Original subtitles

[music playing]

The cereal bar.

This portable snack has been refueling us for decades.

We unwrap over 15 million of them every week.

Powering an industry worth over 300 pounds million a year.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Whether it's

oats, rice, all-wheat packed, the choice is staggering.

You know what, Gregg?

I absolutely love a dried fruit and nut combo.

In that case, Cherry, you are going to go nuts for the bars

they make in this factory.

Coming through!

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): I'm Gregg Wallace.

You could smell that toast in it.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): And tonight, I'm

discovering the delicate balancing

act at the heart of each bar.

GREGG WALLACE: You can pour wet things over a crispy thing

- and it stays crispy? - Yep.

It does, indeed.

Mate, you're like a cookery magician.

We are, yes.

GREGG WALLACE: [laughs]

CHERRY HEALEY: Ah!

That is fun.

I'm Cherry Healey.

And I'll be following the astonishing journey

these nuts go on from tree--

oh, wow, they look like tiny lines--

to bar.

Those nuts like to party.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): And historian Ruth Goodman

is on the road, discovering the groovy origins

of these handy snacks.

It was sort of the staple food of all hippies in those days.

GREGG WALLACE: Over the next 24 hours,

this factory will transform 18 tons of fruit and nuts--

- -into 400,000 cereal bars.

Welcome to "Inside the Factory."

[theme music]

[music playing]

This is the Eat Natural factory in Halstead, Essex.

300 people work here, knocking out more than 90

million cereal bars every year.

They make 22 different types, from

protein-packed salted caramel and peanuts

to almond and apricot.

Tonight we're following production of one

of their best-selling bars, dark chocolate with cranberries

and macadamias.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Packed

with nuts, cranberries, coconut, sultanas, and coated

in chocolate.

Producing these bars on a monster scale

is a complex and challenging process,

which begins at the intake area, where I'm receiving a month's

supply of one of our most important ingredients,

macadamias, with quality inspector and all-round nuts

expert, Richard Lansdown.

- Is that it? - Yeah, that's it.

Sorry.

I don't mean to sound rude, but I'm

used to dirty, great big trucks full of stuff.

So how many nuts are on there?

We've got 2,000 kilos of macadamia nuts.

How long will that last you?

It's enough to make a million bars there.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

That's an important delivery for you guys, then.

- I guess it is. - Let's get it unloaded.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Macadamias

are one of the priciest nuts in the world

and the most expensive ingredient in our bar.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): They're-- they're chopped.

RICHARD: This allows us to evenly

distribute them in the bars.

If they were bigger, they really wouldn't fit in.

Why would you use macadamias as opposed

to a hazelnut or a walnut?

Well, they have a unique mild, mellow,

sort of faintly buttery flavor.

The texture is crisp but soft.

It's absolutely perfect for our product.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): While these guys crack on, unloading

this lot, Cherry's exploring the challenges

of getting these nuts from far flung field to factory.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): I've come

to the lush mountainous region of Mpumalanga

in Northern South Africa, which provides the perfect climate

for our factory's macadamias.

South Africa is the largest producer of macadamia nuts

in the world, accounting for over a quarter

of the global harvest.

Terry Haig is the farm manager at Green

Farms, where they grow 100 tons a year on 48,000 trees.

Hi, Terry.

Lovely to meet you.

Nice to meet you, Cherry.

So this is a macadamia nut tree?

TERRY HAIG: Yeah.

CHERRY HEALEY: Can I see some?

I've never really seen a nut on a tree.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

They look like tiny limes.

TERRY HAIG: So this is the outer husk.

And you can bite that off.

CHERRY HEALEY: You can bite it off?

Oh, look at that.

But that's not a macadamia nut.

No, the kernel is inside the shell.

So inside there is the actual nut that we're after?

Yeah.

Can I crack it open?

You could try.

Holy moly.

Ah, god, that's unbelievably tough.

It is the toughest nut shell--

CHERRY HEALEY: In the world.

Yeah, yeah.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): One reason

this nut is so pricey is it can take seven years for the trees

to mature and produce their first commercial crop.

Harvesting and processing is a labor-intensive process.

How do you harvest a macadamia nut?

