Original subtitles

[harpsichord music]

Us Brits love this Italian classic.

Which explains why we slice up around 14 million pizzas

every week.

Spending 2 and 1/2 billion pounds on them each year.

And where's the best place to learn how they're made?

This Italian pizza factory, of course.

GREGG WALLACE: 600 people work here producing a whopping 370

pizzas every minute.

I'm Gregg Wallace.

That is like whitewater rafting for pizzas.

And tonight, I'll learn how they guarantee

a crispy crust every time.

450 degree proper wood fired oven with a stone base.

CHERRY HEALEY: I'm Cherry Healey--

It looks like a sample that I don't want to drink.

And I'll be investigating the complex chemistry behind some

of our favorite toppings.

So the proteins in mozzarella are just in that sweet spot

where they can melt beautifully.

GREGG WALLACE: And historian Ruth Goodman

sees what was on the menu when pizzas first came to Britain.

RUTH GOODMAN: It's a very familiar list though.

I mean, things like the Margarita, Four Seasons,

[inaudible].

Over the next 24 hours, this factory

will produce 400,000 pizzas.

And we're serving you a slice of the production process.

Welcome to "Inside the Factory."

[music playing]

This factory in the foothills of Italy's Dolomite Mountains

makes an astonishing 500 different varieties of pizza.

They ship all over the world, tailoring

their recipes to the individual taste of each country.

For Italy, that means ultra traditional thin crust

margaritas.

And for Germany, a deep base topped with fish.

But our pizza is made for the British market and the shelves

of supermarket chained Iceland.

And it's their stone baked, spicy, double pepperoni version

that we're here to learn how to make.

And as with any pizza, it's all about the base.

This one is thin and crispy with a chewy crust.

Production begins in the intake area

with a delivery of wheat flour.

10 of these tankers arrive here every week,

each one laden with 30 tons of the stuff.

Gabrieli [inaudible] oversees all raw ingredients

that arrive on site.

Gabrieli, good to meet you.

This is the beginning?

Yes.

We intake the floor right here.

So this is more or less 240,000 pizzas.

A quarter of a million pizzas?

Yes.

From that flour?

Even I can't eat that many pizzas.

Tell me, what is the perfect flour for a pizza?

We use a flour type 0.

When I read cookery books, a lot of it is 00, double zero.

Why do you use 0 and not--

We prefer the 0, because it's a little less refined flour

and gives a crispier product that we want.

GREGG WALLACE: Flour comes in many different grades

and subtle variations can make a big difference

to the finished product.

The kind they're about to unload here

is a strong, all purpose, milled,

wheat flour, like you might use to make a loaf of bread

at home.

Let's get this flour off the lorry.

OK.

GREGG WALLACE: The pipes are connected

and our frozen pizza production line begins.

I love that pipe is dancing.

It looks like an eel.

The flour is blown along this pulsating pipe

and into one of four 30 ton silos, where it's stored

before joining the other seven ingredients that

will go into our pizza base.

Every 12 minutes, a batch of 250 kilos

is sent to the mixing area, where I'm meeting Operations

Manager Alberto Urli.

Alberto, I'm Gregg.

Hi, Gregg.

I love making pizza.

I'm very excited to be here.

Is this the start of the process?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Here, mainly we prepare the dough.

That is the core of the process of the pizza.

GREGG WALLACE: The base of our pizza is a simple dough,

but we're not starting with my flour.

So first of all, we need to load the yeast.

This is industrial yeast.

It's fresher.

It's ready to give its power to our dough.

GREGG WALLACE: Yeast is the magical ingredient,

which transforms our dough.

It eats up the naturally occurring

sugar in the flour producing CO2 gas making the dough rise.

Good?

The second one, salt.

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: Next up is salt, which helps strengthen

the dough and adds flavor, followed

by a sugar called dextrose, which will provide

extra food for our yeast.

How many pizzas will we get out of here?

With this dough, around 1,800 pizzas.

GREGG WALLACE: Nearly 2,000 pizzas?

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: 250 kilograms of the flour I saw arrive is dosed

in, followed by 125 liters of water

and sunflower oil, which will make

the dough easier to stretch.

Can I press the button?

Yeah, let's start.

GREGG WALLACE: The mixing process begins.

So that's just mixing like I would

mix at home with a big spoon.

Yeah, more or less.

GREGG WALLACE: 10 minutes mixing at 280 RPM

is enough to combine these ingredients.

