Original subtitles

Pots and pans.

Our cupboards are full of them.

Whether they're non-stick, cast iron, or stainless steel--

We spend over 800 million pounds a year on cookware.

GREGG WALLACE: We couldn't simmer,

stew, or fry without these heavyweight kitchen essentials.

So how do you turn this into this?

To find out, I'm heading inside this giant French foundry.

I'm Gregg Wallace.

The heat is incredible.

And I'm testing my mettle in perhaps the most challenging

factory I've ever visited.

Whoa, that was terrifying.

As solid blocks of iron-- wow--

are transformed into colorful pots using Gallic flair.

How do you catch the drops?

FACTORY EMPLOYEE: We have a waterfall.

CHERRY HEALEY: I'm Cherry Healey,

and I'm at one of the largest open pit iron

ore mines in the world unearthing the heavy metal

in our cookware.

It's like driving a gigantic house.

Woo!

GREGG WALLACE: And historian Ruth Goodman is learning

how one-pot cooking evolved.

I can do it in one hand.

It completely revolutionized many people's style of cooking.

Over the next 24 hours, this factory will produce one cast

iron pot every five seconds.

Welcome to "Inside the Factory."

[theme music]

This is the Le Creuset foundry in Fresnoy-le-Grand,

northern France.

This 50,000 square meter site produces

pots and pans in more than 300 different shapes and sizes.

From saucepans and grill pans to cooking pots,

as long as it's cast in iron, they make it here.

Today we're following production of their signature

cast iron round casserole dish.

I'm starting at material intake with production

director Frédéric Salle.

- Good morning. - Good Morning.

Bonjour.

Bonjour.

What is on that?

Inside it is pig iron.

GREGG WALLACE: What is pig iron, please?

FREDERIC SALLE: Pig iron--

it is a raw material coming from the iron ore,

and then already melted in the blast furnace.

How much is on there?

About 20 tons.

Yeah.

20 tons of--

20 tons, yeah.

- -of iron.

How many of your dishes will 20 tons make?

FREDERIC SALLE: About approximately 5,000.

- 5,000? - Yeah.

Wow.

That's a lot of stuff.

Yeah.

That is a serious lot of-- right,

how do we get this unloaded?

Yeah, we can start.

But you will-- going to need this.

Why?

Yeah, because of the noise.

You will see.

Really?

Really.

OK, show me.

Yeah, let's start.

GREGG WALLACE: A hydraulic arm jacks the trailer 9

meters into the air and the pig iron

begins a deafening descent.

[exclaiming]

Once it's safely unloaded, our production begins.

[upbeat music playing]

Oh, that is fast.

Wow, 20 tons of iron.

Come on, come on.

This metal is derived from iron-rich rock known as ore.

The iron ore used to make this iron comes from Russia,

but it's dug out of the ground in many other countries

around the world.

One of the biggest suppliers is South Africa, where Cherry

went to see how it's mined.

CHERRY HEALEY: This is Sishen iron

ore mine, one of the largest open pit mines in the world.

An 18 minute plane ride west of Johannesburg,

it's over 9 miles wide, 3 miles long, and 400 meters deep.

[rumbling]

And it's getting bigger all the time.

To learn how they mine and process a staggering 670,000

tons every day, I'm meeting general manager Bongani

Buthelezi.

Hi.

Lovely to meet you.

Hi, Cherry.

Welcome.

I feel like I'm at the top of the Grand Canyon

if it was on Mars.

BONGANI BUTHELEZI: This mine is the largest iron

ore mining operation in Africa.

What is iron ore?

What are you after?

So what we are looking for is as-- is iron ore.

I actually have it here in my hand.

So this is premium grade iron ore.

So-- and ore is actually a rock that has minerals in it.

CHERRY HEALEY: Iron ore is any rock

that has enough metallic iron inside it

to be worth extracting.

And it's our only source of iron.

What can we make out of it?

For any infrastructure in the world.

Any building?

The bridges, the skyscrapers that you see.

That's made from-- from this key ingredient.

CHERRY HEALEY: It's funny, because this is blue.

It's got that metallic look to it.

Correct.

And yet, everything that I can see is red.

The reddish that you see is the oxide of iron.

In layman terms, that is rust.

CHERRY HEALEY: Right.

So when it's deep in the Earth, it's

blue because it's metallic.

