All language subtitles for Inside.the.Factory.S07E15.Vegan.Sausages.1080p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264_track3_[eng]

Look at all this lovely veg.

You know, one in eight Brits now
follows a meat-free diet.

- And there are loads of vegetarian
and vegan options

you can buy from the supermarket.

- And one of the most popular is the
vegan sausage.

And the science that goes into
producing these meat-free bangers

is mind-blowing.

So I'm heading to a factory that
produces

26.5 million of them every year.

I'm Gregg Wallace.

Wow!

And tonight, I'll be following the
journey of a space age sausage.

From futuristic farming...

This is not like any factory I've ever
been in.

..to pioneering superfoods...

These are ingredients I've never come
across.

..and painstaking production methods.

- Our little saying is that we are
sausage scientists.

- I'm Cherry Healey, and I'm taking
one small step...

I have climbed a perilous landscape.

Or is it one giant slip?

Oh, my God!

..to reveal the nutritional
superpowers of seaweed.

It's like an aquatic multi vitamin.

- And historian Ruth Goodman...
- Permission to come aboard?

- ..discovers what happens if you
don't eat your five a day.

- What state would I be in if I was
admitted

with scurvy?

- Maybe teeth have started falling
out.
- Right.

- 73,000 vegan sausages are made in
this factory every single day.

And I'm going to reveal just how they
do it.

Welcome to Inside The Factory.

This is the Heck sausage factory in
Thirsk in Yorkshire,

where they've been making vegan
sausages since 2018.

The factory makes traditional pork
sausages...

..but they have an entirely separate
production line

dedicated to a whole host of non-meat
sausage varieties.

Today, I'm learning how they make one
of their best sellers,

the vegan breakfast sausage.

And the process starts with a
truckload of veggies.

But this trailer seems to have lost
its cab

and its driver.

Hopefully, Sean Fisher...

Sean? ..can explain.

- How're you doing, mate?

- I normally see stuff unloaded from a
lorry, but this has literally

come off a back of a lorry, hasn't it?
What is it?

- This is our vertical farm.

- Vertical farm?

- Yes.
- You're going to have to tell me what
that is, Sean.

- This is where we grow some of the
veg

for our vegan sausage breakfast range.

- Really?
- Yeah, you can have a look.

- Can we?
- We can. You're going to have to get
dressed up though.

- Mate, I'm no stranger to getting
dressed up.
- Go on, then, mate.

- MUSIC: Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op
30 by Richard Strauss

Hidden away inside this unassuming 312
foot shipping container...

..is the farm of the future.

Where Star Wars...

GREGG LAUGHS

..meets salad.

Wow!

If we were on our way to Mars now on a
spaceship,

we would need stuff like this,
wouldn't we,

to keep us supplied with fresh veg?

- It is the future of farming, Gregg.

- This intergalactic agricultural zone

is one of a growing number of vertical
farms in the UK...

..that cultivate plants piled high on
space saving shelves,

so less land is needed to deliver a
higher yield.

And the factory is trialling this
method

to provide some of the ingredients for
my vegan sausages.

What are you growing?

- We're growing primarily spinach and
some basil as well.

- You can buy basil. You can buy
spinach, so why bother?

- We've got the nicest, freshest
produce possible

where we can just harvest it in here

and five minutes later, it's in the
factory.

- That's zero food miles.

And, remarkably, Sean can also control
the physical characteristics

of each plant using LED lights.

It's not unlike a 1970s disco, is it?

And as resident DJ...

DISCO MUSIC PLAYS

..Sean mixes the colour and intensity

of the container's 5,400 low energy
LEDs...

..to recreate the five colours of
light found in sunshine,

that aid plant growth.

- We have red, blue, green, UV and
far-red.

- Far-red is at the extreme end of the
visible spectrum

just before infra-red

and is only dimly visible to human
eyes.

But if Sean pumps up the red levels,

his plants can convert light to energy
at a faster rate,

resulting in speedier growth.

And tweaking the levels of the other
colours

enables him to manipulate

even more specific plant
characteristics.

- We can create different tastes,
different textures.

- You have captured the plant growing
properties of the sunlight.
- Yes.

- That is extraordinary, my furry
friend.

Is there any particular spectrum of
light

that would make your hair grow?

- I was bald this morning.

- GREGG LAUGHS

And the clever science continues

with feeding the plants.

- We use a system called aeroponics.

- Traditionally, green-leafed crops
rely on water found in the soil.

These plants grow on jute matting.

And their exposed roots are sprayed
with water and an organic liquid feed

for 10 seconds every 20 minutes.

Any excess is captured and recycled,

using 95% less water

than traditional growing methods and
no pesticides.

Wow.

