Original subtitles

[audio logo]

Every self-respecting packed lunch has one of these,

a yogurt.

And we Brits love them, eating a whopping 500,000

tons of the stuff every year.

That's a massive yogurt shopping

bill of 1.4 billion pounds.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Whether you like natural

or Greek, fruity or fat-free--

You can find them all here.

In a factory that produces nearly 2 and 1/2 1,000 tons

of yogurt every single week.

Come on, you beauty.

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

Oh!

[laughs] I'm not very good, am I?

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

getting sucked into yogurt-making, meeting

the cows that get it mooving.

They are really scary and huge.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): And helping

the humans who keep it sweet.

How much fruit do you go through a day?

11 tons of fruit a day.

Mate, there's not that much fruit in the world.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): I'm Cherry Healey.

Whoa-ho!

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): And I'm

down on the farm where we're harvesting

enough blackcurrants--

To make a year's supply of yogurt.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): And dreams come

true for historian Ruth Goodman

I'd love to have a go.

I'll be honest.

- GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): - -as she takes the wheel

of a British classic--

Woo.

- GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): - -to reveal the history

of the electric milk float.

She's a robust little thing, isn't she?

Woo!

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE: 1 million yogurt pots will leave

this factory every 24 hours.

And we're going to reveal just how they do it.

Welcome to "Inside the Factory."

[theme music]

This is the Yeo Valley yogurt factory in rural Somerset.

Every year, they churn out 125,000 tons of yogurt.

That's enough to fill 60 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The site produces

94 different types of yogurt.

Tonight, I'll be learning how they make one

of their best-sellers, the organic Fruity Flavors

Multipack made up of raspberry, peach,

strawberry, and blackcurrant-flavored yogurts.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): But first, I'm

taking a short stroll to meet the crack

team of heavyweights who get yogurt production started.

[mooing]

A herd of organic Friesian cows.

Gabby, hello.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Looking

after them on the factory's very own farm is Gabby Coles.

Rather her than me.

This isn't my usual factory setting, I have to say.

But I get it, right?

Yogurt, we need milk, so we need cows.

And that's it, right? It's about the milk.

Not quite.

It all starts from the grass.

And that starts from the soil.

If you see what we got here, so we got some clover leys,

some ryegrass.

And we also have some herbal leys mixed in.

So these are all organic cows, what we have here.

So they've got to have at least 60% grass to be organic.

And also we don't use any fertilizers or pesticides

or anything like that.

So basically, the better quality the grass, better quality milk.

Before we think about the milk, we think about the grass.

And before that, we think about the soil.

Exactly.

[mooing]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Yogurt

production started on the farm back in the mid-'70s with just

35 cows.

Things have changed a bit since then,

and the herd is now 240 strong.

The herd produces 6,000 liters of milk a day.

That sounds like a lot, but incredibly, it's less than 2%

of the yogurt factory's daily intake,

with the rest coming from a local co-op of organic farms.

Come on.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Milking

these bulky beasts is no tiny undertaking, especially

for a city boy like me.

They are really scary and huge.

Are they supposed to be this big?

Is that a sign of there's loads of milk in there?

Full of milk, yeah.

I'm getting the hang of this cow lot.

Go on.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): As they come

into the milking parlor, electronic tags on their necks

identify each cow.

The computer then calculates how much

high-energy feed to give each one based on their milk yield.

And while they munch away happily,

Gabby and I get busy down the business end.

So I've got to wipe the cows teat.

Yeah.

Am I likely to get a kick in the face?

Um.

Have you had a kick in the face?

I've been close to it.

Because you're getting better and better at this.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Cleaning

the teats with antiseptic wipes gets rid of poo and dirt.

It also replicates the sucking action of a calf

and stimulates the milk.

The units, or clusters, attach to the cows' udders

and extract milk using a gentle vacuum.

Well, that's what you're supposed to do with them.

Automated milking usually takes just 6 minutes per cow.

- You ready? - Yeah.

If I don't come out of here, I want to be buried in Kent.

OK, got you.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): But that

doesn't include the time it takes to get the clusters on.

Whoa!

Can you feel the vacuum taking it on too?

Yeah.

Oh, she's moving.

She's moving.

Listen, it's hard enough as it is.

Come on!

So I'm proud of myself. Look at that.

Look.

I'm really pleased I did that.

I come from an inner city area.

Right.

I normally get nervous when I run out of concrete.