Whoa.

That is a big--

that is more like bubble gum right now.

Yeah.

OK, this is going to rest, right?

For five hours.

Five hours?

Yeah.

And how do you want it to be after it has rested?

We want a more relaxed dough, because we need to create

the perfect round of the pizza.

What would happen if we tried to make pizza now with this?

Ah, it would be a disaster.

Would be impossible to get the right shape because it's

impossible to stretch.

GREGG WALLACE: In the other 1 hour and 43 minutes since it

arrived at the factory, my flour has been working

very hard becoming dough.

But now it gets a chance to have a breather as it trundles

along 30 meters of mechanical conveyors and lifts

before it's tucked into the resting room for 40 winks.

Today in Britain, we spend more on takeaway pizza

than we do on fish and chips.

Ruth is on the trail of the man who first

brought us a pizza the action.

In the late 50s and early 60s, all things Italian became

super fashionable in the UK.

But there was one thing missing from the cafes

and spaghetti houses, pizza.

Italian immigrants had tried and failed to introduce pizza

to the Brits, but it took a man from Peterborough to really

make us fall in love with it.

I interviewed Peter Boizot about the first pizza he tasted

70 years earlier in Italy.

I went to Florence.

Delightedly, they made for me a pizza, the first one

I'd ever had or seen.

And what was it like?

Well, it was good, tasty, the dough had risen properly.

It had, of course, a lot of mozzarella cheese on it.

RUTH GOODMAN: When he came back to London,

Peter couldn't find what he felt was a proper pizza anywhere.

So in 1965, he decided to set up his very own pizzeria.

But you needed a special oven, a hot oven,

so I went over to Italy and contacted a wonderful man,

[inaudible],, and he sent me a specially designed pizza oven.

In order to get it into my restaurant,

we had to knock the wall down because it

was too big for the door.

What was the name of your restaurant?

Pizza Express.

Peter's first pizzeria was here in Wardour Street in Soho,

today at the very heart of Chinatown.

And that very first restaurant is still

here and still serving pizza.

The restaurant chains biographer, Matthew Reevell,

believes this place hit upon a recipe for success right

from the start.

What were they serving in that very first restaurant?

I've got the menu here that shows you what they had,

and the first thing that will strike you

is there's no pasta, salad, desserts,

or dough balls on there.

It's all pizzas.

It's a very familiar list though.

I mean, things like obviously the Margherita,

the Four Seasons, your mushroom pizza, [inaudible]..

When pizza first set up the restaurant,

you could see the buzz of pizzaiolos

throwing dough in the air and making them in front of people.

However, it was the food that was the real selling point.

It was eating from an authentic wood oven,

eating real Italian pizzas that was so successful.

How did it go then from being one

small shop in Wardour Street to being this great big chain?

His plan wasn't to make a lot of money.

His plan was to create this different type of dining

experience, which was inexpensive, lots of energy,

lots of buzz around the restaurant,

and it was so successful that he basically

had to keep on expanding it.

RUTH GOODMAN: And where Peter led, others followed.

Today, around 5,000 restaurants and takeaways across the UK

sell a slice of the big pizza pie.

You know, if Peter Boizot hadn't first given us that taste

of the real thing, I'm not sure that we'd

be the nation of pizza lovers that we are today.

GREGG WALLACE: Back in Italy, our pampered pizza

dough has been having a little nap in the resting room.

Yeast has trapped tiny bubbles of CO2 gas

inside it, causing it to rise and double in size.

It's now what bakers call a relaxed dough, meaning it'll

be easy to stretch into shape.

6 hours and 43 minutes into the process,

it heads to the beginning of the pizza line.

OK.

Well, that's lighter.

It was very tight at the start and now is more relaxed.

GREGG WALLACE: But our dough's had enough time lazing about.

Now it needs to get in shape and this machine

is going to give it a workout.

What is happening in here, Alberto?

So this is our knocking back process.

The portion, the right quantity of dough that we

need for each single pizza.

GREGG WALLACE: The dough drops down into the machine, blades

rotating at 150 RPM slice 190 gram pieces off

before two super sized rolling pins massage

them, creating six perfectly formed

balls every four seconds.

This vigorous massage alters our dough's structure.

Each ball is held together by a net of protein called gluten,

and as it's kneaded, the strands of this gluten

align giving the dough more strength.

Important because it's about to rise again

and be stretched to its limits.

So where are these dough balls going?

