All language subtitles for Inside.the.Factory.S02E05.Sweets.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H264-BTN_track3_[eng]

- * MTV

- Every year, we eat

a mind-boggling
90 billion sweets!

That makes us
one of the biggest consumers

of sweets in the world.

- This is one of the oldest
sweet factories in Britain.

- Where a team
of over 500 people

is working really hard
to keep up with that demand.

And tonight,
they're letting us inside.

[upbeat music]

- I'm Gregg Wallace.

- [laughing]
- What is that?

And tonight I'm going to help
this factory turn raw sugar...

- I've made a witch's brew
here, look!

- Into some of Britain's
most iconic sweets,

from Love Hearts Drumstick
lollies.

- How do you get it
so the pink is in the middle

and the white's around the
edge?

I'll learn
the sweet-making secrets...

- I've made
a right pig's ear of it!

- That make these products
among the nation's favorites.

- Does shaking them
stop them sticking together?

In what could be

the most romantic factory
in the world.

One in four of the people
who work here

are actually in a relationship
with each other.

No way!

[upbeat music]

- I'm Cherry Healey,

and I'm going to find out

how they put
the writing in rock.

- That is the letter E.

Wow! That's brilliant!

And that us Brits
have very particular tastes

when it comes to sweets.

- Holy moly!
- Yeah, be brave.

- I think my eyes have
exploded.

- And historian Ruth Goodman

investigates how sweets
were first invented.

So fiddly.

I can't imagine
doing an entire jar of these.

* Hey

Over 100 million
individual sweets are made,

wrapped, and bagged
at this factory

every single day.

And we're gonna show you
the secrets of how it's done.

Welcome to "Inside the
Factory."

- [bell dings]
- [upbeat music]

* Hey

* Hey

[word thudding]

* Hey

[whimsical upbeat music]

- This is Swizzels in New
Mills, Derbyshire.

One of the largest family-owned
sweet factories in Britain.

And for those of you
with a sweet tooth like me,

a very dangerous place to be.

[laughs]

- This five-story factory
spans over 25,000 square meters

and it's been pumping out
sweets since 1940.

Tonight, I'm going to show you
how, in just 24 hours,

they can turn 56 tons
of raw sugar

into 100 million sweets.

I'll visit four parts
of the factory

that make
four different types of sweet.

Powdered,
which are hard tablet sweets.

Boiled, where they make
lollies.

Chews, where their bestseller
is the Drumstick.

And finally, jellies,
where they make Squashies.

But before the factory
can produce any of them,

we need a key ingredient,
sugar.

They make over
50 different types of sweets

in this factory.

And most of them
start off life as one of these.

[gentle upbeat music]

Over half of all the sugar
we consume in the UK

is made from sugar beet.

It's harvested between
September and February

on around 3,500 farms
across the Eastern Counties.

It's processed in factories
like this one in Norfolk,

that gets through
three million tons of beet

every year.

[upbeat rhythmic music]

It's washed, cut into strips,

and then giant
diffusing machines

dissolve the sugar out of the
beet using hot water.

The sugary water is put through
three separate boiling
processes

to create sugar crystals.

These are then separated
from the water,

creating granulated sugar,

that's dried out,
ready for shipping.

Two tankers like this one
will make the 150-mile journey

to the sweet factory
every single day.

- I'm in the loading bay

with production manager
Barry Land...

- No sweets without sugar...

- Barry.
- No.

- To receive the first
of those two sugar deliveries.

This is 28 tons going in,
is that right?

Yeah.

So, it's pretty much
turning sugar around

on a daily basis.
- Yeah.

- So what's your worry?
What keeps you awake at night?

- The sugar not turning up.

No sugar,
we can't make any sweets.

- Have you any idea

how many unhappy children
there'd be?

- [Barry laughs]

- Can you feel
that responsibility, Barry?

- Yes, very heavy
on my shoulders.

Yeah, you're right, Gregg!

[both laughing]

- Turn it?
- Yeah.

- The pump on this lorry
uses compressed air...

I'm not manually
pumping it out, am I?

To blow the sugar
out of the tank

and three stories up

to the top
of a massive sugar silo.

Let's do it!

[suspenseful music]

[button clunks]

[timer beeping]

Sugar's going in.

- Let's make some sweets.
- [laughing]

First of all, I'm going to the
powdered sweet department

to make Fizzers, Parma Violets,
and Love Hearts.

I'm starting
at the top of the building,

in the mixing room,
where the magic begins.

[gentle majestic music]

The smell in here
is unbelievable!

I mean, you could
just walk around here

licking it off the wall.

[laughing]

Barry,
I've seen the sugar come in,

now what do you do with it?