I found that very scary.

But I did it, right?

You did it.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The clusters are finally on.

The milk is flowing, and production of our yogurt

has begun.

That's the happiest cow along this line.

- Is it? - Oh, yeah.

Gentle I am, see?

There.

Look at that.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Our milk is piped, filtered,

and cooled from the cow's body temperature,

a 38.5c, to a chilly 3 degrees.

Right.

So these are ready to go now.

Big old lumps, isn't it?

- Yeah. - Look at them.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): It's stored in a 16,000 liter bulk

tank before being piped into a refrigerated truck

and driven to the yogurt factory, a handy 10 minutes

up the road.

Four hours into production, and our tanker

has made the short trip from farm to factory.

So with hairnet on, I'm heading to the milk intake area

to meet supply manager Adam Fry.

Adam, this is my milk.

'Tis.

I want you to take special care of this, OK?

Of course.

How much milk is on here?

There's 28,000 liters on this tanker.

Wow.

That's a serious amount of milk, right?

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): To keep yogurt production moving

24/7, 12 of these monster tankers

deliver organic milk every day from the factory's own farm

nearby and others within 20 miles.

Then it's stored in these giant silos.

All these silos are full of milk, right?

Yes.

So how many liters of milk do you have here?

On site, we hold around about 350,000 liters of milk.

How long would that last you?

If you didn't get a lot of delivery in,

how long would that last you?

That's a day's worth of production.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Each of the silos stores enough milk

to make 154,000 pots of yogurt.

Put all six silos together, and we've got milk

to make more than 900,000 pots.

But before a drop of my milk can leave the tanker,

Adam has to take a sample for testing.

I find that incredibly comforting

that you still use a bucket.

So you take the sample.

That's going to be a very small bowl of breakfast cereal.

I don't think that one will keep you happy in the mornings.

Time for a test, right?

Time for a test. These are ready, mate.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): As we stand by,

my milk whizzes up to the factory's

lab, which deals with up to 250 samples every day.

What exactly are we testing for?

So we're testing now for the fat content of the milk,

to ensure that it's between 3.6% and 4.6%.

That gives us the average amount of fat

that you'd see in cow's milk.

If it was outside of that, there would be something wrong.

I see.

That's the average fat in milk anyway, right?

That's the average fat you would see in milk.

Ah, ok.

When will I know whether my milk is OK?

That process takes 5 minutes to complete.

What if he's gone off to have a cup of tea and a biscuit?

With 4.6% milk?

I think I'd have coffee.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): But if the milk fails the test,

the entire 28,000 liter tanker will be sent back to the farm.

Results are zapped from the lab to the loading bay.

And there you can see it on the screen.

It's just come through now that it's ready to go.

So it's passed all of our tests.

We can unload, right?

Yeah, we're ready to unload.

The milk's good!

- I knew it anyway. - Milk's good.

We can unload.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Pumping

at a rate of 250 kilograms per minute,

my milk is then moved to the raw milk

blend area, where it is mixed with cream blend area, where it is mixed with cream

and skimmed milk powder.

Are we finally making yogurt?

So this is us making yogurt.

How much are we making?

How much is a batch?

So we're making a 25,000 liter batch.

25,000 liters?

25,000 liters.

How many pots is that, please?

That would make around about 150,000 pots.

Right.

So what are we doing here?

So here we would be adding dry ingredients,

such as protein powders, or in this case, organic sugar.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The sugar

comes in hefty 25 kilo bags.

And you've got to tip them in there?

Yep, they all go into here.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Sounds easy enough.

The sugar's sucked through a funnel and a spaghetti junction

of pipes to the mixing tank, where it's blended

with the liquid ingredients.

Sugar makes up just 3% of the yogurt's ingredients,

but it's still a backbreaking 900 kilos.

This isn't an easy job after all.

Oh, it's gone down now.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The sugar's got

to go through at a steady pace.

If the flow slows, air will get in,

and the yogurt recipe will be ruined.

It won't rip.

It won't rip, and it's empty.

Quick.

You get in there.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Adam to the rescue.

You rip.

I'll put the bags on.

Oh, crikey!

That's 25 kilos.

25 kilos.

That's the same weight as a bag of spuds.

Making yogurt shouldn't be this physical, should it?

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): I'm sugared.

But there's no time to rest.

It's bucket time.

Before my newly blended mix of milk, cream, skim milk

powder, and sugar can move on, there's

another trip to the lab.