They're going in to this big cell.

This is a proofing cell.

GREGG WALLACE: Just like me after a vigorous workout,

the dough balls deserve a little R&R.

They drop into individual cups and head

off for their version of a sauna in this huge proofing cell.

Inside, the temperature is 35 degrees Celsius and humidity

hits 75%, perfect conditions for the yeast,

which continues eating those natural sugars

and pushing out more CO2.

After one hour, they emerge.

Oh, wow.

It's very light.

Yeah.

Very light.

It almost feels-- it feels like a small cushion.

Yeah, if you want, you can stretch it.

Wow.

That is much lighter than my dough at home.

That feels like silk.

The yeast relaxes the gluten net

and that's why it's so easy to stretch.

GREGG WALLACE: After their pampering at the pizza spa,

our dough balls are now ready for their next treatment.

So how do I make this into a perfect round shape?

Not easy, huh, Gregg?

Not easy, huh, Gregg?

It's really--

No good?

Let's try it with this machine.

We take the ball, we put it in the middle

of these two hot plates.

That's very hot.

- I can feel that heat. - Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

And then we press.

Can you help me?

Yeah.

Let's go.

GREGG WALLACE: Two plates heated to 157 degrees Celsius pushed

GREGG WALLACE: Two plates heated to 157 degrees Celsius pushed

together, creating an 8 millimeter thick,

25 centimeter diameter base.

And here you are, a perfect circle.

This is the result.

That is hard.

Yeah, you have a skin.

GREGG WALLACE: It's like you sealed it.

Yeah, and this way it's impossible for the water of the

tomato sauce to go inside it.

GREGG WALLACE: How many pizzas do you do every day?

About 400,000 pizzas.

But you can't do 400,000 like this.

No.

Of course, we have a big machine with many heads like that.

But unfortunately, I cannot show you, because it's our secret

machine.

This is not the first time it has happened inside a factory,

someone has a secret machine I can't see.

Yeah.

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: Secret it may be, but the results are clear.

Now our perfectly flat, heat-sealed pizza bases

are pricked with 278 4 millimeter deep holes

to let excess moisture escape and ensure they're perfectly

crispy when cooked in the oven.

Base is sorted.

Next we need some sauce, but why do we always reach for tomato?

Cherry's visiting a farm in Worcestershire that

grows 560 tons of them a year.

I want to discover what it is about the tomato that makes it

the perfect partner for pizza, pasta, and so

many other classic dishes.

Helping me isolate the taste that makes it so special

is food scientist Professor Lisa Methen.

Oh, look at this.

So what we're going to do is think

about what is actually in the middle of this

that's got the taste in it.

If we cut that tomato up, blend it in a mixer,

we can spin out all of the taste part to it

and it actually looks like this.

Oh.

It looks like a sample that I don't want to drink.

Well, I'm going to get you to.

CHERRY HEALEY: What we consider as flavor is made

up of both taste and smell.

So in order to discover the underlying true tomato flavor,

I need to block my nose.

I'm going to get you to wear the nose clip.

What I want you to concentrate on

is just what's on your tongue.

Bottoms up.

It's a little bit sharp.

It's a little bit tart.

It's a little bit sweet.

I can almost taste savory.

It doesn't really taste like tomato at all.

That is absolute extraordinary.

So when I couldn't smell it, I felt like I could taste savory.

Absolutely, you can taste the savory taste.

That's called umami.

So I've heard of umami, but I've

never really known what it is.

It's one of your five basic tastes.

So you've got your sweet taste, sour, salt, bitter, and the

fifth one's your umami taste.

One of the taste compounds in there is glutamate.

That gives you umami taste and actually that

is present in so many foods, but particularly high

in the tomato.

CHERRY HEALEY: High levels are also found in mushrooms, soy

sauce, and Parmesan cheese, all ingredients

that, like tomatoes, act as brilliant flavor

enhancers in cooking.

Umami taste compounds work really well together.

So you can take a tomato and put it with other foods that have

some savory component to them because you

get all this great synergy from the taste together.

So when it comes to umami, more is more.

They love to work together.

Absolutely.

CHERRY HEALEY: When it comes to tomatoes,

it's all about the umami.

Now I understand the chemistry I can see why

they're the basis of so many of our favorite dishes,

including pizza.

GREGG WALLACE: Back at the factory,

after 7 hours and 55 minutes of careful preparation,

our bases are made and they're ready for their all

important tomato topping.