We get it into the factory
just like granulated sugar,

but it's too coarse for us
to do anything with.

So we have to mill it
to a finer powder.

That's so it'll take in
a liquid,

the binding agent, the colors.

The sugar, binding agent,
and color

are mixed together
in these machines.

- Oh!

- No good to us.
- [Gregg laughs]

- Which turns the powder
into a sticky mixture.

So the binding agent
and the color,

because they're both liquid,

has made the dried sugar
into like a putty.

- Exactly.

- Right, then what happens?

It's no good to us being wet.

We need a dry powder.

So what's happening now,

we're putting it
through our dryers.

- This dryer runs
at 120 degrees centigrade.

So in just 10 minutes, the
sticky mixture is dry again.

- It looks exactly the same,
but as you can tell, it's dry.

- Some sweets fizz in your
mouth when you eat them.

And that's down
to two ingredients

they add next.

Bicarbonate of soda
and malic acid.

They react together
and release carbon dioxide,

but only when
they come into contact

with the water in saliva.

Next, they're adding flavor

and I'm helping
with the Parma Violets.

- That's just a concentrated
flavored oil.

- The violet flower
has been used to flavor sweets

for hundreds of years
and inspired this sweet.

Although what we're adding
is a synthetic version.

- Taste it. It's strong.

- Why did you let me do that?

- I'm sorry. I told you--

- Why did you let me do that?

- I told you
it was concentrated!

First of all, you get
the lovely violet flavor,

then it's like
having your tongue scrubbed

with washing-up liquid!

- Don't forget, Gregg,
you've just tasted enough

for over 1,000 Parma
Violet tablets.

- Where do I put it in?

- Follow me.

- Once the flavor
has been added,

the sugar mixture is ready
to be turned into sweets.

- Well done, that's it,

you've flavored
a mixing of Parma Violet.

[gentle rock music]

Our mixture is now sent down
to the second floor

and stored
in a movable container.

They're each filled
with different colors

and flavors of powdered sugar.

[upbeat music]

[forklift truck whirring]

On the first floor below

are the machines
that press the sweets.

And they're fed with sugar

from the containers
through funnels in the floor.

Right now,
they're making Fizzers.

And they've just requested
a fresh batch of powder.

- Can I have a go?
Can I pull that out?

- You go for it. Try it, Gregg.

- [Gregg chuckles]
- Is that right?

- Yeah.
That's how it should be.

- Gravity is all that's needed

to drop half a ton of powder
15 feet down

to the powder sweet
pressing room.

- I've made a witch's brew
here, look!

It's a bit of eye of frog
and toe of newt,

mate, innit?

[cackles]

* With me little stick
of Blackpool rock *

- Coronation Rock has been
making this sweet here

in Blackpool since 1927,

producing up to 16,000 sticks
a day.

[jaunty upbeat music]

Managing director Ian Atkinson
knows all about the hard stuff.

- Ian, I had absolutely no idea

that rock came
in so many flavors.

There are some
extraordinary ones here.

- We always used to make
the traditional flavors,

you know, mint,
fruit, pineapple.

Now, everyone wants
something wacky.

We've got lager flavored rock,
gin and tonic rock.

We've got pizza-flavored rock,

Marmite,
we've got chicken tikka.

- People really buy that?

- They buy it in big
quantities. It's really
popular!

Ever since I was little,
I've wondered,

how do you get the letters
through the rock?

Why don't we go down
to the factory now,

and you can try it yourselves?

- Amazing. Yes, please.
- Come with me.

- Confectioner David French
has been making rock here

for over 35 years.

Right, Cherry,
what would you like?

I think we should write
Gregg's rock.

- Gregg's rock?
- I think he'd like that.

Okay, then.
Gregg's rock, it'll be.

- The writing in rock
is too small

for any man or machine to make.

So to solve the problem,

they make a giant stick
of rock first

and then stretch it
to the right size.

[rousing music]

To start the recipe,
they boil sugar and glucose,

then tip it
onto water-cooled slabs.

- We've gotta cool it down
so we can work with it.

- Color is added
to some of the sugar.

A bit more.

- This will create
the outer shell

and the letters inside the
rock.

Oh, my gosh, it's fizzing!

Bubbling away.

The temperature drops swiftly,
but it's still 70 degrees.

Whoa! You can touch it?

- Just the edges.
- Not for long, yeah.

- Not for long.
- [scissors chopping]

- Whoa, it's amazing!

It's like a runny egg.

- You can lift that piece up,
if you wish.

[gasps]

- Oh, I can't lift that!

How are you touching that?

- You have asbestos hands.
- I probably have, yes.