Do you pick it off a tree?

Well, this particular variety drops

the nuts when they're mature.

The tree will let you know when it's time to harvest?

That's right, yeah.

[music playing]

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): I'm joining one of the farm's

pickers, Julian Mokoena--

Nice to meet you.

- CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): - -to lend a hand.

I'm very strong.

I feel like I'm going to be useful on your team.

OK?

Show me how to do it.

We make it low.

We make these bags like this.

OK.

So then starting harvesting.

OK.

[music playing]

Oh, you are fast.

Oh, you're fast.

I see, I see.

[laughs] You're so quick.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How many bags can you collect in one day?

Maybe 12 or 15.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): Bags filled.

Time for their weigh-in.

I'm a bit nervous about this.

Yeah.

How much was your bag?

12.54.

12.54 kilograms?

Yes.

CHERRY HEALEY: I'm not sure I can match that.

[laughs] I'm sweating so much, and it's 7 kilograms.

We empty our hull into a waiting trailer.

1, 2, 3?

1, 2, 3.

[grunts]

Then, our tough nuts begin a hardcore workout.

Their soft green outer husks are stripped off,

and the nuts are tipped into a giant hopper.

Go.

Ah!

Ooh!

That is fun.

[laughs] That is a lot of nuts.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): Protected by their hard shells,

they take a roller coaster ride into vast dryers.

The heat makes the kernels inside shrink away

from their shells, making it easier to crack

through that armor plating.

In the enormous nut cracking room,

Alex White's telling me how they do it.

How do you crack the world's toughest nut?

With special designed macadamia nut crackers.

So it just smashes the nut basically,

and hopefully the kernel comes out whole--

CHERRY HEALEY: Oh, wow.

- -just like that.

CHERRY HEALEY: Oh, and there it is.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): Rotating steel rollers

pressed together with 300 PSI of pressure.

It's like a baby elephant sitting on each nut.

This smashes the shells open, releasing

the valuable kernels inside.

Wow.

Those nuts like to party.

[music playing]

CHERRY HEALEY: They head across a set of shaking sieves.

Bits of shell and smaller nuts fall through the holes,

and the bigger nuts head on for a visual check.

Once given the final OK, they're vacuum-sealed into foil bags

and packed into cardboard boxes.

There are half a million macadamia nuts on this pallet,

and now ready to go to the cereal bar factory in Essex.

I'm not carrying them all the way.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Fortunately for Cherry,

the nuts are driven nine hours to the Port of Durban,

where they're loaded onto a container ship which carries

them around the Cape of Good Hope on a 22-day voyage,

direct to the Port of Felixstowe.

Once they hit dry land, it's an hour's

trip to our cereal bar factory.

[music playing]

20 minutes after our nuts arrived,

they make a 300-meter hop across the site

to ingredients preparation, where technical manager Lisa

Conning is checking they make the grade before they

head into our cereal bars.

Lisa!

Yes, hi.

All right.

How many nuts are we dealing with here?

So we're going to deal with about 260 kilograms per hour.

That's a way around a nut, innit?

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): That's 260,000 nuts.

I know how to check to see if an elephant's been in the bag.

[laughs] Yeah.

There wouldn't be any nuts left.

That's true.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): They may have traveled 8 and 1/2

miles, but these nuts still have a long way

to go to prove they're exactly right for our cereal bars.

To pass muster, each individual nut

needs to be exactly 10-millimeters wide

and perfectly creamy-colored.

They queue up for inspection on a series of conveyors and drop

onto a four-meter long vibrating tray which separates them out,

before bouncing towards a highly complex bit of machinery.

What am I looking at, a load of nuts coming down a slide?

Yeah, so this is our laser sorter.

The laser acts as the eyes.

There's electronics in there that acts like a human brain

to push off any nuts that we don't want.

And you say it acts like a human brain?

Yeah.

Doesn't really act like my brain.

[laughs]

It'd be telling rubbish jokes all day long.

Why is it discarded?

LISA: So this will get rid of any darker nuts

that we don't want.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): This salter

has a clever way of picking out any nuts which

falls short of the standard.

There's 64 air jets in there that will pick them off.

They're shooting them off?