So that's ready now to be off and tested to make

sure it hits specifications.

You lead on.

What about your bucket?

I'll get it.

OK.

How many tests will these guys be doing? How many tests will these guys be doing?

So these guys will be doing three tests in total.

They will test this for its fat content, its total solids,

and for its pH.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): That means my milk mix has got

to have the right creaminess, thickness,

and acidity to make yogurts.

If any of the tests fail, it's game

over for my 25,000 liter batch.

Are you finished?

How'd we get on?

Passed.

Yeah!

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): My milk mix has come up trumps,

so it's piped across to milk-based processing

for more high-tech treatment.

First, it's homogenized by distributing

the milk's fat content evenly to make it silky smooth.

The homogenizer forces the liquid through tiny 3

millimeter holes at high pressure,

smashing the fat globules into minuscule particles,

mixing them through the milk for a glossy finish.

Then it's on to pasteurization, the process

of killing off harmful bacteria through heating.

Flowing through the pasteurizer at a rate of 15,000 liters

per hour, the milk blend is warmed to 98c for around 3

minutes, leaving me with a food safe mix that's

ready to be made into yogurt.

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): The whirr of an electric motor,

the glow of headlights on a crisp morning,

and the clink of glass bottles--

50 years ago, such sights and sounds

were synonymous with a daily delivery of milk

to your front door.

[clink]

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): And their fleet of milk

floats delivering pre-dawn pints became a British icon.

To find out their origins, I'm meeting Dennis Chick at

the Wythall Transport Museum.

So when did the electric milk float start?

1920s.

Up until then, horses were pulling the milk floats.

The problem was that horses were becoming not very practical.

Milk sales went up, loads went up.

Horses started to complain about the loads.

[laughs]

And an alternative was needed, so the electric float

was developed.

And when was this?

1923.

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): But this wasn't

the first electric vehicle.

As early as the 1880s, electric cars were powered

by rechargeable batteries.

But by the turn of the century, they

were being overtaken by petrol cars, which were

faster and traveled further.

But the sturdy little electric milk float endured.

Why on earth did the milk industry not go with petrol?

Petrol was expensive to run.

Petrol or diesel engine needed maintaining,

and it's cheap to run with electricity, cheap to maintain,

and did exactly the job it was needed

to do in a day on a full charge of electricity,

and then you charge it again overnight.

And off you go the next day for another day's work.

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): And of course,

the electric floats were quiet for those pre-dawn deliveries.

As the British thirst for pints on the doorstep grew,

the '50s and '60s saw a milk float boom.

And by the 1970s, there were 50,000 on our roads,

the most extensive use of electric vehicles in the world.

And I have a very personal link to them.

Do you know, way back in 1925, this is what my grandfather was

doing age 14?

He was in charge of milk deliveries.

Really?

14?

14 years old on the public road, blind in one eye.

- As well? - Yeah.

[laughs]

I'm glad I wasn't around.

I'd love to have a go. I'll be honest.

You can't drive this one.

This is a museum exhibit, I'm afraid.

But there are still a few on the road.

Oh, really?

You should seek one out.

Yes, it's great fun.

Ooh.

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): I think

that this could be in my blood.

[uplifting music]

So I set my alarm for 5:00 AM to meet Paul Cartwell, who's

been a milkman for 40 years.

But his electric milk float has been in the business

even longer.

Built in 1975, it's still delivering every day.

Hi, Paul.

- Hiya. - Good morning.

Morning.

How on earth-- how long have you been up?

Since 2 o'clock.

I don't want to get in your way, but if there's anything

I can do to help.

- You can drive if you want. - Really?

- Yeah. - Really?

Yeah.

I'm sure you'll get it going.

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): What a thrill.

Finally behind the wheel of a working electric milk float,

let's hope me and the bottles make it through in one piece.

The only thing you need to know is you've got two pedals.

Yeah.

The small one is to go.

And that one's to stop.

It is.

Take that brake off, press that pedal.

Oh, god. Yeah. Woo!

Where am I going?

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): Electric floats

like this delivered 90% of our milk right up until the 1980s,

when cheaper supermarket prices almost killed

off the morning milk round.

These days, just 3% of the UK's milk arrives on our doorsteps.

But in recent years, the service has been thrown a lifeline

from an unlikely rescuer.

It's been a steady decline for a long time,

and then we saw a nice increase when

they did the David Attenborough program

about plastics in the sea.