So I'm heading to the sauce preparation area.

Every pizza sauce they use here is mixed up fresh on site,

and they all start with 100% Italian tomatoes.

Gabrieli, good to see you again.

Hello.

I'm guessing this is tomato puree, right?

How much of this do we use for our mix, for our sauce?

1 and 1/2 of a drum.

GREGG WALLACE: The first step to creating our source--

Whoa.

Whoa.

Is to pump the concentrated puree into a 500 liter mixer.

And now what?

Push the green button, keep it pressed.

This is going to be messy, isn't it?

Oh.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Let go.

GREGG WALLACE: Using puree means the factory

has a supply of perfectly ripe, umami rich tomatoes

year round, not just at harvest time.

It's working.

It's definitely working.

Five minutes later, our mixer is full.

So we got our lovely tomatoes, beautifully pumped by me.

Now we put the olive oil.

- Olive oil? - Yes.

OK.

It gives a little bit of flavor

and the creaminess of the sauce.

GREGG WALLACE: With a simple push of the button,

5 liters of olive oil is dosed in.

OK.

Now?

Now we can put the water.

GREGG WALLACE: Followed by 125 liters of water.

And next, seasoning.

Oh, what is in here?

It's made of dry oregano, sugar, salt, and yeast extract.

GREGG WALLACE: A paddle spinning at 280 RPM blends our 500

kilo batch of sauce together.

How many pizzas will it cover?

7,000 pizzas.

Half a ton of sauce for 7,000 pizzas.

Beautiful mix.

It's pumped through 55 meters of overhead pipes

towards the sauce applicator, where our naked pizza bases

receive a splash of color.

Alberto, I am back.

Good to see you again.

That is my tomato sauce.

I made it with Gabrieli.

Yes.

Yes.

Here we distribute 60 grams of tomato sauce on each one.

Does my sauce look better than the normal sauce or the same?

It's better.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

What is that?

That's a camera machine that is taking

a picture for each pizza.

GREGG WALLACE: Why?

Because in this way, can give to this machine

the right position of each pizza.

So we want to be sure that we are spreading

exactly in the center.

GREGG WALLACE: Information is sent straight from the cameras

to these nubbly rollers, which adjust

their position depending on the location of the pizza bases

below.

It looks like you are putting the sauce on with a corn cob.

126 nodules on each roller help pick up the bright red sauce

and distribute it evenly around our nude bases.

Whoa.

That is a slow moving river of pizza.

Reminds me of like a military procession.

We had a batch of 1,800 pizzas?

Yeah.

Yeah.

How long would it take before they all went past us?

So at the moment, this line is running

at 100 pieces per minute.

Is it?

Yeah, so it means that that batch will go in 18 minutes.

And these are all for the UK?

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: We're 8 hours, 32 minutes, and 40 seconds

into production, and even though they're only partially dressed

without their toppings on, our saucy saucers of dough

are on their way to a hot date.

They strap six at a time into this huge 4 meter high, 12.5

meter long conveyor oven, where they'll

face temperatures far higher than any domestic oven could

manage.

How hot is that oven?

450 degrees.

450 degrees?

Yes.

And if you didn't start the cooking process here,

we would never get that crispy base, would we?

Yes.

It can't take very long to cook these pizzas.

No, 80 seconds.

80 seconds?

Yes.

That is impressive, but it's not authentic

like a wood fired oven, is it?

Yes, of course, it is.

How?

We use this.

Wood pellets?

Yeah.

That is a wood fired oven?

Yes.

I can see the embers coming off.

Why is wood so good?

Because its aroma.

You understand aroma?

Yeah.

Not the capital of Italy, the smell.

The fragrance.

Yes.

What is your conveyor belt made from?

It's made of natural volcanic stone.

It's from Etna volcano from Sicily.

You have a conveyor belt made of stone?

Yes.

GREGG WALLACE: It turns out stone-baked means

just that, cooked on stone.

The sizzling rock used here is porous, which helps the air

circulate around our pizzas and draw steam away ensuring

a perfectly crisp base.

Exactly 80 seconds after their rocky ride through the oven

began, our pizzas emerge at the other end.

Now I can see that volcanic rock very clearly.

How does the crust puff up like that?

Like, just gets much bigger.

Inside the dough, there is the gas

that was produced by the heat.

And now with the temperature, the gas increases the pressure

and the gluten net is like the balloon that is inflating.