Yes.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICOVER): The nuts

drop off the edge of the vibrating shelf

into the salter.

They fall past four lasers, fired

between two rotating drums.

The lasers check every single nut against

these specially-colored drums.

If they don't precisely match the preset color,

a series of air jets fire them into a reject bin.

But it's not the end of the road for these little fellows.

They're sent to a specialist plant

where they're broken down to generate electricity.

The super nuts that have passed their test

continue through the machine.

As fast as I can see the nuts falling,

that's as fast as it can shoot them off.

Yes, this is-- this actually can scan

up to 2,000 nuts per second.

Say that again?

2,000 nuts per second.

It's incredible.

I love this stuff.

I love this stuff.

So does this just do nuts?

It looks at nuts, but it could also

look at other raw materials, like apricots.

So how does that work?

How does the computer know when you've changed it?

What we have is different colored

drums for different products.

So right now, that's a macadamia nut-colored drum?

LISA: Yep.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): For other bars,

there's also dark brown for almonds,

green for pumpkin seeds, and white for cashews.

GREGG WALLACE: What are these people here doing?

So even though with our amazing machine

that is 90% efficient, and we still need members of our team

to cover off the other 10%.

So they're just doing the final visual check,

because a single nut that's not right could affect our product.

So as clever as that machine thinks it is,

we still need humans?

Yes.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Check's complete.

The nuts tumble into a 350-kilo hopper at the end of the line.

Now it's time to turn up the heat.

Can I help?

Of course you can.

You can go up those stairs and open the gate, please.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): I feed the nuts

into a giant four-meter gas-fired oven.

That is a torrent of nuts.

They pass under an adjustable bar, set

to an exact 2.5 centimeters.

This flattens them down so each nut gets a perfect roasting.

Why do you roast them?

Why don't you just put them into the bar as they are?

Because we want to make it even tastier by bringing

out those lovely sweet flavors.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Just 15

minutes at 135 degrees Celsius before they

pop out the other end.

You can smell they're toasting it.

What is actually happening to the nuts

when you're toasting them?

There's the chemical reaction called the Maillard reaction

and there's heat being applied, and that is just the reaction

between the sugars and the proteins

which gives the nut the final gentle browning

and this lovely flavor.

I can feel a draft.

LISA: It cools at the end of the roasting

by blowing off all the heat.

Why do you want to cool them?

We want to make sure that we don't get

any horrible, sweaty nuts which will

affect the quality of the bar.

Yeah, I'm saying nothing.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Roasted and ready,

they're packed into 12.5 kilo boxes.

Our nuts are prepped and well on their way to becoming

part of our cereal bars.

But whose idea was it to turn a bowl of cereal into--

well, into a bar?

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Ruth is

investigating in Bedfordshire.

It may surprise you to learn that it was not either

the oatcake or the flapjack that kick-started

cereal bars in Britain.

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): To find out what did,

we have to take a trip back in time--

[record scratching]

- -to 1969--

[rock music]

- -and the heyday of hippies--

when a 20-year-old drummer from England called

Bill Jordan was touring the West Coast of California

with his blues rock band.

Whilst he was out there, he started

experimenting with something that all

the hippies were doing.

Not drugs, but an oaty cereal called granola.

[music playing]

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): 50 years down the road, Bill still

remembers the breakfast that changed

his life and our eating habits.

So what did you think of this stuff when you first ate it?

Well, I mean, if you're used to sort of normal breakfast

cereals, this was amazing.

It was whole grains.

It was different texture, a lot of different flavors,

a lot of different ingredients.

It was very different stuff.

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): A mix of whole oats, nuts and seeds,

granola was baked hard with honey.

It was sort of the staple food of all hippies in those days.

[music playing]

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): Young Bill

was convinced there was a market for granola in Britain.

After his year living the rock and roll dream,

he returned home to Bedfordshire, and the mill

where his family had been producing

white flour for 70 years.

What a fabulous place.

Yeah, a lovely old mill, isn't it?

RUTH GOODMAN: So this is what you were coming back to?

BILL JORDAN: That's right.

It's been here since 1899, this mill.

RUTH GOODMAN: And you brought back the granola here, then?

Yeah.

