How long have you been
steaming your spuds?

That sounds wrong,
but you know what I mean.

Yeah, 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 he'd feel about
a little day trip.

Do you know, I know we're
in Scarborough.

Do you get down to t'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 doughnut, Ash.

Let's hope he takes the hint.

I Do Like To
Be Beside The Seaside

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.

SHE CHUCKLES

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!
- Hello!

Oh, how lovely.

..on Cleethorpes' historic pier.

This is the British seaside,
isn't it?

- Fish and chips in a breeze.
- Overcast.

THEY LAUGH

This looks fabulous.

So what was it, then, that gave rise

to the unrivalled
popularity of fish and chips?

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

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

And, in fact, possibly the most
compelling origin story is

that fried fish came 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 appear
as a popular street food.

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

and everything else.

- Jellied eels.
- Jellied eels.

Absolutely.

To discover how a simple
fish snack became

one of our most celebrated
national 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, then?

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 railways?
- That's right.

The once-small fishing port was
expanded in the 1850s

to include its own railway,
running straight from the docks...

..so freshly-caught fish
could be loaded onto waiting trains

and sent all over the country.

Grimsby 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 processing 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, it's a steam trawler.

That's right. And they're larger,

so they're able to go out for longer

around Greenland, around Iceland,

and then just capture as much
as they can through their trawl.

And then the fast
clippers and cutters would then

ferry these fish back and forth
to be sold in markets like this.

That's a well-thought-out system.

This industrialisation of

the fishing industry made fried
fish much more readily available,

and so it became an affordable
meal for the masses.

So 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 chips deep-fried

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

So, the two are happening
separately.

When did they come together?

The crux of it is when we have
an emergence of

the sort of new technology
of deep-frying.

In the late 19th century,
the development of new,

larger deep fat fryers meant
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 eating
fish and chips with the seaside.

When did that begin?

The same railways
that transported fish across

the country would have been
the same railways

that would have
carted people into seaside towns.

And here, with 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 that?
- An ice cream.
Come on, I'll treat you.

Oh, I'll have a 99
and two Funny 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 see how they keep flicking 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.

Oh, there's another!

Wahey!

I mean, I could stay here all day.

But time is ticking,

and while the blemished spuds
are sent for animal feed,

me 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.

Um, excuse me, maths, but I think

that leaves 55 minutes, doesn't it?

And they're not even chipped yet.

At home, I'd have parboiled
these fellas hours ago...

..but Ash has
something more high-tech.

We need to put 'em through our
pulse electric field machine,

which softens the potato up
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 there in seconds.
- How does that even work?

So what that does is it sends
electric pulses into the water.

That then softens
the potato up for us

so 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.

Now, let me show you.

So I'll get a potato off the line.

So, what happens now is
the potato will come down here.

- Yeah.
- OK? It'll come into this,
what we call a tube.

- What this does...
- Hey.

I call it a tube as well,
funnily enough!

We all call 'em tubes, Ash!

What we call a tube

and what we call a potato.

That's a tuber.

THEY LAUGH

- 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 comes through
the tube at 60mph.

- That's going some.
- Yeah.
- Why so
fast?
- The reason is, is so then,

when it goes into our cutter box,
it goes through here

and then it's cut into chips.

Can I pick that up?
Is that all right?

Yeah, yeah, of course.

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 on there.

So, in there now is the chips

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
100kg of spuds a minute

before they make their big entrance.

# You're so golden

# You're so golden. #

PADDY LAUGHS

There they are, the little rascals.

Look at them!

Just marching out there.

A whopping 1.7 million chips

tumble down this waterfall
every hour.

# You're so golden. #

- Can I grab one of these?
- Yeah, go for it, Paddy.

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 softened 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 a water flume

because what we're trying to
do is stopping

the oxygen attack the potato.

Is that so they don't go brown
and discoloured?

So, imagine, like your apple at
home where you bite into it,

- you leave it on the side, it starts
to go brown.
- Yeah.
- In effect,

- that's what happens to the potato
if you leave it out.
- Got it.

How far into the process
are we now, then?

- So, we're 67 minutes into the
process.
- It feels like now,

cos I've seen the actual chips,
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, Ash.

- Right, go on, lead on to the next
bit, pal.
- Come on, then, Paddy.

Come on, Paddy, follow me.

I'll take it with me.