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): After "Blue Planet" highlighted

plastic pollution in our oceans in 2017,

Paul's milk supplier saw orders increase by 30%.

A lot of people who were using plastics then

chose to go on glass, which is good.

I know it costs us a little bit more,

but every single bottle gets used over and over

and over again.

RUTH GOODMAN (VOICEOVER): In fact, the empty bottles

that Paul returns to the dairy are reused an incredible 30

times before they're recycled.

Here we are well into the 21st century,

using a 45-year-old milk float and delivering

milk in glass bottles.

And yet, suddenly this outdated method

is looking rather like a sustainable

solution for the future.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Back in Somerset,

it's been eight hours since cow milking commenced.

My 25,000 liters of milk blend has been mixed, tested,

homogenized, and pasteurized.

So it's pumped to the incubation hall,

where I'm meeting the factory's technical scientist, Chris

Coggins.

- Chris. - Hi.

Good to meet you.

What are you doing in that freezer,

and what has it got to do with my yogurt?

I'm getting the cultures out.

What are cultures?

Cultures are a collection of bacteria

that have been specially selected to make yogurt.

I can't help but think that bacteria might be a bad thing.

No, you have good bacteria, and you have bad bacteria.

It's good bacteria, not bad bacteria.

So what part does bacteria play in our yogurt-making?

The bacteria will live off of the natural milk

sugars, lactose.

It will break that lactose down into lactic acid, which

is what makes yogurt acidic.

And it will also give the yogurt thickness as well.

Can I see them?

Yes, of course you can.

Oh.

Not what I expected.

They actually look like little frozen sweets.

Yeah.

That much there is probably getting on

for a billion bacteria.

Oh.

That's ridiculous, isn't it?

And how many of these do we need for our batch of yogurt?

We need seven bags of these.

So billions and billions of billions of bacteria?

- Yeah. - How amazing.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): My bacteria

may be the microscopic magicians that

turn my milk mixture to yogurt.

Hello.

I just put them in a shopping bag.

It's like Bacteria R Us.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): But if you want

to make yogurt on a massive scale,

you need some serious hardware.

This is the incubation hall.

It contains 12 giant stainless steel tanks.

They've got a combined capacity of a quarter of a million

liters and are the colossal cooking

pots where 90 million liters of milk

turns to yogurt every year.

So this is our tank.

Whoa.

It's a little bit warm at the moment.

Yeah, it's hot.

This is yogurt milk base going in here now.

Right.

And now I have to empty these into there?

So now we've got to add the bacteria

so that we can produce yogurt.

This is getting very interesting.

Would you let me do it?

I don't see why not.

Have they actually got names, these different bacteria?

Yes.

There are three different bacteria in there--

streptococcus thermophilus, lactobacillus acidophilus.

No!

And bifidobacterium.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): My tongue-twisting bacteria

occur naturally on plants.

But for yogurt production, they're

grown under controlled conditions in a lab.

And it takes just 3 and 1/2 kilos of them

to turn my 25,000 liter milk mix to yogurt.

Do you know roughly how many bacteria I'm putting in here?

Yes.

Every gram will be about 100 million.

This is beyond my comprehension.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): This tank is kept at 42 degrees

C to encourage the bacteria to multiply.

The bacteria doubles every 30 minutes

until there are 100 billion friendly bacteria

for every gram of yogurt.

To check it's working, after 6 and 1/2 hours,

a sample is taken for lab test number 3.

Now, that looks like yogurt.

That looks good.

Right.

How do I test this now?

Right.

Take the probes, and I'll place them in the yogurt.

And that will tell you what the pH is.

Our pH currently below 4.6.

So it's now safe to eat.

Right.

OK.

So now what do we do?

All we've got to do is initiate the cooling.

There you are.

Away it goes.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The tank

is called for another 4 hours to slow the action

of that busy bacteria.

And while my mix cools, it's onto the

next vital ingredient-- fruit.

My multipack yogurts need strawberries,

raspberries, peaches, and apricots,

which all come from Europe.

But the blackcurrants are harvested right here in the UK.

Cherry, why don't you give them a hand?

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): I've been

up since the crack of dawn.

And I'm here in South Herefordshire

to help out with the biggest blackcurrant harvest in the UK.

In a very short window of about six weeks,

an entire year's supply of these little juicy currants

need to be picked and stored.