And then it meets the oxygen, it oxidizes,

and it turns that red color.

BONGANI BUTHELEZI: Yeah.

CHERRY HEALEY: The purest iron ore sits

300 meters below the surface.

So there's only one efficient way

to get it out of the ground.

Twice a week, over 2,000 tons of explosives

are detonated below the surface, dislodging over

4 million tons of iron ore.

Once the dust has settled, clearing up is a big job.

This is my ride for the day.

And like everything in mining, it is super-sized.

This is one of the biggest trucks in the world.

It's 7 meters tall and weighs in at 164 tons.

Hi, Mpo.

Lovely to meet you.

Mpo Dinsey is in charge.

Oh, my goodness.

This is one hell of a ride.

Whoa!

This beast has 3 and thousand horsepower--

the equivalent of about 23 family cars.

It shifts over 7,000 tons of rock a day

in this harsh terrain.

It's like driving a gigantic house.

Woo!

Do you love it?

Yeah, I love it.

It's like driving a car, but just a massive, massive car.

Here's the shovel.

It's absolutely enormous.

A 14 meter tall digger scoops up 65 tons of iron ore

and drops it into the back of our truck.

The whole truck is shaking.

You can feel the weight of it when you take off.

The whole truck is kind of groaning.

The scale here means that a single driver can

transport over 220 tons of iron ore across the site

every 30 minutes.

Mpo backs it up to the crusher.

Tipping.

Look at that.

Whoa!

The next challenge is getting at the metal inside.

In a huge cloud of dust, it's pulverized

to break open the ore.

This is what we blasted out of the earth,

and what I collected on my truck.

Its content is about 50% iron, but there are

some things that just gotta go.

To increase the percentage of metal within the ore,

it travels through a series of machines which remove

things like rock and sand.

Our ore now has a metallic iron content of 64%,

and is ready to leave the mine on its very own train.

Each wagon will hold a hundred tons of iron ore.

And in total, there will be 342 wagons.

That is a very long train.

More than two miles long, in fact.

Over 30,000 tons of iron ore is taken away every day.

How amazing that this rock has come

from the earth raw and dusty, and now it's ready to go

on a very long journey.

Who knows what it will become?

A car, a hospital, or maybe even a pot.

GREGG WALLACE: Back at the factory in France,

our iron blocks are on their way to a hot date.

But shifting 20 tons is no easy job.

All right, how do we get it out of there?

We use a giant electromagnet.

No way.

- Yeah. - Really?

Wow.

How do we get that started?

FREDERIC SALLE: Just using this working--

Can I do it?

You can do.

What do I say in French?

[speaking french].

[speaking french]?

[speaking french].

Hello.

[speaking french]

OK.

FREDERIC SALLE: That's right.

GREGG WALLACE: The control room turns on the electromagnet,

sending 13 kilowatts of current through the wire coil inside.

That's like a science fiction film.

FREDERIC SALLE: By changing the current in the electromagnet,

you can change the load you pick up.

GREGG WALLACE: Whoa!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

The electromagnet picks up 2 tons of iron at a time.

No, no, no, no.

That is just incredible.

And transports it 25 meters across the factory.

When the current is turned off, the iron drops

into the hopper in melting.

But this iron isn't the only ingredient

in the recipe for our pots.

The magnet also collects steel.

What is the balance between the-- the pig

iron and the Steel

50/50.

Almost, yeah.

All right, OK.

That's easy to understand.

A pot made from pig iron alone, although hard,

risks being brittle.

The steel adds some flexibility.

How much metal on there?

FREDERIC SALLE: Eight tons of metal.

GREGG WALLACE: But we can't make pots from a load

of solid blocks of metal.

We need to melt them down in a terrifying piece

of kit called a crucible.

What is that?

FREDERIC SALLE: It's an oven.

A melting furnace.

It's like a giant cooking pot.

Is that exactly what it is?

Isn't it, really?

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah, it is.

GREGG WALLACE: What temperature does that get to to melt the--

FREDERIC SALLE: The objective is to reach 1,550 degrees Celsius.

That's like a volcano.

Nearly, yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: Electric induction coils

heat the contents of the crucible up to a temperature

even hotter than lava.

Now we need to get our eight tons of metal

down the throat of this man-made volcano.