- Next up,
the flavor needs to be added

to the rock's core.

What flavor would you like?

Well, one of my favorite things
in the whole world

is salted caramel.

Is it possible
to do a salted caramel?

- Salted caramel, yes.
We could have salted caramel.

Right.

- Ooh, that's strong!

- I'll pour that into it, yeah?

- Oh, wow.

- We're gonna put this
on the top now

and seal it in.

- Like a pie.
- Yeah.

- The rock's core is put
in a special pulling machine

for six minutes to aerate it.

So it becomes white, brittle,
and easy to bite through.

- Almost like a giant whisk.

- Yeah.
- Adding air.

- The colored sugar
used for the outer casing

and the letters
are worked by hand.

- Gregg's rock.

That's the letter E.

- Wow! Yes, of course, it is!

That's brilliant!

It's so wonderful
to see something

made by hand.

- You can make a letter C.

Put that inside it, okay?

- Just like that?
- Yes, and turn it over.

- And fold them pieces
round the outside.

- Is that it?

Oh, wow!

[majestic music]

The letters
must be done quickly,

as we've only got 20 minutes
before the rock

will be too hard to mold.

- What is the hardest letter
to make?

- The Q.
The Q is one of my pet hates.

- Really? Hate the Q?

- The Q and the G.

- The Q and the G?

Oh, no, "Gregg's,
we've got three!

[laughs]

- White strips are placed
between the colored letters.

- The letter R.

- Another piece of white.

- Letter E.

- So that's the inside
of a stick of rock.

The letters can now be
assembled with the rolled-out,

aerated core.

[grunts]

- Wow, that is not light!

[laughs]

So one word is on the top
and one is on the bottom.

- Right.

- Then it's all wrapped
in a colorful casing.

- The scale is ridiculous.

It is huge!

That is hysterical.

Feels like we're making
a stick of rock for a giant.

- To turn the 60-kilogram
colossal log of rock

into a stick,

we'll need to use
the batch roller.

- And it'll shape it
into a cone shape

at the front of the machine.

- It still looks pretty
massive.

It is pretty big at the moment,
but it'll soon diminish

as we pull it out
into smaller bars.

- So you're really
pulling it out by hand?

- Yeah.

- So now, you just keep on
pulling it out?

- Yes.

- So you're twisting it
to give it that

recognizable twisty thing.

- Spiral. Nice spiral.

If you karate chop that now,
give it that karate chop.

Ha-cha!

- Oh, wow!
- Yeah.

- Oh, it says, "Gregg's rock."

It does. It really does!

- It worked. It really works!
- That's my credibility saved.

- It's perfect.

- And finally,
strings of rock are cut

to the correct length
by cutters.

- Great!
- And wrapped by hand.

- So here we are. The first
stick of Gregg's rock!

The E is very big.

- The E is very big, yes.

- Oh, wow!

I think Gregg's gonna be
very happy with that.

- I think he will be, yeah.

[upbeat music]

[timer beeping]

- Three hours after the morning
sugar delivery,

and I've seen sugar
being milled,

colored, and flavored.

Now I'm with Barry
in the powder pressing room

on the first floor...

- What is that?
- [laughing]

- Where they'll turn it
into sweets.

And right now,
they're making Fizzers.

- About 5,000 a minute
are coming off this machine.

- But the stuff upstairs
was so fine,

it was coming up in clouds.

I don't get how it's turned
into a firm tablet, at all.

- The secret
to making these powdered sweets

is the tablet press machine.

- You can see where the
punchers are coming round.

The powder is coming down.

On those two wheels

is where the punchers
are coming together.

- Crushed on top,
crushed on the bottom?

- Pressured down
between the two rollers.

- These punches
squeeze the powder together

under three tons of pressure,

to form a tablet sweet.

All the powder sweets
are made in the same way.

Including what could be

the most romantic sweet
in the world.

[gentle jazz music]

The Love Heart.

They've been making them here
since 1954.

And the recipe and design

have barely changed
in all that time.

- What made you do that?

- Managing director Jeremy Dee

is third generation
in the family business.

- So what's modern
in the world of Love Hearts,

what's the newest messages?

- So we've got, "#Selfie."

[Gregg laughing]

We've got, "Take a selfie."

"Skype me."

- No!
- "Tweet me," as well.

- There must be guys and girls
working here over the years

that have passed each other
the odd sweet?

- Countless, Gregg.

We were actually voted

Britain's most
romantic workplace.

In fact, one in four
of the people who work here

are actually in a relationship
with each other.

So that's 61 couples.

- No way!
- It's true.

- One in four people
who work here

have a relationship
with someone else...