So I should probably get moving.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): Overseeing the harvest

is farm owner Anthony Snell.

- Hello, Anthony. - Yep.

Hi, Cherry.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

What a beautiful field.

The bushes are absolutely dense with blackcurrant.

And they do look very big and juicy and beautiful.

So these are ready to be harvested.

Yes, and as soon as they're ready,

we check the natural sugar levels.

And we inspect them daily to make sure that there's

no green or red fruits.

When do you start your day?

Is it pretty early?

We wait until the bushes are nice and dry in the morning.

Otherwise, if you start harvesting very early

in the morning when they're wet, you get

slugs and snails up the bushes.

So it's thanks to the snails that you don't have

to get up at the crack of dawn.

That's right.

Thanks, snails.

That's convenient.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): I wish someone had told me that.

With only one week left to finish this entire harvest,

Anthony's son James needs an experienced driver

for one of the harvesters.

But he's got me instead.

- Hello, James. - Oh.

Hi, Cherry.

- Can I come aboard? - Yes, of course.

Wow.

This is a big machine.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): The farm has almost

300 acres of blackcurrants.

Around half of that is devoted to organic cultivation.

- Whoa-ho! - There we are.

It's like this.

That was really fun.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): Each of the two

harvesters gathers in 15 to 25 tons of fruit a day.

Is that right?

Yeah, that's good. That's good.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): Inside the harvester,

the berries are shaken off the branches.

Conveyor belts catch the falling fruit

and take them to a team of sorters,

boxing up the berries at the back.

There's so much to do.

I mean, I'm so conscious that if I lose concentration,

I could wipe out the whole row of bushes.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): In this sort

six week harvest, James and the team

will collect a massive 650 tons of blackcurrants,

the same weight as half a dozen blue whales.

And this year, almost 10% of that

is going to yogurt production at our factory.

So reluctantly I need to let the professionals get back to work.

But I'm not finished yet.

To maintain freshness, the blackcurrants

must get from field to freezer in less than an hour.

And this massive unit stores a year's supply.

I mean, it is absolutely freezing in here.

I'm wearing my ski things, and I'm still really cold.

What's the temperature in here?

So it's a minimum of minus 18.

CHERRY HEALEY: Are these all blackcurrant?

They are.

That's incredible.

How long do they stay in this freezer

before they go to make yogurt?

We just supply when the customer demands them.

So you actually hold on to them until they need them.

Yeah, that's the beauty of a freezing process like this,

is that you can store products for up to two years

just exactly the same quality as when they're fresh.

You can have British fruit all year round.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): This freezer holds 300 tons of fruit

on 1,000 pallets in subarctic conditions.

This is what it feels like to be a fish finger in my freezer.

Yeah.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): Just hours

since they were shaken from their bushes,

my blackcurrants are now sorted, boxed, and frozen solid.

And now they'll wait patiently in the freezer

until they're ready to be sent off to Gregg.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Back at the factory,

I'm nine hours into production.

My milk blend has been mixed with bacteria to make a $25,000

liter batch of plain yogurt.

And while it cools in a giant incubation tank,

I'm heading 42 miles down the road to the processing plant

at Crewkerne, where they make the four

fruity conserves for my yogurt.

A whopping 20 tons of Cherry's frozen blackcurrants

have just arrived.

Team manager Matt Pullen takes charge of them from here.

- Matt, right? - Yep.

All right, Gregg.

These are our Cherry's currants?

Blackcurrants, yep.

And we're going to be sorting them

in the sorting table today.

Can I have a go?

Yeah, of course you can.

Come on 'round.

What do I do?

So you need to bang the box on the table.

That will break up any lumps of frozen blackcurrants

inside the box.

Oh, this is great fun.

- Can I have another go? - Yep.

- There you go. - Great.

OK, so now remove the tape.

Whoa.

They're lovely.

Oh, look at them.

It feels like cold marbles.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Most of the stalks are removed back

at the farm, but an 8-meter long conveyor

carries the blackcurrants through one final check.

My river of blackcurrants flows at a rate of 600 kilos an hour,

so you need eyes out on stalks for this job.

Right.

What are we looking for?

So we're looking for anything that shouldn't be there.

Bits of stalk, bits of leaf, misformed blackcurrants.

So that?

Yeah, you wouldn't want that in your yogurt, would you?

A shriveled one.

Because they're frozen, does that

help them keep their shape?

It will help them throughout our process.