FREDERIC SALLE: So the control panel is here.

So just see the white button here?

So just press it.

This is the biggest load I've ever played with.

Ever, ever, ever.

Whoa, it's moving.

It's moving.

The hopper travels on its very own rail system.

Wow, this is big.

Whoa, look at this.

The size of this thing.

The mix of metal is tipped out of the hopper

on a vibrating chute and melted down.

[upbeat music playing]

40 minutes later, our iron and steel has combined.

Any impurities, called slag, rise to the surface of the mix.

They can damage the crucible so must be removed by hand.

And it seems I'm expected to get hands-on too.

OK, why am I dressed up like a spaceman?

Because we have to check the composition of the cast iron.

We need a sample.

Sample from there?

Yes, so you need to wear this hat also.

Me?

You, yeah.

You will take a sample using a 2 meter spoon--

Really?

FREDERIC SALLE: --with the foundry guy.

GREGG WALLACE: The big man here?

Yeah.

He's twice the size of me.

OK.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE: No way.

No!

The heat is ridiculous.

All that stands between me and third-degree burns

are thick leather gloves and a gold visor.

Whoa!

Where does all the heat-- the heat is incredible.

Yeah, help.

OK.

Whoa, look at that stuff.

This is a really tricky challenge.

Look at it.

It requires strength and accuracy

to tip my white-hot sample into a 4 centimeter-wide mold.

Never done anything like this, ever.

Whoa!

Brilliant.

Big man?

Well done.

You're a real foundry guy now.

That was terrifying.

That was so scary.

My sample of molten metal cools for five minutes.

A spectrometer fires electricity through the disk.

The atoms of the different elements within it

send readings back, which are checked against

the requirements for our pots.

Has it passed the test?

Yeah.

Everything is green, so you pass the test.

Are we ready now, please, to make some pots?

- Yeah, we are. - Come on.

Come on, show me where.

Show me where.

With our metal given the all-clear,

the molten mix is poured into smaller,

1.6 ton holding crucibles.

These are kept at 1,450 degrees Celsius

to ensure the metal remains liquid until we're

ready to turn it into pots.

This French foundry has been casting cast iron for almost

a century, but it was a Brit who first

developed the technique they use here more than 300 years ago.

Ruth is picking up the story at the Ironbridge Gorge World

Heritage site in Shropshire.

Just along here is one of the most important

sites in British history.

A furnace where the modern method of making cooking pots

was first devised.

But it didn't just change the way we cooked.

This changed the whole world, because the humble cooking

pot helped forge the Industrial Revolution.

To find out how, I'm heading to the furnace

where the first mass-produced cast iron pots were made

and meeting historian Georgina Grant.

Georgina.

Hello.

RUTH GOODMAN: So what is it that makes this structure so

special, then?

Well, it's here that someone called Abraham Darby developed

a patent for sand casting pots.

And I've got this patent here.

So it says, "a new way of casting

iron-bellied pots in sand only.

And in regard to their cheapness,

may be of great advantage to the poor."

Abraham Darby was an innovative 30-year-old metalworker

from the Midlands.

GEORGINA GRANT: So before, you would

use a clay mold to make cast iron

pots or any kind of cast iron.

But it was a very laborious process.

So if you're making a clay mold,

well presumably you'd have to make one by hand.

Some sort of molding clay.

You pour hot iron into it.

So the only way you're going to get that out is-- that clay

is going to bake, isn't it?

So you'd have to actually smash that mold.

Yes.

Which means you cannot use that mold again.

RUTH GOODMAN: Darby discovered a method that allowed

him to make molds from sand.

They were quicker and cheaper to work

with than the old clay molds.

Metal items could be cast in the sand molds,

and once, cooled the sand could easily be knocked off

and reused again and again.

It was the start of an efficient factory process.

So they are producing lots and lots of cooking pots.

They were cheaper to buy.

And I've got one here, actually.

RUTH GOODMAN: So this is a real one?

This came from--

GEORGINA GRANT: This is--

RUTH GOODMAN: The Darby furnaces.

Oh, goodness.

Well you were pretending it's heavy.

This, in comparison to all the early cauldrons,

is incredibly light.

I mean, look at that.

Yep.

Look, I can do it in one hand.

Yeah, much more manageable.

RUTH GOODMAN: Yeah.