At what, 20 years of age?

Yeah, we just thought it was a good idea.

We liked the stuff.

We got a bit of abuse from the family.

They sort of said, you know, whole grains.

Dad said he couldn't even sell it to animals

and he didn't fancy our chance of selling it to humans.

[laughs]

[music playing]

The family's Victorian watermill was

struggling to compete with new fangled electric-powered flour

mills.

But Bill knew the older technology

was perfect for slow-rolling the whole grain

cereals needed in the granola.

His sister Lindsay got in on the act.

Well, we weren't really that keen to start with.

We always looked at it.

It looked a bit strange, but once we started giving people

it to try, then they loved it.

It tastes delicious.

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): They came up

with a unique mobile marketing approach.

As you can see, it was called the Original

Crunchy G. When we started off, we did

the first three Glastonburys.

RUTH GOODMAN: So you were sort of on tour, really?

[laughs]

LINDSAY: It sounds much better than it was, but, yeah,

we were on tour. RUTH GOODMAN: [laughs]

LINDSAY: And after that, we took the show to the county shows.

I mean, that would be memorable if you

turned up at a county show.

I mean, look at you all.

Young and--

It was a while ago.

[laughter]

RUTH GOODMAN: It's the real '70s, new--

Hippies.

Hippies, yeah!

We're all hippies.

[laughter]

[music playing]

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): As well as at festivals,

the new Jordans brand of granola proved popular

in 1970s health food shops.

And soon, they branched out into an entirely new product.

Now, how on earth did you move from making

granola to making cereal bars?

We got a lot of distressed people

writing, saying they liked eating granola in the car

and it got behind the seat or down their trousers

or whatever, you know?

So what on earth did you do?

Ah, that's the difficult bit.

We tried for a lot of time.

But the job is to try and get granola in a sort

of form where there's--

well, at least you can sort of tell from this.

You've got the sort of fruit and the nuts,

but it holds together.

[music playing]

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): This was the UK'S first cereal bar.

And it launched in 1981, ready to ride

a wave of '80s consumerism, and a health and fitness boom.

BILL JORDAN: The market just went crazy.

It took us something like, oh, crikey, six months

to do the first million bars.

Wow.

And the market grew so fast, two years later, we were doing

three million bars a week.

That is really fast.

Yeah, yeah.

[tense music]

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): With such rapid growth,

it wasn't long before others joined the party.

In 1982, Quaker warned us to watch out for squirrels

if you ate their bars.

And in 1987, confectioner Mars used

an association with the great outdoors

to promote their version.

[upbeat music]

Today, the global cereal bar market is

worth over 10 billion pounds.

But here in Britain, we may not have taken them to heart

if it had not been for a miller's

son touring West Coast America in the psychedelic '60s.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): We're 48 minutes into the production

process, and the macadamia nuts for our cereal bars

have been salted, roasted, and boxed.

OK, come on, then.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Lisa and I are carrying them

to the mixing area, where the building blocks of our cereal

bars come together.

What are we doing with these?

So we're going to decant them onto here.

Decant them.

Yes.

It's a special technique?

Tip them out.

Hey!

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The ingredients

will be combined in five metal trolleys

to make it easier to process further down the line.

Beautiful!

Oh, they're still warm.

First up is 30 kilos of macadamias.

Is there a reason why you don't just

tip it straight into the bin?

Yeah, so we like to also do another check just

to make sure that they're exactly what we want.

[laughs]

This is great!

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Macadamias

will make up 6% of our finished bar, along with macadamia

powder from the same suppliers.

Whoa!

I'm just like a kid in an edible sandpit.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): These powdered nuts help

to glue the other ingredients together,

making sure there are no big gaps in the finished bars.

How many sultanas do we need?

We need nine boxes, which is 120 kilos.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): These will form 16% of our bars.

Raising the bar here, aren't we?

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Now 64

kilograms of pre-weighed dried cranberries join the party--

Whoa!

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): --to add

color and sharp, sweet flavor.

Hi-yah!

Ooh!

[laughs]

It's a real beauty to have all these products just

out on a bench in front of you.

Mm-hmm.

Look at the vivid color.

It's lovely.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Last of all, coconut, which

makes up a fifth of the bar.