We try to retain as much of the fruit ID as we possibly can.

Fruit ID?

Yeah.

Fruit ID?

And does the fruit have to carry its ID with it

wherever it goes in case it's stopped by a yogurt policeman?

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Identities

intact, the blackcurrants line up for a final check

at the metal detector.

Then we head upstairs to turn some of Cherry's berries

into fruity conserve for my yogurt.

Coming through!

Got your currants.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): This cooking area

has six giant vessels that churn out 20 tons

of fruit conserve every day.

We're making a 1-ton blackcurrant batch. We're making a 1-ton blackcurrant batch.

First, 238 kilos of water is added to the pot

before Cherry's frozen blackcurrants are tipped

in by the 100-kilo bucket load.

How many of those we've got to get in there?

Another four-- five in total.

500 kilos of fruit?

How much fruit do you go through a day?

11 tons of fruit a day.

11 tons every day?

Mate, there's not that much fruit in the world.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): That's

the blackcurrant equivalent of seven family cars.

But even on this massive scale, nothing's wasted.

What do you do with that, get the ice off your windscreen?

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Scraping

stray currants into a vat?

That can't be berry hard.

I think I got some blackcurrants up my sleeve.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Outsmarted by frozen fruit?

That's got to be a first.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Even I can't go too far wrong

with the next ingredient--

sugar.

Sweet.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Into the frozen fruit and water

goes 142 kilos of cane sugar to sweeten the blackcurrants.

The vessel is heated, and the sugary fruit

is cooked with starch, lemon juice,

and blackcurrant flavoring.

It is just like making jam at home but on a massive scale.

An hour later, my conserve is complete.

All right, let's have a go.

All the flavor of the fruit is there, but that is sharp.

You're going to need some yogurt to take the sharpness away.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The conserve

is pumped directly from cooking vessel

to a vertical form film sealer.

Yup.

That's a bagging machine to you and me.

The 9-kilogram blackcurrant bags are

air cooled and loaded onto trucks

bound for the yogurt factory.

I am back at my West Country yogurt factory,

and the blackcurrant conserve has arrived too.

hours into production, and my bacteria-rich plain yogurt mix

is cooling and thickening.

So back in the incubation hall, I'm catching

up with supply manager Adam.

Good to see you again.

Hello again, Gregg.

Are we ready?

We are now ready.

So the base has now cooled down to below 23 degrees.

And it is ready to be drawn off into one

of the smaller mobile vessels.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): As it's decanted

from the towering incubation tanks to smaller vessels,

my 25,000 liters of yogurt passes through a super fine

filter with holes smaller than a fifth of a millimeter,

making it much smoother.

And what you'll see here is the final product,

when it comes out, has a nice, polished sheen

on the top of it.

[laughs] Why polished?

Because it's shiny?

Because it's shiny, yeah.

That's incredible.

So the filter not only gets rid of the lumps,

but it makes it shiny or polished.

And makes it more appealing.

Next time I open a pot of yogurt,

I'm going to tell my wife that this one is polished.

[laughed]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The buffed up yogurt is finally

ready for my fruity conserve.

So what we have here, we have a fruit bath.

And in here, each of these fruit bags go in as they are.

They don't need to be opened.

What we don't want is any unfortunate bad bacteria to be

added back into the product.

So it's actually sterilizing the outside edge of the bag.

So the bacteria that may get into your yogurt

is not inside my currants.

It may be on the bag.

It is purely the outside of the bag.

You know what?

I never really trusted that bag.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The blackcurrant

bags spend 2 minutes relaxing in the bath before being cut open

and the fruit squeezed into the yogurt.

Come on, you beauty.

Come on.

Ah.

Ah, ah.

What's the total weight of fruit going into our yogurt?

So in an ideal world, 71 kilos.

The way you were fruiting that, around about 68.

[laughs] I'm not very good, am I?

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): With just enough conserve

in my yogurt, it heads off on a nifty little forklift

to blending.

Let's see if I can give this job It's just desserts.

So this is where you mix it.

So this is where we mix it.

GREGG WALLACE: With that?

ADAM: With that?

That looks like-- you know like a stick blender

you get at home in the kitchen?

Just an enormous one of them, right?

Just a giant hand blender.

Oh!

So imagine you're now on a grabber machine at the fair.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): No prize for me yet.

- It's got a mind of its own! - Yeah.

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

Come on!

Come on!

You better do this.