And much more affordable.

It really is the birth of mass production here.

RUTH GOODMAN: But sand casting wasn't the only innovation.

Darby had a secret weapon.

A new process that made his pots better quality, more

desirable, and a lot cheaper.

Because instead of using the traditional wood charcoal,

he was using this--

coke to fuel his furnaces.

This coke, a form of purified coal,

replaced the dwindling wood supplies

that have traditionally fueled these furnaces.

It has many advantages.

Smelting iron using coke as a fuel

allows the furnaces to become incredibly

hot, producing high quality iron in massive quantities.

Melting iron using coke made the iron more fluid

when it was poured, helping to make thinner

parts that were still strong.

But soon, it wasn't just pots that they were making.

People were beginning to come up with ideas

for all sorts of things that they'd

like made out of cast iron.

The most striking of which is the very first iron bridge,

constructed just a mile from the original foundry

by Darby's grandson Abraham Darby III in 1779.

Only 72 years after his granddad's

groundbreaking success, this bridge was built to showcase

just what cast iron could do.

Quickly adopted by 19th century engineers,

iron became the magic material that built steam engines,

railways, and factory machines.

Today, this place--

Ironbridge-- calls itself the birthplace

of the Industrial Revolution.

But let's not forget, it all began with a cooking pot.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE: In the modern pot factory in France,

they still use Darby's sand method here.

But it's done on a mammoth scale over in molding, where

they make a sand mix by adding a little carbon, clay, and water.

I still don't understand how fine sand

can be made into a mold.

FREDERIC SALLE: You can add this,

which can stick because of the water,

which activates the clay.

Oh, OK.

And that's how you can make a mold?

Exactly.

So it's soft sand until you squeeze it,

and then it squeezes into a shape.

Yeah, exactly.

Because of the clay and the water.

Exactly.

That is genius.

Every hour, 70 tons of sand mix is

pumped down into an ultra-modern molding machine.

The black sand funnels down from above,

and is then squeezed with a mold from either side--

a bit like an accordion.

The inside of a pot shape is pushed from one side,

and the outside of a pot pushed from the other.

The whole block is then shunted towards the one in front,

leaving a 3 to 4 millimeter gap, which is the mold for our pot.

That is unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

The newly created molds travel out of the molding

machine in a continuous block.

Filling holes in the top are ready for the molten metal.

The metal we left in the holding crucibles

on the other side of the foundry is sent over by rail.

It's lifted up and poured into a funnel system above the molding

line, which drops 11 kilos of molten metal

into the top of each mold.

[energetic music playing]

The liquid metal flows around the gap inside,

creating the shape of our pot.

[energetic music playing]

GREGG WALLACE: Wow.

That's what we call really hot, all right?

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: So what we got here

is a continuous block of sand.

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: With metal being poured inside, creating

lots and lots of little pots.

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: We're producing pots

with a lot of heat and enough sand to fill a beach.

Very, very good.

I want to see them born.

Come on.

Let's break the molds.

It takes 25 minutes for our metal-filled molds

to travel 18 meters along the conveyor, cooling as they go.

Removing the mold is a very simple process.

Because they're made of sand, you just shake them off.

The parts travel along a vibrating conveyor

where the sand breaks up in a noisy black river of dust.

It falls through the grates and is funneled back

to make another set of molds.

Finally, the newly-created pots emerge.

There they are.

There they are.

Why is it rattling so much?

FREDERIC SALLE: It's a vibrating grid

just to make the separation, to break the sand molds.

GREGG WALLACE: All of that tons of metal, all that heat--

there's our pan.

Can I touch one?

Yeah.

Take this.

What temperature is this now?

200 degrees.

200 degrees.

So it was 1,400 degrees.

Yeah.

And now it's 200 degrees.

FREDERIC SALLE: So you can feel the temperature.

I can feel the temperature on my face.

It's like I've taken a hot pot of stew out the oven.

From here, our pots have any remaining sand cleared off

and sit to completely cool.

At the factory, almost two hours in, our pots

have been cast and cooled.

But they're looking a bit rough around the edges.

An extreme beautification process begins with a rubdown.

The rim is smoothed with an electric grinding wheel

in a process called deburring.

10 workers speed through seven pots a minute

before they're sent over to finishing,

where they'll be cleaned up in preparation

for their color coat.