- Who works here?
- That's right.

- Is the ease
of the chat-up line

on a Love Heart
responsible for that.

- Do you think, in some way?
- It may be.

- It may be just the fact
of working in a sweet factory

with magical, fun products.

- So many sweets,
such little time.

We, each of us, on average,
consume 1,300 sweets a year.

But when did we start
eating sweets?

[upbeat folk music]

- It's hard to believe,
but back in the Middle Ages,

sugar wasn't seen as a treat.

It was used as a medicine.

Sugar was considered
to have healing properties

and was used to treat
a whole host of illnesses.

I'm meeting with food historian
Seren Evans-Charrington

to find out why.

- When people came down
with some form of ailment,

whether it be a sore throat
or a digestive upset,

they were going
into the spice cabinet

and looking what was in there.

So, you know, caraway seeds,
coriander, nutmeg, cloves.

Sugar was considered a spice.

And it was considered
a medicinal product,

something that had
great medicinal properties.

[upbeat folk music]

- Eating sugar
does release endorphins

so they may not have understood
why,

but it made our poorly
ancestors feel better.

But it was expensive.

- At one point,
you know, this amount of sugar,

just this spoonful
is a day's wages.

- That would all change
in the 16th century

with the Tudors.

They opened trade routes that
made sugar 10 times cheaper

and they soon developed
a sweet tooth.

- It's when it becomes
that little bit cheaper

that the balance begins to tip
and it starts being,

"Well, actually,
this is good for me,

"this is medicinal.

"But goodness,
this tastes good!"

[upbeat music]

- Not only did
the Tudors love sugar,

but they wrongly believed
it could stop flatulence

so served it after meals.

Seren's unearthed a recipe
for Tudor comfits,

sweets made
from medicinal spices

like licorice roots
and caraway seeds

covered in layers of sugar.

First, we melt
half a pound of sugar

until it's boiling
at around 130 degrees.

- Ooh, look,
it's bubbling up there.

- Oh, yes.

- We're starting
with the caraway seeds.

- They're so tiny!

- Once they've been coated,
we remove them to cool down.

- This is the first coat.

We have 20 to 30
more coats more to go.

What we're looking to do
is separate them out

and we want one caraway seed
per comfit.

So fiddly and slow.

- I can't imagine
doing an entire jar of these.

- Next, we're sugar-coating
strips of licorice root.

- You can see
they're not easy to get tidy.

- No, they're not.

- You really have to be--
- It's a real art.

- It's a real fiddle.

[upbeat music]

- After layer upon layer
of messy sugar-coating,

we're finally able to try
our first Tudor sweets.

- Actually,
they look quite delicious.

- They do, don't they?

- I'll try
a little caraway seed.

Here we go.

Mmm!

- It's a real capsule of
flavor, isn't it?

- Mmm! That's sweet
and very, very spicy.

- Licorice.
- Licorice, that's the biggest.

- It's too hard for my teeth!
- [both laughing]

- If you were having some
of those at the end of a meal

as some form of digestive aid,

yeah, you'd remember it.

[gentle upbeat music]

- They may be basic,

but these Tudor
sugar-coated spices

were the forerunners
of the modern boiled sweet.

Within 150 years,
the first spice-flavored sweets

like barley sugars

and licorice lozenges
had appeared.

And we still enjoy those today.

[machinery whirring]

[sweets clattering]

- [timer beeping]
- [upbeat music]

- It's been four hours
since the sugar delivery

and already, this factory
has made 30 million sweets.

I've been let into the secrets
of making powder sweets.

Next stop is my favorite,
boiled sweets.

With boiled sweets,

instead of compressing
dry sugar,

like they do for powder sweets,

they turn it into a liquid
and then mold it.

And team leader Bill Barnes

is the man to show me
how they do it.

He's been working here
for over 40 years.

- It is today, Gregg. We're
making Fruity Pop lollies.

I'm gonna show you,

from start to finish,
how we do them.

- I'm in your hands, mate,
go on.

- We'll have a look.

- This cooker
boils the ingredients

to dissolve the sugar
and create a smooth syrup.

- I'll just show you a bit
if you want.

See how watery it is?

That will become a lolly.

It just looks like water
out of the tap, don't it?

But it'd take
the skin off your fingers.

- Bill is making over 3/4
of a million lollies today

and this isn't even
his busiest time of the year.

- When it comes up to
Halloween,

I will be running
22 hours a day.

I'll be running
seven days a week

and nights will come on.

I just can't make
enough lollies.

- Do you like that time
or do you hate that time?

- Love it.

I've always got something to
do.

Honestly, the more busy I am,
I'm happy.