GREGG WALLACE: Why do we need coconut?

LISA: Because it gives a lovely, oily quality to our bar.

GREGG WALLACE: The fragrance is unbelievable.

That is floating away on a sea of coconut essence.

Yeah.

That is beautiful.

Ah.

I've never been in a factory like this.

Everything is done by hand.

It just allows us to make sure that at every stage,

we can make sure that the ingredients are right.

Don't ever get a machine for this bit.

No.

This has been my most enjoyable

process in any factory.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): I've now

got five containers of nearly 400 kilograms of ingredients.

So I'm letting a machine take the strain from here.

Shall I?

Yep.

[laughs]

[clears throat] What are you laughing at?

That's not very encouraging, is it, laughing?

[laughs]

Do you laugh at all your trainees like that?

(AMUSED) Yes.

I'll go to the HR department if you laugh at me again.

That's it.

Perfect.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): With the push of a button,

a hydraulic lift tips out bins of dry mix

into this giant 900-liter mixer.

Oh, look at that.

[laughs]

Oh, I'm enjoying this.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The mixer gently combines them,

but I can't help thinking there's something missing.

Right.

Are we now adding some cereal to it?

That's going to come in a bit when

we go to the production line.

Are you sure there is cereal in your cereal bar?

Yeah, I'm sure.

You've seen the recipe, have you?

Yes.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): I'll have

to take Lisa's word for it.

Our cereal-less cereal bar mix travels along a series

of conveyors and is sealed into boxes, each one holding

enough to make up 480 bars.

Our sultanas and other dried fruit

and nuts are ready to roll.

With no time to waste, they take a quick forklift ride

over to the production area.

This is the heart of our factory where

all the ingredients will finally be

transformed into cereal bars.

In charge of this precise operation

is production manager Leeanne Taylor.

Leeanne, how are you doing?

I'm good. How are you?

I'm happy.

Good.

Right, this is my batch, right, or your batch?

Our batch?

Our batch, but we do need to add one

final ingredient to it first.

Cereal?

Cereal.

You're finally putting cereal in your cereal bar.

We are, indeed.

Yes.

I was beginning to wonder whether it

was ever going to happen.

What is the cereal?

The cereal that we're going to add is puffed rice.

Is that the same puffed rice that we

get in a breakfast cereal?

Is it?

Pretty much, yeah.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Puffed

rice is made by mixing rice flour with water and sugar.

It's then molded into rice-shaped pieces,

dried and toasted till crispy.

GREGG WALLACE: That has got a sweet breakfast

cereal smell, isn't it?

LEANNE: Yeah, it has, yeah.

Ah, I want to get a spoon and a bowl of milk.

Why puffed rice?

So we use the puffed rice to add some texture to the bar.

And it also keeps the bar quite light.

The fruit and nut mix that you've made is quite heavy,

so the puffed rice actually balances out

and keeps it nice and light.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The rice makes up 9% of our bar.

And I need 6.2 kilos of these airy grains.

It's like a third of a kilo each shovel.

You got a bigger shovel, love?

You're just slow.

I'm one of the quickest rice shovelers in the business.

[laughs]

[music playing]

Yes!

6.2 kilos, on the nose.

The dry ingredients for our cereal bars have come together.

Where's it going, boss?

Mixing area.

Coming through.

Stand by, mixing area.

Around the corner.

Into the hoist.

Excellent.

Here we go.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The 14 paddles on this magic mixer

turn at 40 revs per minute, slowly mixing the ingredients

together, just like you would at home with a wooden spoon.

But I can't yet see how all this yummy stuff

is going to stick together.

That isn't bound at all.

No.

So there's one more ingredient that you need to go and get.

Where?

- Over there. - I'll bring it back?

Yep.

I'll see you in a bit.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): To track

down my missing ingredient, I'm meeting Harriet Gregory.

Harriet?

Hello.

Is that what's going to bind my bars?

Yes, so this is our lovely honey mix.

So we've got a mixture of two honeys, a dark honey

and a light honey, which is a little bit more

acidic, slightly spicy, maybe.

That really is quite sharp.

Yeah.

Where did the bees go?

A lemon tree?