Your factory just does not stop being crazy.

Everywhere I look, there's just something

else ridiculous going on.

Are we going to load these up?

You can just load it here.

GREGG WALLACE: So they have to--

[clanking]

Not like this.

GREGG WALLACE: You know what this looks like to me?

The inside of a dishwasher.

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah, it is.

GREGG WALLACE: Just like a dishwasher rack,

the large wire baskets we're loading our pots onto

allow them to be cleaned.

They travel sedately into a huge grit blaster.

Inside, millions of tiny pellets of steel

are fired against the surface of the dishes.

That's really heavy.

Stainless steel.

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: But that must make the surface rough.

Yeah.

Yeah, of course.

And it is what we want to obtain.

Why?

Just to allow to the color coat to stick on the metal.

I see.

So they do two jobs.

They clean the pot--

FREDERIC SALLE: Exactly.

GREGG WALLACE: And they make it rough so that you

can put the color finish on.

Yeah.

You get it.

GREGG WALLACE: After 45 minutes of extreme exfoliation

in the gritter, our pots head off for individual spot checks

in a busy area called hand finishing where workers smooth

away any remaining blemishes.

[upbeat music playing]

To protect the pots from rust, they're

sprayed with a fine base coat, spinning as they go.

This will also help the color coat stick to the metal.

They're coming on nicely.

Soon they'll be ready to make a French casserole

or its British equivalent, the Lancashire hot pot.

Ruth's investigating the history of this classic one-pot dish.

RUTH GOODMAN: 200 years ago during the Industrial

Revolution, men and women were going out to work

all day in mills and factories.

With no one at home to look after a stew pot

on the fire and no ovens at home to speak of,

many people resorted to this--

a pot that they took along to their local baker

or the communal oven shared by all the people in the terrace.

12 hours later on their way home from work,

they collected their slow-cooked meal.

The old name, a hodgepodge, meaning

whatever you had to hand bunged in a pot,

came to be known as a hot pot.

I'm at Beamish, the living museum of the North,

to see how the hot pot transformed

from a working class dish to a 20th century staple.

I'm following the evolution of the recipe

with Chef Roopa Gulati.

Roopa, hello.

Hello.

I have brought a hot pot from the communal oven.

So what exactly is traditionally in a Lancashire hot pot?

Not very much.

Potatoes, meat-- usually mutton.

It's cheap, it's accessible, and you've

got a filling, tasty meal.

Lots of fuel to keep you going.

RUTH GOODMAN: But by the end of the Victorian era,

the humble hot pot had made it into middle class cookbooks.

This recipe is from 1892.

RUTH GOODMAN: Oh, yes.

A Lancashire hot pot.

And in there, you see all kinds of interesting--

I do.

Four mutton kidneys, a score of oysters.

A score is 20.

RUTH GOODMAN: As Britain's empire expanded, so did tastes.

Oh, my goodness.

And a teaspoonful of curry powder.

Glamorous.

RUTH GOODMAN: So you have a humble Lancashire hot pot that

started off being something quite simple for mill workers,

and you're now adding curry powder to it.

But it wasn't just the recipes that were evolving.

So too were people's kitchens.

The availability of cast iron in the 19th century

saw the widespread adoption of the coal-fired range oven

at home.

By 1900, little tiny cheap versions

were available, and were pretty much

every coal-burning household in Britain.

And they completely revolutionized

many people's style of cooking, because now

you've got an oven at home.

[soft music playing]

By the 1940s, the hot pot found itself on the front line

of the war effort, with people encouraged to oven cook

economical, one-pot dishes.

ROOPA GULATI: There's no better poster that

sums things up than this one.

"Better pot-luck with Churchill today than humble pie

under Hitler tomorrow."

And the message, "don't waste food!"

The idea is that in the hot pot, it can cook long and slow.

And you can basically chuck anything in it

and let it just simmer.

Whereas, if you're going to be kind of indulgent,

you're going to make a quick pie--

In a sauce pan.

In a sauce pan.

RUTH GOODMAN: Post-war, one-pot cooking

was marketed as labor-saving.

Even glamorous.

But fast-forward to the 1970s, and

the latest technology gave the humble hot pot

a new lease of life.

And here we are in the 1970s.

Absolutely.

Dressed to match.