- Why do you love this so much?

- I've just been here
all my life.

It's just what I do.

[gentle groovy music]

- After introducing color
and flavor to the sugar syrup,

they also add citric acid.

This is what naturally makes
citric fruits tangy.

- Whoa!

That's a pretty thing!

- The mix is then poured
out onto a conveyor belt

to start cooling down.

Two plows fold the mixture over

so the top doesn't form
a skin as it cools.

- So now it's gonna go over
here into the batch rollers.

- The liquid lolly mix

falls onto the top
of a plastic cone

and flows downwards
as metal rollers

spread it out
to an even thickness.

Rollers at the bottom
then pull it off the cone

in a perfectly uniform
lolly snake.

- And you reckon
every chunk of that now,

if it's cut off
at the right lolly shape,

that'll be about eight grams?

- I'm hoping so.

[laughs]

- Next, the lolly mix
is cut into small pieces

and each one needs a stick.

- Shall I put some sticks in?

- Only pick a few up at a time.

- Turning out 800 lollies
a minute

means this machine
gets through a lot of them.

[upbeat electronic music]

[Gregg laughing]

- Isn't it harder than it
looks, though?

Honestly!

- Deep inside this machine,
the sticks are added,

but even though
the lollies look finished,

they still need to cool
for 20 minutes

before they can be wrapped.

[upbeat pop-folk music]

- As a nation, we've got
some definite favorites

when it comes to sweets.

In fact, some of the
top-selling products

have been around
for over 100 years.

So, what makes us go back
to the same sweets

time and time again?

According
to Professor Barry Smith

of the University of London,

it's down to our very British
sense of taste.

When we like sweets,
it's not just the sugar.

That's not it.

It's gotta be
the sugar in combination

with other things.

There might be fruity flavors,

there might be
a bit of sourness.

There might be a bit of salt.

And then it's about the order
in which things happen

when in the mouth.

- To prove his point,

Professor Smith has asked me

to eat a jelly baby

and describe the flavors
I'm experiencing.

- What do you get at first?

- Sweet.
- Great.

- So you're getting the sugar
coating straight away.

- There's a bit of a burn,
it's tangy.

- Tangy, good.
Fruity, that's the fruit.

- Really fruity,
really delicious.

- So, the burn is interesting.

That's a little bit
of the bitter sour acids.

What are you left with?

The sweetness and now it's
over.

Now I'm sad.

- [Cherry laughing]
- Did you like it?

- I loved it.

- That's the flavor profile
that British people rather
like.

From sweet to tangy fruit,
bitter-sour, back to sweet.

That's a big hit.
People like that.

[upbeat dance music]

- Of course,
that could just be me

so we've created an experiment

with three
identical-looking sweets

that have three
very different primary tastes.

A is sweet,
B is salty, C is sour.

First,
we're testing British people

who, like me, should prefer
the sweet taste of A.

- So, which one
is the most familiar?

- A.

- Is it quite
a comforting taste,

like, of your childhood?

- Yeah,
it tastes like wine gums.

- I'm gonna go this first one.

- That's quite nice.

- You like it?

- Sweet.
- Sweet, yep.

- Definitely the first one.

- Yeah?
Which is your favorite one?

- I'm gotta say A.

- It's a bit more fruity
and light.

I think I like that one more.

- The majority of Brits

we asked really did prefer
sweet A.

But it turns out
the sweets we love here

don't always go down well
in other countries.

Two parts of the world

with extremely different tastes
to us

are Japan and Scandinavia.

According to Professor Smith,

the Scandinavians in this cafe
should prefer sweet B,

which starts with a salty
taste.

- Ugh!

Salt, salt, salt.

I feel like I need to drink
a pint of water.

- But what will
the Scandinavians think?

- The second one, B.

- Definitely B.
- I'm B.

- And do you eat
lots of salt in the diet?

- Massively.
- Salt.

- You like it?
- Yeah, I like it.

- Would you have eaten
sweets like this

when you were small,
when you were young?

- Yes, salty licorice in
Sweden, yeah.

- Incredibly,
80% of Scandinavians

chose salty-sweet B,

but what about Japanese people?

They should show
a strong preference

for the sour flavor of sweet C.

- First impression?
- Wow!

- Wow.
- Holy moly!

- Yeah. Be brave.

- I think my eyes have
exploded.

Gosh. They're very sour.

- Mm-hm.
- Tangy, really tangy.

- Tangy.
- Not getting loads of sweet.

- Yes.

- I prefer C.
I think it's my favorite one.

Yes, this kind of flavor
I used to eat in my childhood.

- I like this one the best.
- Right.

- Reminds me of the citrus
fruit we have in Japan.