[laughs] And then try the dark one.

That is thick and luxurious and almost like a--

like a chocolate bar.

Yeah.

They're quite strong, so I think you need the two just to level

things out a little bit.

GREGG WALLACE: I don't know whether people realize

that actual different honey comes from different flowers,

different pollen.

It's wherever the bees go, right?

Exactly.

So this one is where they've been

having really scented flowers.

And this one is where they've been in woodlands and forests.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The honeys taste great to me.

But, surprisingly, Harriet's mix also

contains 2/3 liquid glucose.

Why have we got to add glucose?

Because it helps form a crystal

structure within the bar.

And so when you bite into the bar,

that lovely crunch that you have is caused

by the crystals of the glucose.

Without the glucose, you just end up with something

that will fall apart.

They just have a bit of a mild chew?

To be honest, it would be quite soggy.

Why not just make it from glucose?

The bar would literally be so hard,

it would almost break like glass and you

wouldn't want to eat it.

GREGG WALLACE: So different honeys give it flavor?

Yeah.

They also give the bar a certain softness?

Exactly.

The glucose actually dilutes the honey flavor--

- A little bit. - --which is a bit too strong--

Yeah.

- -and also helps the bars stick together?

Exactly, you've got it.

[music playing]

Oh, ho!

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): This honey mix will make

up about a fifth of my bar.

And I need a whole bucket full, heated to 80 degrees Celsius

so it's runny, honey.

I'm happier than Winnie the Pooh.

Do you know what I want to know do with that now?

What do you want?

I want a bath in it.

Oh, look at that.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): 30 seconds of gentle mixing

sweetens this lot up nicely.

I don't believe that's going to stick together.

Come on, have a look at this.

Does that look right to you?

Oh, it looks perfect.

Really?

Yeah.

Don't these crispy bits of rice now get soggy?

No, they actually work really well

to help make it nice and crisp.

You can pour wet things over a crispy thing

- and it stays crispy? - Yep.

It does, indeed.

Mate, you're like a cookery magician.

- We are, yes. - [laughs] Yeah!

Take it away?

Take it away.

I'm telling you, that's not sticky enough.

We'll see.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): An hour and 40 minutes

in, and with 55 kilos of mix to now turn

into 1,440 cereal bars, it's all hands on deck, quite literally.

The sticky mixture is weighed in to 920 gram portions.

What are they doing?

We are now putting our mix into the baking trays.

1,440 bars--

Yep.

- -is baked in little things that

would fit in your oven at home?

Yes.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): And just

like at home, each steel tray is lined with grease-proof paper

to stop it sticking.

Is this just for me, 'cause I'm here, or is this

actually how you make every--

This is how we make every single bar.

By hand?

By hand.

What's this gentleman here doing?

So he's doing what we call massage.

Yes, he's massaging the product to make it nice

and even so that we don't get holes or gaps in the bars.

We need to make sure it's in the corners of the baking tray.

Are you a good fruit and nut bar massager?

I am good, but not as good as these guys.

Feel free to have a go.

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Now, I love a good massage,

but I'm normally on the receiving end.

How hard can it be?

Don't push it down, Gregg.

You want to massage it, not compact it.

GREGG WALLACE: Ah.

Don't push it down.

Spread it out.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Being careful not

to crush the ingredients is a delicate business.

Sorry.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): That took me 20 seconds to do one,

and there's 60 to do.

Gregg, you've only got 20 minutes to do this.

You're getting behind.

Hard work, this is.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Next up is pinning, named

after the rolling pin, which gently

flattens the mix to 1.5 centimeters,

the exact depth of the tray.

Can I have a go at pinning now?

Pinning looks easier.

Yep.

Oh, this is an easy job.

Easy job.

Oh, whoa, whoa.

There we go.

Look.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That can't go on.

Why?

What's wrong with it?

Look how wavy your bar is.

Feel it.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): If not rolled out flat,

our bars won't bake evenly.

Look at that.

How's that?

Perfect.

Where do they go then?

They need to be loaded into the trolley.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): 180 trays an hour are loaded

onto these movable racks.

My 60 trays take up a whole trolley.

But you get there eventually, don't you?