I do remember these 1970s slow cookers.

I do.

It was a curiosity but it really did take hold in the 1970s.

RUTH GOODMAN: I mean, why do you think that was?

I think it had something to do with women suddenly

having to go out to work.

Right.

And being independent.

And yet, when they came home in the evenings,

they were still expected to put a meal on the table.

A hot meal at that.

And this was their way of giving the best of both worlds.

RUTH GOODMAN: 1970s working women

embraced this dish for the same reasons the mill

workers had 150 years earlier.

And right back to the sort of earlier history of the hot pot.

And it's something that you can pop on in the morning,

go to work, come back, got a hot meal.

It's almost as if it's completed the full circle.

It is, isn't it?

ROOPA GULATI: It's gone back to its roots.

Yeah.

And it's big on flavor.

And convenience.

Oh, it's nice.

[soft music playing]

GREGG WALLACE: At the 21st century factory,

my pots have been cast, buffed, and received their base coat.

After almost four hours of production,

they're now ready for their color coating

over in enameling, where I'm meeting

ceramic engineer Sandra Bolte.

Hello.

I've come to find out about enameling.

So enamel is a layer of glass, and so we

mix the pigments with glass.

So you mix colored dye with glass?

Yes.

We mixed all the color here.

GREGG WALLACE: So this-- this is the mixing machine?

SANDRA: Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: The enamel is 80% powdered

glass, 5% color pigment, and 15% additives like clay

powder mixed with water.

Resistant to heat and acid, it will protect our cast iron pots

and give them a long life.

Although their outsides will be orange,

their insides will be a creamy sand color.

That looks like a big milkshake.

Big vanilla milkshake.

Sorry?

Sorry.

That looks like-- sorry.

That looks like a big vanilla milkshake.

[laughter]

Big milkshake.

GREGG WALLACE: The barrel of enamel

is connected up to tubes, and the dishes are placed

on revolving pedestals on a conveyor which

will carry them through the color process

at a sedate 0.2 miles an hour.

The enamel is pumped through into precision spray guns which

coat each spinning pan in a uniform 0.3 millimeter thick

layer of color.

[laughter]

Right, that is the sand-colored enamel going inside the pot,

right?

How many different guns does it take until you have

completely covered the inside?

FREDERIC SALLE: So inside, it's six guns.

- Six guns? - Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: What, are they all different angles?

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: Ah, I see.

Oh, yes.

That one is higher than that one.

FREDERIC SALLE: Exactly.

GREGG WALLACE: OK, so six different angles--

Exactly.

- -to cover the inside of--

I got you.

Right.

Why is there not enamel everywhere?

So we are using a waterfall.

We connect it to an air cleaner, just

to collect all the dust, yeah?

GREGG WALLACE: The waterfall is clearing

away the excess enamel?

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: The enamel is liquid

when it is fired out as a fine mist at the speed of sound.

Larger liquid droplets cover the pot,

but smaller particles dry into dust in the air

and are sucked by fans into a waterfall, removed to stop

workers breathing them in.

How do you catch the drops?

We have a waterfall.

Of course you do.

Yeah.

You people here are incredible.

Incredible.

Interiors complete, the pots move into the next spray booth

Interiors complete, the pots move into the next spray booth

where the machines have been replaced by humans who spray

the hard-to-reach handles manually,

using a temporary lid to stop the orange color seeping

inside.

Here we are.

That's our orange, right?

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah, it is.

GREGG WALLACE: Workers have just 12 seconds

to complete each one as it spins past them on the conveyor.

Please take the gun, the cover.

Go.

GREGG WALLACE: Let's see if I'll make the grade.

Yes.

FREDERIC SALLE: It's not enameled inside the handle.

GREGG WALLACE: I think there may be a few for the reject pile.

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah, that's better.

But there's no enamel on this handle here.

[laughter]

I can't do it.

It may look simple, but it's surprisingly tricky

to get the enamel right inside the handles.

Yes!

Yeah, no.

There's no enamel here.

[laughter]

Stop laughing.

You're not helping.

Please, please.

May you stop?

We have too many rejects.

[upbeat music playing]

GREGG WALLACE: The pots I haven't messed up

are flipped over and sprayed a vibrant orange.

But they also like to give this dish a final French flourish.

What happens at the end?

Are you spraying another-- are you spraying it red as well?