Is this a two-man job normally?

- No. - It is, isn't it?

It's not.

It is, isn't it?

It's not.

It so is.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Well, someone

has mastered these tricky mixers,

because the factory blends a mouth-watering 120

tons of fruit yogurt every day.

- Is that done now, then? - Yeah, that's done.

Oh, come on. Let's have a look at it.

Well, OK.

That has got a lovely pink purple tinge to it, hasn't it?

Am I allowed to taste it?

You can, yeah.

Well, I mean, I've been there through every stage

of its life.

It's got a fine nose.

Hmm.

Very creamy, a little sour.

But a big fruity hit finish.

Certainly a little bit of sharpness as well.

Have got a bit on me nose?

You have.

It's all right.

It matches me apron.

Very treasure.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Despite my messy dabbling,

my blackcurrant yogurt is miraculously ready to move on

to the filling area--

Mags!

Hi, Gregg.

Nice to meet you.

I'm coming up to see you.

OK.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): --where

Shift Manager Mags Gauley is ready to, well, manage me.

Hi, Gregg.

Hey.

These must be our yogurt pots, right?

They are our yogurt pots.

How many of these do you go through?

We pack 28,800 pots an hour.

That is seriously, seriously fast.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): This looks

like something I could master.

[laughs]

Just lead it in.

Oh!

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Or maybe not.

Um.

Are you going to jam up my machine, Gregg?

Um.

Well-- whoa.

This side doesn't work properly.

OK, try that side then.

Um.

They are joined together.

They're twin pots.

You got to be fast.

Oh, whoa, whoa!

Drop them down.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Once my stack falls into the feeder,

individual pots are released into a slatted conveyor

with precise pot-shaped holes.

A laser sensor then checks there are containers in every slot

before the yogurt is dispensed.

So you'll see the pots being filled here.

What's happening right now is all the yogurt's

passing through some pipework into a device

that we call the cup valve.

And that individually deposits 120 grams into each pot.

How many of those every minute?

Every minute? 480.

How absolutely beautiful.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): One pair

of pots is filled with raspberry and strawberry,

the other with peach and apricot and my blackcurrant.

Then the lids are heated sealed at 200c.

They're day-coded and lifted to a conveyor belt which separates

the pairs of flavors and sends them through a metal detector,

and then onto the packing hall.

So what does it take to make groundbreaking plastic pots So what does it take to make groundbreaking plastic pots

that are better for the planet?

Cherry has been finding out.

Widely recycled.

Not yet recyclable.

I really do try to do my bit when it comes to recycling. I really do try to do my bit when it comes to recycling.

Absolutely no idea.

But there are so many different plastics used,

knowing what to recycle and how to recycle

can be quite confusing.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): It doesn't

help that the rules differ depending on where you live.

Currently, we recycle less than half

of the 1.5 million tons of plastic packaging

we consume every year.

So not only do we need to do our bit at home,

but the companies who make the packaging

are also going to have to do their bit

to look after the planet.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): There is some 100% recycled plastic

food packaging on the market, but much of the rest

still uses a layer of new plastic

to stop the food touching recycled material.

But packaging manufacturer Faerch

is making food safe yogurt pots with 100% recycled plastic.

Hi, Chris.

Hello, Cherry.

Nice to meet you!

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): Site manager Chris

Plant is showing me around.

Chris, what have you just had delivered?

So we've just taken receipt of 27 tons

of recyclable PET material.

And essentially what that is is chopped up

water bottles, food trays that can be regenerated and reused.

What does it look like?

- Let's go and have a look. - OK.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): PET stands for [inhales]

polyethylene terephthalate.

In layman's terms, it's a type of recyclable plastic.

Gregg's containers are made from 30% recycled PET,

but here they're making yogurt pots

from 100% recycled material.

The first step is to heat the shredded confetti-like plastic

to 300 degrees until it melts.

- Can I have a look? - Yes, you can.

Just 'round here.

I got it.

Is that liquid?

It is liquid.

And now as it drops down, it goes through a series

of chilled rollers, which takes it from 300 degrees down

to ambient.

And therefore you can see the sheet

that's produced afterwards.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): These sheets

made from PET have undergone a process called super cleaning,

where heat and pressure remove any contaminating chemicals,

making it safe to put next to food.

The result is the UK's first yogurt pot made

from 100% recycled plastic.

So if that is possible, to make something that

is made of 100% recycled plastic,

why not make everything out of that?