- It turns out
60% of Japanese people

we asked preferred sweet C.

- So, that really worked.

The British people really went
for the first option.

The Scandinavian people

really loved
the licorice salty one.

- They're used to having foods
that have got high salt
content.

They cure fish
and meat with salt.

That's something
that's in their background.

- And most
of the Japanese people

really liked
that kind of citrusy,

sour flavor.

- They preferred less sweet

and, again,
that'll be in the diet.

And, of course,

when we are exposed
to different things,

either when we're children,
it might even be in utero,

that's going to determine
some of our palate,

so there's a mixture of biology

and there's
a mixture of culture.

[upbeat pop-rock music]

- Different countries
might have different tastes,

but, judging from today,
one thing is clear,

we all share a love for sweets.

[upbeat music]

[timer beeping]

- Back at the factory,

I'm in the boiled
sweet department

with Bill Barnes,
making lollies.

- We've added the sticks,

but they're still
too hot to wrap.

- Can I get one off?

- Yeah, yeah, just take one
off.

Quite soft, aren't they?

[Gregg chuckling]

If you suck one of them now,
the flavor comes out

because it's still warm.

- Can I?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- While it's hot,
the flavor is released quicker,

making it taste more intense.

- Am I
one of the very few people

lucky enough
to have had a hot lolly?

Yeah!
[laughing]

- Next, the soft lollies
need to harden

before they can be wrapped.

[Gree laughing]

So they're sent
to a special cooling machine.

* Shake it up, baby, now

* Shake it up, baby

* Shake it up, baby

* Twist and shout

* Shake it up, baby

* Shake it up, baby

* Come on and work it on out

[lolly tapping]

- 20 minutes.

- Does shaking them stop
them sticking together?

- If you didn't have it
shaking,

they'd just go down
and they'd flatten.

So, because they roll like
that, they keep the shape.

- You know that looks
a little bit nuts,

Bill, don't you?

- Yeah.
It's good, innit, though?

- Fantastic.

[upbeat electronic music]

- Finally, the lollies
are sent to wrapping machines

that can each wrap
800 lollies a minute.

But before they're sent
to be boxed up,

there's just one thing
left to do,

unofficial quality control.

- Cheers!

[forklift truck beeps]

- [timer beeping]
- [upbeat pop-rock music]

Five hours after the morning
sugar delivery

and the factory has produced
35 million sweets.

I've made powder sweets
and boiled sweets.

Next up is the chew sweets.

And their top seller
is the Drumstick lolly.

Team leader Paul Jones has been
overseeing their production

for more than 10 years.

- The first part
we're gonna go to

is what we call the turrell

and this is where the syrup
is actually made.

- This vat contains glucose,
sugar, water, and vegetable
oil.

- And as you can see,
that's the syrup there now

and it's just ready for
cooking.

- How many sweets
will that make?

- An awful lot.

We probably make
120,000 Drumsticks.

- These lollies start their
life in the same way

as boiled sweets.

The syrup is heated up
to dissolve the sugar.

- It doesn't smell
the same anymore.

It smells like toffee.

- That's what it basically is.

We've just basically
got a syrup hot mix.

[gentle mystical music]

- Next, they add
a magic ingredient

that transforms the syrup
into a chewy sweet,

marshmallow foam.

- So, I can show you, here,
a bit of marshmallow.

- It's a mix of gelatin
and glucose

that's been whipped up
in an aerating machine.

- Why do you add
the marshmallow foam?

- It's to make it,

rather than being
a hard-boiled sweet,

we've now added in a foam
to make it chew.

- This sugar syrup
and marshmallow mixture

is divided into two parts

for the different
colored stripes in the lolly.

- From this point on,

we're going to add the flavors
in this point and the colors.

- One half has milk flavor
and citric acid added.

The other half
has raspberry flavor

and color added.

- That's looking like the
sweet.

White one side, pink the other.

Don't touch it,

'cause it's over 100 degrees
centigrade.

Lt doesn't look like it,
but it is.

You'll have never felt so alive
if you touch it.

- This greased conveyor belt
has water running underneath it

to cool the mixture.

It's now ready to be collected

and sent on to the next stage
of the process.

- Let me have a go of this,
please.

- Right,
I'll get you some gloves.

- Can I?
- Yeah.

- Is that one ready?

- That one's ready
and that one's ready.

No pressure. There you are.

[Gregg groans]

[upbeat groovy music]

[Gregg grunts]

- [Gregg groaning]
- [boxes clattering]

- Got him! Go!

Oh, I've got some pink
in me white!

Cover it over so no one sees.