I've got to say, it does feel like

we're getting into the groove of
making chips at last.

# D-I-S-C-O

# D-I-S-C-O

# D-I-S-C-O. #

Oh, look at that. Like 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 the natural imperfections
in the chip,

OK? So they're not harmful
or 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.

What it does is, if it sees anything
that's not the natural chip colour,

it'll then shoot
that off with a blast of air.

And the camera's spotting
each one of them?

Every single one
it takes an image of, yeah.

I mean, they're going that fast that

when I'm looking at it
you can't even tell they're 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 process.

So, they're coming
down to there, all the little bits

and different colours on them -
bits of green, bits of black,

- bits of brown.
- Yeah. And then, after there,

what it does is go through
another camera which takes

an image of that 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, OK?

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's it cutting them out?

So, inside what you have
is these two blades, OK?

- There's not just two of these,
there's thousands of blades.
- Yeah.

It uses air pressure

to push 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.

Are they binned, then?
What happens to them?

Nothing's binned. So, all the small
bits will go to animal feed,

so we don't put anything
into landfill.

OK. And also, listen, me,

where I grew up in Bolton,

all those little bits
we're calling imperfections -

the little green bits
and 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 chit-chat,

I'm definitely starting
to feel a bit peckish.

I were talking to Mike
before about your favourite

sauce on chips,
and it 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?
- No, I don't like vinegar.

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

Where's all me friends in here?

I love vinegar! In fact,

Cherry's doing a bit on vinegar now.

- More, please. More, please.
- More?

More, please.

Oh, get it on there, Cherry.

More. More? More.

You can't buy class.

More, please. When!

Banging.

SHE GASPS

Oh!

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 thing
or two about making vinegar.

Sarson's have been producing

this ultimate chip condiment
for over 230 years.

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 brought some chips.

Oh! We can sort 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

methods today to how they
made it two centuries ago.

I can't wait to see how you make it.

- OK. Shall we go and have
a look?
- Yes, please.

Production starts as it always has,

with the main ingredient...

..milled malted barley.

- OK, so what's in here...
- Woo! Look at that.

..is a bed of barley with water.

- OK.
- It's around about 63 degrees C.

- And what's happening is the enzymes
which were in the barley...
- Mm-hm.

..they start to break down
the starch into sugars.

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.

- Yes.
- 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'm mean...hiya.

- It's good, isn't it?
- It's good.

It's so sweet, but it's also malty

and it's got those sort of
fruity flavours to it.

- It's almost like a syrup.
- Yeah.

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.
- OK.

HE LAUGHS

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 alcohol through

the process of fermentation

before the liquid
is moved to huge wooden vessels.

These here, they're 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 uniqueness
and heritage of our process.

The fermented liquid,
now known as bright wort,

is similar to a barley ale

and it certainly packs a punch.

Inside of here is 9.3% alcohol.

That sounds very strong.

It is 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.

Cor!

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

- You can indeed, yeah.
- You really can.

Next, the boozy liquid
is piped into another set

of wooden barrels, where it's 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 barrels.

Inside this is wood wool.

- Wood...wool?
- Wood wool.

These are shavings
from the larch tree

that helps impart a roundness

of flavour to
the vinegar as it passes through.

- It has a very particular smell.
- Yeah.

- It's very fresh and piney.
- Yeah.

Wood wool has been used to add
flavour to vinegar

for more than 200 years.

Inside the wooden barrels,

the alcohol liquid is passed
through the wood wool

and the acetobacter bacteria
many times.

What we're doing is we're giving
the bacteria alcohol,

which they need as food,
which they then consume,

and that converts to acid.

So, the bacteria are eating
the alcohol

and that is reducing the alcohol
level and increasing the acidity?

Increasing the acidity.

That's so clever.

So it's a really organic process.

It's a living process

and 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!
- OK.

- Freshly brewed.
- Yep. Freshly brewed.

- Fresh Sarson's.
- To the bacteria!

Cheers!

Phwoar! That will blow
your socks off!

I wouldn't want a pint of that,

but my goodness is that
punchy and delicious.

And on your chips so well.

Right. To the chippy!

HE LAUGHS

Send Me On My Way
by Rusted Root

# Send me on my way
Send me on my way. #

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

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

Here we go. Oh, crikey!

Not made for people our size,

- these, are they, Ash?
- No, they're not, Paddy.