That pizza is cooked, right?

In fact, now the pizza is partially cooked, because we

put the topping after the oven.

You don't want to cook the toppings before we get it.

No.

When we put it in the oven, the rest of the base and

the topping will cook the same.

Are you spraying water on there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We are spraying water to cool down

the base because in a few minutes,

we will top the mozzarella cheese.

We've got thin crispy bases and tasty tomato sauce,

but it's no use getting all that right if you

top them with the wrong cheese.

Cherry's on a melty mission.

CHERRY HEALEY: I'm heading to the University of Redding

for a pizza cheese showdown with food

scientist Dr. Stuart Ferrymand.

Hi, Dr. Stuart.

Hi, Cherry, great to see you.

Welcome have we got here?

A variety of cheeses because there

is some serious science behind getting that perfect cheese.

CHERRY HEALEY: First, we're assessing meltability.

Not every cheese melts so one of the most important factors

is how acidic the cheese is, and we measure that with the pH.

And so we're going to test that now

with these different cheeses.

CHERRY HEALEY: We're measuring the pH levels

of some popular varieties.

We'll start at this end with blue cheese, with Stilton.

One of my favorite.

Stinky cheese, the stinkier the better.

In we go.

A low number is very acid.

A higher number is more alkaline.

What we're looking for is a pH of between 5 and 5.9.

Ideally in the middle 5.3 is the sweet spot.

So what you can see already is that it's a much higher number.

6.27 already.

And that means that it's less acidic.

CHERRY HEALEY: Low acidity tells us about the protein

network of the Stilton.

It's like this ball of elastic bands.

It can't get apart because the proteins

are too tightly bound together.

So that when you melt it, they don't really

have that lovely, soft, melty, stringy effect.

They just stay like this.

Next up, crumbly feta.

In we go.

So it's landed at 4.26.

What does that mean?

Well, the feta is too acidic.

CHERRY HEALEY: High acidity makes

the protein network too loose.

So when you melt it--

It will actually burn rather than melt.

CHERRY HEALEY: Third up is mozzarella.

Try that cheese.

Bang in the middle between 5 and 5.9, so the melting zone.

So the proteins in the mozzarella,

they're just in that sweet spot where

they can melt beautifully because it

has got the perfect acidity.

Yes, but there's another reason that

makes mozzarella so good for pizza,

and that is the stringiness.

Yes.

And it's the way in which it's made.

CHERRY HEALEY: Mozzarella is kneaded

just like pizza dough, which gives it extra stretchability.

And that's why it has the long, lovely, cheesy, stringiness.

Mm-hmm.

So to make our ultimate pizza, feta and blue cheese are out.

Out.

So mozzarella is in.

Are there any other cheeses we should try?

Yes.

There are other cheeses that are in the melting zone.

We've got here some cheddar and we've got some Gruyere.

They're all between 5 and 5.9, but the only way to find out

which is best is to do some experiments,

and you're going to hate this.

We're going to have to make some pizza.

Yes.

CHERRY HEALEY: We're topping identical plain tomato

bases with our three cheeses.

In we go.

CHERRY HEALEY: After 10 minutes cooking,

there are clear visual differences.

All right, they look absolutely gorgeous.

- There we go. - Thank you.

Thank you.

So here we've got our lovely pizzas, Gruyere,

cheddar, and mozzarella.

So I want to point out to you something with the cheddar.

You can see here that you've got oily patches,

and what's happened there is that the fat

has separated out as this oil.

So that's not ideal.

Cheddar's high fat content makes it look unappealing.

Gruyere looks more promising.

If we look here at the Gruyere,

you can see this blistering if you look around the edges,

and that's because there's quite a lot of moisture in Gruyere.

Yeah.

And so as it heats up, the water turns to steam

and it comes up as these bubbles, this blistering

that we see.

When the bubbles burst, then you get a rough surface

and that helps the browning.

So why do we want the browning effect?

That's where all the flavor is.

That's where the magical reaction is happening.

CHERRY HEALEY: But mozzarella is the clear winner.

If we go to the mozzarella, this

has even more moisture in it and so you've got

more of this bubbling effect.

CHERRY HEALEY: So the mozzarella is

good because it browns faster without separating

into oily pools.

You've got it.

Mozzarella is the winner.

It's got my vote.

CHERRY HEALEY: Science confirms tradition, great meltability

and beautiful browning make mozzarella

the perfect pizza cheese.