- Next stop,

one of the strangest places
in the factory,

[upbeat funky music]

the slab room.

Here, blob wrangler Steve Gough

forms the chew mix
into disc shapes

and, when it's cooled
to just the right firmness,

he feeds it
into the batch roller.

How difficult is this?

Not hard.

- Not hard?
- No.

- Have you gotta be strong?
- Yeah.

- [box thuds]
- Yay-hey-hey!

[upbeat groovy music]

- As Steve feeds them
into the batch roller,

all I've got to do

is stop them
from sticking together.

Oh, no!

- Oh, no.
- [chuckling]

It's sticking to me!

Right, you handle these
really simply.

I've made
a right pig's ear of it.

- This cone of stickiness

is bigger than a football
at the top end,

but it tapers down at the
bottom

as rollers
slowly pull the mixture out.

[upbeat groovy rock music]

The lolly snake now enters
a machine that can cut it,

squash it around a stick,
and wrap it

in just 1/4 of a second.

Machine operator Emma Bartley

has been working at the factory
for just six months.

- Did you see me
put that pink slab on?

- You did really well.

If you don't put it in right,

you won't get the swerve right.

You seem to be
a bit of a Drumstick expert.

I've had my family work here
since about the 1960s,

so both grandmothers
used to work here,

my brother worked here,

I've had five cousins
that work here.

[laughs]

My mum and dad met here,
and my mum left to have me,

so here I am.

- So, your mum and dad met
here.

Have you met anyone here?

- I've met
plenty of friends here.

- Yeah, but I mean-
- No!

[laughs]

- Anyone you like the look of?

'Cause I could quickly
put a word in for you.

- Oh, I'll have to have a word
with you about that secretly.

[laughs]

[upbeat groovy rock music]

- This firm has been family-run
since it opened in the 1920s.

In fact,
Britain has a fine tradition

of family-run
confectionery businesses.

Cherry's been learning
how one Lancashire family

turned a niche product
into a worldwide success.

- [upbeat folky music]
- [birds cawing]

- I'm finding out
about a very special sweet

that's been clearing noses

and soothing throats
for over 100 years.

Here in Fleetwood, Lancashire,
the Lofthouse family

has been making
Fisherman's Friends since 1865.

This sweet success story
was originally a solution

to a very local
seafarers' problem.

[upbeat gentle rock music]

I'm going onboard

Fleetwood's
last remaining trawler,

to meet Tony Lofthouse.

- Tony.

It's really, really nice
to meet you.

- His great-grandfather James
had an apothecary shop in town

and first invented
this cough medicine

for Fleetwood's
deep-sea trawlermen.

- Trawlers in those days

were beginning to go into
colder and colder waters

and this weather affected
the fishermen's chests,

so they made a liquid,
a linctus.

The linctus worked fine,
but the bottles broke at sea,

so he went and had another
think

and he came up
with the same sort of thing,

but in a solid form,
in a lozenge,

and they started to take those.

- It's so clever.
How did it get its name?

- They used to go in the shop
and say,

"Could I have
some of my friends, please?"

So, Fisherman's Friend.

- At the factory,

Tony has collected
some family treasures

from the old apothecary shop,

including the original
cough syrup.

- We have
one single bottle left.

- Wow!

So, this is very precious.

- Very precious, yes.

I'm really nervous to hold it.

"Dose,
five to 15 drops on sugar,

"three times a day after food."

I'm gonna give that back to you

because that is a little piece
of British history.

- Thank you.
- And I don't wanna drop it.

- Me neither.
[laughing]

- Once Tony's great-grandfather

turned the syrup
into cough sweets,

for over 100 years,

it was sold mostly
to local fishermen.

But, after the fishing industry
declined in the 1970s,

the family decided
to look to other markets.

Tony's wife Doreen had the idea

to start selling
the throat sweets to shops

around the country.

They proved so popular

that the company has continued
to grow ever since.

[upbeat pop-rock music]

Today, they make
five billion lozenges a year

and sell to over 100 different
countries.

The original flavor throat
sweet

is made using sugar, licorice,

menthol, and eucalyptus oil,

but that's not the only flavor
they make.

- We have 15 different flavor
variants.

- Tropical?
- Tropical!

- Duncan Lofthouse
now runs the company

and he's fifth-generation
in the family business.

- 97% of our output is
exported.

- Really?

What's the strangest place
you export to?

- Papua New Guinea, maybe.

- Who likes the cherry ones?

- That is the favorite
in our second biggest market,

which is Thailand.

- They love cherry in Thailand?

- Yes, indeed.

It's looked upon
as a strong-flavored candy.

- How funny!

- Absolutely.