Out the way, son.

I'm trying to make a TV programme.

# Send me on my way

# Send me on my way

# Send me on my way
Send me on my way. #

My freshly-cut chips
are travelling along

yet another massive system
of conveyors, drying out as they go.

My word, it's just chips as far
as the eye can see.

I mean, I'm in Northern Heaven here.

Look at that. How many steps
do you get in a day

walking round this factory?

So, to get around this factory,
it's 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 area...

..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
chip is now a little bit tacky,

ready for the battering process.

- Batter?
- Batter, yeah.

It's a nice, light batter

that we put on
to give it that crispness.

And also, it gives you
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 on there,

so then it gives us the right
amount of crispness.

My battered chips are ready
for their big moment...

..in the most enormous fryer
I have ever seen.

Ah, here we go.

I can see 'em dropping in there
for a little fry.

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

I know how to fry chips at home,

but why are you doing them
in two stages here?

What's the reason?

So, the first stage is we seal
the batter onto the fry.

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 the job in just 50 seconds...

..before they emerge.

Er... Are them the ones up there?

So up there, Paddy, is where the
chips will come out of the fryer.

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

I never let health OR safety get
between me and a mountain of chips.

Ash. 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, take 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-cooked?
- 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, son.
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 go.

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 freezer.

But, after 15 minutes...

..they emerge at a chilly
-18 degrees.

And I've not packed me extra socks.

Oh, my days, Ash!

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, yeah.

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.
- Hello!

..Dr Nina Baker.

What a place.

Oh, Nina. This is fabulous!

You often hear that word, don't you,
"the gasworks".

This is a 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 they 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 gasholders

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 their home.

And once you've got gas for lights

then people start thinking, "Well,
what else can you do with gas?"

Or, "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.

- All these cookers.
- Oh, look at
all these cookers!

Gas manufacturers like London's
Gas Light and Coke Company knew

that if people embraced gas cookers
they could sell more gas.

The problem was, most people

were very comfortable
with their solid fuel stoves.

If you'd cooked on a
coal-burning range,

you would recognise the cast iron.
You 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...

LAUGHTER

..and you could hang your
Sunday roast.

Or you can use it to bake a cake
in the 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 really 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 Earl's Court

and a lady demonstrator on the
Imperial Stove Co's 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 spoilt.

- So this is women talking to women...
- Absolutely, yes.

- ..and that's part of
the point of it?
- Yeah.

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 known
as 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 women talking to women.

Here we all are with
our gas cookers.

Lady demons cooking on gas.

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

Hey, excuse me. I'm looking
for Cherry Healey.

Don't know if you've seen her.

She's about that tall, very chatty.

No. I'll find her.

My chips have been frozen at
-18 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 1kg
portion of chips

before they drop down
to meet Cherry -

our very own lady demonstrator.

Oh, the bagging machine.

- It's amazing how they...
- So, Paddy,

I spent a bit of time
in the packing room

and they've talked me through
how it works.

So, they've weighed the chips
upstairs.

1kg. 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 onto
the conveyor belt and off it goes.

And do you know
what the best bit is?

You know how much I love air fryers.

- Come with me.
- Right.

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 pallets

and sent to dispatch,

where, after several subtle hints,

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 -18.

Minus... It feels it!

So, the whole point of this now

is it needs to stay frozen,
cos now the chips are frozen.

There's nobody around.
Is it fully automated?

Yeah, so everything is automatic.

The pallets come in on
automatic tracks.

It then fills 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?

We're bang-on the two-hour mark.

Good man. And I like that -

no gloves on - proper.

Normally, it's a...bloke with
a pallet truck.

Pump truck. Is there a button?
How do we get them going?

- I'll give the signal.
- All right, OK.

High-tech - love it.

Right. Thank you very much, Ash.

But, as it's absolutely freezing
in here,

how's about 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 pasties...

..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 were built on.

Oh! So fluffy inside. Mmm!

HE LAUGHS

I've been waiting
to do that all day.

You know what's missing?

- Ketchup.
- Ketchup.
- Yeah, baby.

Let's go get some.

# There's a guy works down
the chip shop swears he's Elvis

# Just like you swore to me
that you'd be true

# There's a guy works down
the chip shop swears he's Elvis

# But he's a liar
and I'm not sure about you

# I said, he's a liar
and I'm not sure about you. #