First point is cost.

So the additional processing that needs to happen

takes the cost up of the material.

And the other key point is that there isn't enough recycled PET

material out there to allow us to move all of the products

over to 100% recycled.

Chris, when I'm at home, and I'm tired,

and I'm thinking, how can I be bothered to wash this out,

I will think Chris needs this PET.

Thank you very much.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): Every little helps.

Back on the production line, our recycled plastic is ready to be

turned into yogurt pots.

So the material has been threaded through.

It's transported through a heating zone, top and bottom

to the point where we're forming the product.

How many yogurt pots does it create in one hour?

Roughly about 21,000 pots.

Which will give you about 400,000 in 24 hours.

Do we really eat that much yogurt?

We must do.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): And that's

for just one variety of yogurt made in Gregg's factory.

Once these pots are formed, they're slipped

into a cardboard sleeve.

Very smart.

Look at that.

Is that the first ever yogurt pot to be

100% from recycled materials?

Yes, it is.

This combination is the first to market. This combination is the first to market.

So that yogurt pot is a bit of a trailblazer.

CHERRY HEALEY (VOICEOVER): Soon, Gregg's multi-pack

will be switching to this kind of recycled material too.

There's still a long way to go with plastic food packaging,

but this 100% recycled and recyclable pot

is a step in the right direction.

And I hope that one day, somehow, this little fellow

will end up back here, ready to be reborn.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): 21 hours into production,

at the factory, my four fruity flavors are potted,

sealed, dated, and screened.

And they're on their way to the cavernous packing hall.

Mags is showing me around.

OK, Gregg.

So we've just been through there.

We've seen our pots filled.

And they're now coming down here where they're going

to be separated into two lanes.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): One lane

carries raspberry and strawberry,

the other blackcurrant and peach and apricot.

The pots are jostled into position

by white screw-like fixtures called worms.

I can honestly watch this stuff for hours.

I love it.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The worms space the pots,

and sensors signal to robotic arms

that the yogurts are ready for packing.

Then they swoop down, picking up 16 pots at a time,

placing them in their cardboard sleeves

at a rate of 480 a minute.

Absolutely mesmerizing.

Are you sure there are four different flavors coming down

here?

Absolutely sure.

Because there seems to be a lot of pink.

There is a lot of pink.

However, we have a scanner that side that tells us

that we've got the right flavor in the right pot.

So raspberry, strawberry, peach, and blackcurrant

is flying down here in absolutely the correct order

and the correct time?

- Yes. - That's outstanding.

I can't do that with a fruit salad.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The factory packs 1 million pots

of yogurt every day.

And it takes this machine just five hours to box up my batch.

It's a pretty sight, isn't it?

It is.

A bit like me.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Once pallets are stacked with 3,840

pots of my yogurts, they're ready for the 1,400

square meter chiller.

Come on, Gregg.

Do you want me to push you on?

Yes, please.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): Where they're stored for six hours

at 5 degrees C to thicken to the final perfect yogurty

consistency.

Very good.

Oh, yeah!

Do you know how long I've been working in yogurts?

How long?

A couple of hours.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): 23 hours since production started

back in the milking parlor, our pasteurized, potted,

and packed yogurts finally make it to factory dispatch.

Is that our truck?

Yep.

He's putting the yogurt on the lorry.

So how many of these trucks are leaving every day?

So over a 24-hour period, we have 16 lorries leave us,

carrying over a million pots of yogurt.

Right.

Shall we get the last pallet on?

Let's do it.

Come on, my friend.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): The east

of England is home to the nation's biggest yogurt fans,

followed by the Midlands and Southern England.

I like that, you know.

I knew them yogurts when they were still inside the cow.

[laughs]

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): 24 hours after my clumsy milking,

the fruity favorites are on their way to feed

Britain's yogurt-hungry hordes.

I am really impressed.

Honestly, I can't believe how much

work goes in to making a pot of yogurt

and getting it on the shelf.

GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): I've loved the lot--

Come on, you beauty.

- GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): - -the messy mixing--

Oh, watch out.

[laughs]

- GREGG WALLACE (VOICEOVER): - -and the clever chemistry.

Do you know how many bacteria I'm putting in here?

Every gram will be 100 million.

That's ridiculous, isn't it?

But you know what really impressed me?

Do you know what I really, honestly, loved?

It's where it all started--

those cows.

[mooing]

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