[upbeat pop-rock music]

- It's been so wonderful today

to see something
so quintessentially British

is loved around the world.

[upbeat music]

[timer beeping]

- I'm at the Swizzels factory
in New Mills, Derbyshire.

Ln just six hours,

they've turned
nearly 22 tons of sugar

into 40 million sweets.

In the jellies department
on the first floor,

they make classic gummy sweets

using sugar, glucose,
and gelatin.

[sweets rattling]

But one of their sweets
follows a different recipe.

Carl Pilkington
oversees their production.

- What are we making here?

- We're making Squashies.

- Squashies would just be
a normal jelly sweet

if it wasn't for one
very special ingredient.

- We use apple pulp down here.

- Apple pulp?
- Apple pulp, yes.

- That's to hold the body,

that's to make the product
stay together.

- Wow. How does that work?

Do you know?
I'm not very good at chemistry.

- When you've got gelatin,
it's very stretchy,

and you're putting air
inside that

and you want that
to hold the air in,

otherwise, it'll all collapse
and just become a jelly,

but, because we want it to be
a foam product,

we put apple pulp in.

It makes it strong.
It holds on to the air.

- After adding color and
flavor,

the mix is pumped
to the depositing room.

- Now, here's where we start
making the sweets.

- This is where
it's squirted into molds.

- Do you know how many of these
you're making a day?

- There's 240 on there.

- 240 sweets in a tray

and you're doing a tray
like nearly every second.

That's millions
and millions of sweets.

- Millions and millions
of sweets, yes.

- From here,
these trays of gooey sweets

need to be put in the oven.

- Can I put this in the oven?
- Sure.

- Where's the oven?
- The oven's just down there.

- It's oven three.

- Because of their
moisture content,

they'll need to bake 24 hours
to dry them out.

It's quite a tight space,
mate, innit?

- Very, very tight space.

- That means, of all the sweets
in the factory,

these take the longest to make.

- Straighten it up.
Just watch your wall, there.

You made it!
Filled your first oven.

- They've got
eight of these ovens

running 24/7,

which is how they can produce
1 1/2 billion

individual sweets every year.

So, now you can touch one.

- Can I eat it?
- Of course, you can.

- Yeah, it's not an easy
texture to make, is it?

- No.
- It's neither hard nor soft.

- No, not at all.

- [euphoric upbeat music]
- [timer beeping]

- All around the factory,

millions of sweets
are being wrapped,

bagged, and boxed,

whether it's with hi-tech
robot arms

or the old-fashioned way.

Soon, there will be powdered
and boiled sweets,

jellies, and chews
ready to be dispatched.

On the ground floor
of the powder sweet department,

I'm helping Adele Thomas
and Julia Hughes

on the packing line.

- Why would you shake them
like that?

- Because any tablets that are
broken or half-tablets-

- Fall through the hole.

- Fall through those holes.

- And down here,
they're just having a dance.

- Yep.

It's where they get
straightened up

into the channels.

- Oh! That checks for holes--
- Yep.

- That puts them
in straight lines.

- Yep.

- Do you know
what this reminds me of?

- No.
- The M25!

- This machine
can wrap 100 packets of sweets

every minute,

but it's down to Adele and
Julia to check the quality

and then box them up.

- Put 24 in a box.

- Yeah, but how do I know
I've got 24?

- Because when they're in
right, they lie flat.

- Three rows?
- Three rows of eight.

- But if you're picking them up
in a big chunk like that,

you're not checking the
quality.

- I am!

Years of experience.

You can feel the good
and the bad.

- All good.

One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven.

I'm not very good at this, am
I?

- Give you another 28 years,

you'll be able to do it
perfect.

[Gregg laughs]

[upbeat dance music]

- 24 hours ago,
we had 56 tons of raw sugar.

I've seen it colored
and flavored,

pressed, boiled, stretched,
rolled, and wrapped.

Now, in this distribution
warehouse,

there are 100 million sweets
ready to be dispatched.

They'll head across the UK,

with the Welsh taking the crown
for eating the most sweets,

but they're also sent
all over the world,

from Australia to Norway,

where they eat more Love Hearts
per person

than anywhere else.

And all of these sweets
come from this traditional,

family-run sweet factory
in Derbyshire.

- It's impossible to escape
the sense of tradition here.

I mean, they're making sweets
that I grew up with.

I can clearly remember
having them as a child,

going to my local shop
with my pennies.

- And it's great to see that
the art of British sweet-making

is still going strong today.

- And do you know what I love
more than absolutely anything?

It's obvious
that Britain has got

just as sweet a tooth
as it had 50 years ago

when I had my first sweets.

[gentle majestic music]