GREGG WALLACE: We are 8 hours and 34 minutes into the pizza

making process.

As they emerge from the oven, our pizzas

take a spin along 100 meters of computer

controlled conveyor belts.

Gently cooling from 90 degrees Celsius to 35 as they go.

Any that aren't up to scratch are unceremoniously

dropped off the line.

Those that pass muster are now cool enough

to be topped with cheese, which is,

of course, 100% mozzarella, and grated fresh to order on site.

Coming through.

GREGG WALLACE: They get through an astonishing 10

tons of the stuff every day.

Alberto.

Oh, yeah.

Does it go in there?

Yeah, because we want it on the pizza.

So please, let's load the machine.

Just throw it in?

Yeah.

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: This cheese has 1% chives.

Fantastic, Gregg.

GREGG WALLACE: Which add color and a subtle hint of onion.

Perfect.

My freshly grated mozzarella falls

onto a conveyor belt, which carries it

to the waterfall distributor.

Look, it's coming there and is flowing through the machine

and is topping the pizza.

GREGG WALLACE: As the cheese drops into the distributor,

148 individual metal fingers help disperse it evenly

onto the pizza bases below.

It's helping to have always the same quantity of mozzarella

cheese for each pizza.

That's where it's holding and these wheels,

they are sifting and making sure

this cheese does not come out too fast.

Exactly.

So it's dropping like a light rain.

Yes.

Do you know how much cheese actually ends up on each pizza?

Yeah.

50 grams.

GREGG WALLACE: More cheese is on the belt than the pizza.

Look, it's flowing into the conveyor, then

up again and again into the machine, so no waste.

Some cheese must go round 50 times.

No, no, no, no.

In the average, we calculated that is

flowing only three times.

I like it.

I think it's pretty.

GREGG WALLACE: 8 hours, 37 minutes, and 40 seconds

into production, our cheese and tomato pizzas are

waiting for our spicy sausage.

Which is applied by the pepperoni applicator.

Oh, I love this.

This has got to be the best part of the whole factory.

She's got to hold on to that while it's

so long because it will break.

Yeah.

That is like a crazy game.

Is that even real?

Yes.

Do they go in every hole?

Yeah.

Not that one.

Not that one.

Why not that one?

No, because we need only 12 slices for each pizza.

Oh.

This pepperoni, is this an authentic pizza

topping for Italians?

No.

No.

In Italy, we have a different kind of salami.

Is this more spicy than you are used to?

It's more hot.

There's got to be an easier way.

Right.

Whoa.

Whoa.

[non-english speech]

GREGG WALLACE: As the pepperoni rocks back and forth,

blades lubricated with water slice off

2 millimeter thick pieces of meat.

A laser tells the machine when there's a pizza underneath

and 12 bits of our spicy sausage are dropped onto each one.

Brilliant.

I can actually see the pepperoni dropping.

Yeah.

12 on each pizza.

Exactly.

How many pizzas going through here, Alberto?

Around 100 per minute.

Yeah?

What are these ladies doing?

Because the pepperoni is on the pizza.

Yeah, but sometimes a slice is missing,

and we want exactly 12 slices for each pizza.

We don't want it perfect.

That is the beauty of the pizza.

You cut the slice sometimes, you are lucky, sometimes--

Yes, I understand but here we are in Italy.

I'm sorry.

And we want a good taste pizza and a good looking pizza.

OK.

OK.

GREGG WALLACE: Italian precision has applied

our spicy Austrian sausage, but because us

Brits love loads of toppings, we're only halfway there.

Next up, it's precisely 20 grams of red onion

applied just like our cheese, by a waterfall applicator.

Now, time for even more pepperoni,

which relies on something a little more low tech.

They are putting on more pepperoni?

Yeah, they are hand topping.

There's more pepperoni.

So it's a different taste because we

want to have a good balance of taste of meat in the pizza.

So first we need to wear this.

For each one, we need 10 grams.

OK, try.

Not bad.

Not bad.

OK.

OK.

Why can't this be done with a machine?

Because this material is not easy to top with a waterfall

machine and we want a good distribution,

so we prefer to top by hand.

I am rubbish at this.

I am OK eating them, but there is no way I can do

this as fast as these ladies.

That looks simple, but you are doing like two pizzas

every second.

I cannot do this.

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: The final topping is 25 grams

of fiery jalapeno peppers.

8 hours, 38 minutes, and 40 seconds after we

began, our pizzas are complete and ready for the freezer.