I mean, look, I'm actually-- can I tell you something?

I'm actually quite proud of myself now.

You should be.

It's really, really good.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Next stop is the baking area.

We wheel our trays, trolley and all,

straight into a 2 and 1/2 meter high walk-in oven,

with a special design feature.

It's turning round.

Why is it turning around?

So we can get a nice, even distribution of heat

through the trolley and all of the trays.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The trolleys

sit on a turntable built into the floor

of the oven, which spins them a sedate two

revolutions per minute.

Some ovens, all ovens, even ovens at home

- have got hot spots-- - Yeah.

- -which is why sometimes the corner of your pie is burnt.

Yeah, so there'll be no burnt edges on this

because it's rotating constantly.

It's getting a nice, even bake in there.

I like it here.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): This great bit

of kit edges the temperature up to 180 degrees Celsius.

The heat reduces the moisture in the bars,

concentrating the sugars in the honey mix,

changing the crystal structure which

helps bind our ingredients together to make solid bars.

After their 17-minute spin class, they're nice and warm.

Whoa.

Careful!

Something hot in the kitchen, and he's carrying some bars.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Time for them to chill out.

Really?

Yep.

You just stick it in front of a wall of fans?

Yes.

And that's it?

But these are no ordinary fans.

These six industrial beasts turn at an impressive 1,330

revs per minute.

Ooh, it's-- phew!

[laughs]

[mimics wind]

[laughter]

That's great.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): It will take just 10 minutes

for our trays to cool down from 75 degrees

Celsius to room temperature.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): In the flat lands of Essex,

our chilled-out trays of baked cereal mix

are ready for the next leg of their journey.

Right.

I am as chilled as the bars.

Yes, you are.

What are we gonna do?

So now, we need to cut the baking tray,

so this is the point our bars really start to look like bars.

Fantastic.

- Yeah. - At last.

At last.

Is this the cutting machine?

- It is, yes. - Right.

Can I do it?

Yeah, you can.

So just take a baking tray out.

That was complicated, wasn't it?

- Mm-hmm. - [laughs] OK.

Very technical.

Slide it underneath.

That's it.

Both hands on the thing.

Do I have to slam it?

No, just bring it down nice and gently.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): With this fancy cutter,

the factory can chop 360 trays an hour.

Behind the safety guard, a dozen blades

apply 12 tons per square inch of pressure to the mix,

cutting it into 24 tidy bars.

GREGG WALLACE: There they are.

LEEANNE: There they are.

All packed full of nuts, bar none.

LEEANNE: Exactly.

I've got another 59 trays to cut, right?

You have.

And you've got 10 minutes to do that,

and that'll be our 1,440 bars.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): My bars are nearly complete,

but they're looking a bit under-dressed.

Tipped out from their trays, they're lined up like soldiers,

nine across on a conveyor belt.

Again by hand?

Again by hand.

Are they ready now?

Are they ready to get wrapped up and gone?

No, we've got one final ingredient to add

a little bit of indulgence.

It's the chocolate, ain't it?

It's the chocolate.

So I need you to go and get me some chocolate.

No way!

Yeah.

A bucket of chocolate?

A bucket of chocolate.

I might be a while.

No, you won't, because I'm coming with you.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The dark chocolate,

which will coat our bars, arrives at the factory in giant

button form and is melted to 45 degrees Celsius

in huge 2,000-liter tanks.

13 kilos is just enough for our batch.

I got to taste the honey.

Do I get to taste the chocolate?

No, but maybe later in a bar.

Sorry.

Come on, let's go.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): It's three

hours, 42 minutes since our macadamia nuts

arrived at the factory.

And it's time for our bars to have their finishing touch.

Some jobs you do, they're an absolute delight.

Yeah.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): My melted chocolate

pours straight into a small tray on this enrobing machine.

That'll do.

Lovely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

- Look at that. - Oh.

I'm clean.

You kept your hands clean, too.

Well done.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): It's pumped into a heated reservoir,

and a series of rollers feed it up towards a wire conveyor.

As the bars march across this melty chocolate sea,

the rollers push the chocolate up through the wire conveyor,

coating my battalion with nine grams of the lovely stuff.