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah, it's a different color.

GREGG WALLACE: It's a gradient, right?

Is it more red at the bottom?

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE: And then more orange at the top?

FREDERIC SALLE: Exactly.

GREGG WALLACE: The change in color

is created by gradually reducing the amount

of darker red enamel that is sprayed as the gun

moves along each dish.

All the color creates quite a spectacle.

I love an orange waterfall.

You could travel around the whole world

and you would never see an orange waterfall.

The wet pots are sent through for drying.

That is hot.

How long is that dryer?

FREDERIC SALLE: About eight minutes.

GREGG WALLACE: At what temperature?

FREDERIC SALLE: At 150 degrees Celsius.

Can I see them coming out the other end?

Yeah. Yes please.

Yes, please.

What have you done to them?

They're pink.

Why is it that color, and why has

it gone all matte, not shiny?

It's because it's a dried enamel.

GREGG WALLACE: The dryer has removed all the water from

the enamel, dulling its color.

But it's a vital step before it can safely

enter the high temperature of the kiln.

That's a kiln?

That's a kiln, yeah.

And what will happen to it in there?

So there, we just transform the enamel into glass.

We need to increase the temperature

up to 800 degrees just to recreate this glass

and to melt all--

all these elements all together.

GREGG WALLACE: And how long is it in there for?

35 minutes.

GREGG WALLACE: The powdered glass within the enamel melts

down into a liquid in the kiln and then sets hard when

it cools, transforming into a layer

of super-hard colored glass--

a process called vitrification.

It gives the pots a glossy shine.

There we are.

Lots and lots of shiny, shiny pots.

May I?

Yeah.

So it is shiny again.

There it is.

Yeah, that looks good.

That looks really, really good.

I didn't like it at the last stage.

Are they all quality checking?

FREDERIC SALLE: Yeah, it's a quality checking.

What are they checking for?

Little pinholes.

Maybe the handle isn't painted?

Maybe.

[laughter]

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE: Our pots are placed in crates

to cool for 30 minutes.

Our cooled enameled casserole dishes are sent to packing

where they meet their lids.

But there's one thing missing--

a stainless steel knob.

I have been involved with every stage of production.

I would really, really like to just screw the knob on.

Put that there.

Yeah, it's the last operation.

Because it's got to be easier than spraying the enamel.

So, please.

Please, can I-- excuse me.

Excuse me, sorry.

Pardon.

Can I just-- right.

FREDERIC SALLE: The screw.

Yeah, then-- yeah, you maintain the screw like this.

You take the stainless steel out.

GREGG WALLACE: Oh, I can't believe that screwing a knob on

is difficult. I look--

I'm going to look so stupid.

So 150 pots per hour will be difficult.

- And now-- - And look.

Now look.

Ready?

Gladiator.

[laughter]

Yay!

Come on.

Yay.

After five hours and 44 minutes, we have finished pots.

They box 150 an hour.

Overall, it's taken 42 pairs of hands to make each one.

From here, our boxes are loaded up on pallets of 116 dishes

to be sent to distribution, where I'm meeting

company owner Paul van Zuydam.

Paul?

PAUL VAN ZUYDAM: Hi Gregg.

Good to meet you.

You too.

GREGG WALLACE: Do you know who your biggest

customer is in Europe?

That's the United Kingdom.

Yes.

Exactly.

I think that proves we may be the best cooks in Europe.

You-- you are the best cooks?

The Italians won't agree with us.

No.

And my wife's Italian.

Oh, no.

GREGG WALLACE: Paul, do you know how many

casserole dishes are on there?

PAUL VAN ZUYDAM: Yes.

There are 3,828 casserole dishes on there.

We export over 95% of our product today.

So the last pallet on there-- should

we send the truck to the UK?

Yes indeed.

- It's ready to go. - Come on.

Thank you, Gregg.

GREGG WALLACE: Up to three lorries leave every day.

The casserole dishes are shipped to over

60 countries all around the world, as far away

as the USA and New Zealand.

When I came to this factory in northern France

to see a casserole dish being made,

I had no idea I was going to start

off in an enormous foundry.

And I didn't know that enamel was made from glass.

And as complicated as these systems appear,

actually they're pretty traditional.

They're making this pot in the way

that craftsmen have worked for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Au revoir.