That's it.

That's the finished pizza, right?

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: Are you spraying them with water again?

Yes.

Because in this way, in the first part

of the freezing tunnel, the water

will freeze immediately so we freeze the topping exactly

where it is at this stage.

And when I get it home and cook it,

it will be the same as that?

Exactly the same.

GREGG WALLACE: 100 pizzas a minute head into the freezer,

where they'll stay for 30 minutes at an icy

minus 40 degrees Celsius.

GREGG WALLACE: In the factory, our pizzas

have spent the last 30 minutes in the freezer,

and now, 9 hours and 10 minutes since I saw the flour delivery,

they're heading out into the light of the packing hall.

A jet of air blows any ice crystals

from the top of each one to ensure they look

their best before wrapping.

So are they frozen hard now?

Yeah. Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

OK.

But this room is warm.

Yeah.

How quickly do you want to get these wrapped and into a box?

In 2 minutes, the pizza are wrapped, then into the box,

and arrive to the pallet.

So we have got 2 minutes.

[non-english speech]

GREGG WALLACE: With no time to spare,

the conveyor belt whisks our pizzas to the first step

of the packing process.

At the moment, they're wrapped in cellophane,

but this is soon to be replaced with a starch based

alternative.

How is that pizza getting wrapped

completely with only one sheet?

Basically, this plastic film is created like a tube

and the film is pulled on.

GREGG WALLACE: It's happening so fast it's hard to see.

Yeah.

You can see the speed.

This machine is adjusting the speed to the line.

So at the moment, we are 5,000 pizzas an hour.

Yeah.

Wow.

GREGG WALLACE: Blades cut each one of our plastic socks

and the pizzas head through the shrink wrapper,

where they're heated to 220 degrees

Celsius for just 2 seconds.

That must start to defrost the pizza.

There's not enough energy to defrost the pizza

but is enough energy to shrink the bag around the pizza.

But if you touch it, you can feel the film is hot

and the pizza is frozen.

Frozen on the button.

Hot on the top, and that goes cold again very quickly.

Yeah.

Very quickly.

Here.

Come on.

GREGG WALLACE: My 450 kilogram batch of dough

has been transformed into 1,800 pizzas, enough

for every one in Aberystwyth to have a slice for dinner

tonight.

Our procession continues along a maze of conveyors.

Wow.

I love that.

That is like whitewater rafting for pizzas.

They're engineered to ensure they

reach the correct packing line.

And for the British market, they go into cardboard.

The box machine.

Yeah.

That's actually one of my favorite bits of any factory.

They amaze me because they look so simple.

So this machine is opening the box,

is pushing the pizza into the box,

then it's folding this part of the box.

It's spraying the glue and this part is sealing the box.

In what, 1 second?

Yeah.

Let's say a few seconds.

Listen, Alberto, we said we had about 2 minutes

to get the pizza around here.

I don't think it's even taken 2 minutes.

Yeah, in less than 1 minute, the pizza

is here, and then in another minute, will reach the pallet.

It's fast.

It's very fast.

GREGG WALLACE: Our freshly boxed frozen pizzas are wrapped

in bundles of seven before traveling to the palletizer,

where they're stacked six layers high

and bound tightly in plastic.

After 9 hours and 13 minutes of mixing, resting, cooking,

and topping, they're ready for the final leg

of their journey and head to the distribution area.

Factory owner, Dario Roncandin, is overseeing the operation.

How many pallets are going on that truck?

26 pallets.

Do you know how many pizzas on each pallet?

It's 800 pizza per pallet.

So how many pizzas on the truck?

20,000.

That seems like a lot of pizza to me.

Is there a season where you sell more pizza?

We sell more after Christmas because the people are

enough with the Christmas dinner,

and they want to have a nice pizza.

Big Christmas dinner and then pizza afterwards.

Should we leave him, let him load the lorry?

- For sure. - Thank you.

GREGG WALLACE: Every week, six freezer

lorries leave this factory and make the 1,000 mile journey

from the Italian Alps to the Iceland distribution centers

in the UK.

From here, the pizzas head out all over the country

and onto the shelves of the supermarket stores.

Their biggest fans are in Northern Ireland.

I am surprised that they can make

so many frozen pizzas in such an authentic way,

in a wood fired oven.

However, these flavors are anything but authentic Italian.

They are adapted for the UK market, and how do we like it?

We like it hot and spicy.

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