It takes just six minutes to have their chocolatey bath,

but they need to cool off quickly

before they're wrapped up.

So we got chocolate on the bar.

Where are they going now?

What's this?

So this is a cooling tunnel.

Ah.

Yeah.

So is this just one big refrigerator?

Pretty much, yeah.

So the bottom cooling, which is where the chocolate is,

will be around five degrees.

And we've got a top cooling, which is around eight degrees.

So what's it for?

Just to set the chocolate?

Just to set the chocolate, yeah.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): In their final push,

my troops are paraded through this

80-meter fan-cooled tunnel.

Three hours and 48 minutes since our nuts

arrived at the factory, my bars are complete.

That's it, right?

That's it.

That's our finished bar?

LEEANNE: It is, yes.

GREGG WALLACE: Honey-mixed dried fruit, toasted nuts,

and a bit of chocolate.

Perfect.

And I've had a hand in every single little bit.

Nice little bar, eh?

It is, yeah.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): My cereal

bar soldiers have reached the last stage of their journey

and are lining up for a final inspection.

What am I watching here, high speed bars?

LEEANNE: So this is the last point.

We get to have a check of the bar

before it goes into the wrapper.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): After all that handcrafting,

it's about to get fully automated.

This nifty scanner uses three laser sensors to check

out bars as they zoom past.

If they're broken or stuck together,

they won't make it past this point.

Any rejects are blown off the belt by a super fast six

millisecond jet of air.

But they do get a second chance.

The rejects are sent back through the scanner one

last time, with less than 1% going to waste.

So if I was a bit mischievous here

and I put one bar on top of another--

Yeah?

- -will it notice?

Yeah.

Excuse me.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): I can't resist a challenge.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Scanner wins.

[music playing]

My little squadron has made the grade.

And this lot needs wrapping up now.

And with no time to lose, they hurtle on towards

a high-tech wrapping robot.

The bars are separated by 2.5 centimeters.

And the wrapper is folded around each one.

They're then sealed and cut at each end.

Wow.

This is the fastest moving thing in the factory, this is.

It is, yeah.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): My wrapped

little beauties channel nine at a time into a slotted conveyor.

It's almost as if they're loading up a gun belt.

[laughs] That's what we call our turbo train.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): A synchronized robot arm

with nine suction cups gently lifts the bars

and places them in threes on another conveyor.

It takes just seven minutes to wrap and box my 1,440 bars.

I see lots of packing, but I still

think it's my favorite bit because everything

happened so quickly.

It's great to watch, isn't it? LEEANNE: It is.

It's fantastic.

Thank you.

You're very welcome.

I had a lovely, lovely time.

I've had so much fun.

All right?

Thank you for your help.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): At the end of the line,

my boxed-up batch joins 5,760 other bars on pallets,

and the whole pile is wrapped in cellophane.

The pallets are driven from the production area

100 meters down the road to distribution.

After just four hours of salting, roasting, mixing,

and cooling, our cereal bars are ready to be

set free in the world.

Company co-founder Praveen Vijh is overseeing the operation.

- Praveen. - Hello.

- Hello, my friend. - How are you?

Good.

Listen.

My batch, 1,440 bars--

Yeah?

- -there's more than that on there, surely.

PRAVEEN VIJH: Well, 115,000 on that vehicle today.

GREGG WALLACE: Is there really?

PRAVEEN VIJH: There is, yeah.

And how many of these trucks leave the factory every day?

About 5 to 10 go out every day.

So how many bars leave the factory every week?

1.9 million.

Serious amount of bars.

It's quite a bit.

Where's the furthest you go?

One is in Tahiti.

And also, we have this beautiful little post

office in Northern Norway.

It's just inside the Arctic Circle.

So these little bars from Essex

basically go all over the world?

From Halstead to the world.

[music playing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): 37 countries across the globe

take delivery of these bars, but their biggest fans

are in the UK, where Londoners eat the most.

Well, this isn't one of the biggest factories I've

ever visited, that's for sure.

But it is one of the friendliest.

What surprised me is a lot of the ingredients

are added to the bar by hand, and I can clearly

see them through the wrapper.

But most of all, do you know what?

I've had a lot of fun.