Today, we're picking spinach for my
sausages.

- You can pass me the basket, Gregg.

And we can get harvesting.

- This is lovely, mate.

This is good work.

This is not like any factory I've ever
been in.

- No.

- How much of this are we going to
need for our batch?

- We need 3.5kg, so we best get
working

because we've got this full row to do.

- You got a flask of coffee?

But there's no time for a break.

The other ingredients await,

and the clock on my vegan sausage
production begins.

This is a very modern way of growing
vegetables,

but a plant based diet is nothing new.

Cherry has been finding out how one of
the first vegan

superfoods is made.

- The town of Melton Mowbray in
Leicestershire...

Thank you so much, bye.

..is synonymous with a very special
delicacy.

The famous pork pie.

But did you know that Melton is also
home

to an increasingly popular meat free
alternative?

Tofu.

It was first produced in China 2,000
years ago

and is used in lots of Japanese
cookery as well.

We've developed a taste for it here in
the UK too,

where it's grown to a £68 million per
year industry.

I've come to Soyfoods in Melton.

In 1972, operations manager Paul Jones

was one of the first Brits to produce

this mysterious protein packed food.

Paul!
- Hi.

- What is tofu?

- Well, Cherry, tofu is the Japanese
name for bean curd,

and it's made from soybeans.

- They're really, really small and
really hard.

Where do these beans come from?

- Canada.
- So why Canada?

- Certainly there are no Amazon
rainforests chopped down

to grow the soybeans and the Canadians

produce very high quality soybeans.

- What kind of climate does a soya
bean like?

- It needs 200 days frost-free.

In fact, people are growing them in
the UK now

and this year we're going to start
using our first European grown

soya.
- Oh, wow.

OK, let's pour these beans in.

Soya beans contain nine essential
amino acids,

known as the building blocks of
protein,

which our bodies need for things like
muscle growth

and regulating our immune system.

They're also found in meat, fish and
dairy.

But for vegans, vegetarians or lactose
intolerant people...

See you later, Paul!

..soya beans are a superfood.

And to start their transformation to
tofu,

I'm taking a batch of 750 kilos of
beans

to warehouse manager Aaron Watson.

Aaron! I've got you a bucket of beans.

My beans are hard and dry

and need to be soaked in water
overnight.

But Aaron has some pre-soaked ones

so we can get cracking with our tofu
production.

That's more like it.

Look, big, fat, juicy beans.

First, 15 kilos of the drained
hydrated beans

are added to 20 litres of fresh water.

So how does this machine work?

- So to start with, put the soybeans
into the feed tank,

goes through into the grinder, makes a
soft paste.

- The ground beans' protein is
released into the water

and the resulting paste then goes into
a chamber

called a slurry heater.

How high do you cook it?

- So it gets up to 85 degrees to kill
the bacteria off.

- The slurry is then spun in a
centrifuge.

This separates out the husks of the
beans, which can be used

instead of wheat flour to make
gluten-free bread.

Oh, look!

And what's left is gorgeous soya milk,

just like I drink at home.

Look at that, liquid gold.

But how do I transform 100 litres of
this hot soya milk

into solid blocks of tofu?

Paul's got a magic ingredient.

- We're going to curdle it with a salt
called nigari.

- Is that like the table salt that I
would use at home?

- It's actually an extract made from
sea water,

and it's mostly magnesium chloride
salts.

- Miraculous magnesium chloride salt

is found naturally in sea water...

Sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle,
sprinkle.

..and can be used in small amounts

as a nutritional supplement.

So the magnesium chloride is in the
soya milk. What next?

- Now we're going to mix it.

- Oh! What is that?

- It's a stirrer.

Push it gently down to the bottom and
now bring it slowly up.

- Oh, my God. Look at that!

- You can see it's curding.
- I can, already.

What is creating this reaction?

- The magnesium is sticking to the
proteins

and making them clump together.

And it's separating out the liquid in
the form of whey.

- You've got curds, the solid part,
and whey, which is the liquid part.

- That's right.

- The magnesium is a plant based salt,

which brings the proteins in the soya
milk together

to form solid curds.

That is a cool magic trick.

I feel a bit like Little Miss Muffet,

but the texture's still too runny.

So we're taking our curds to the
pressing area.

Right, Paul, what are we doing here?

- We're going to take this out

and we're going to squeeze the curds

and take some of the whey out.

- After the protein clumps together

through the clever chemistry of
coagulation,

the next process is simplicity itself.

The curds are poured into a press

and three bars of pressure...

..the equivalent power of three garden
hoses,

is applied to squeeze out the whey.

And my batch of tofu is ready to
slice.

Ta da!

Can I try it?

- Yes, do.

- That is so good.

That lovely, beany, curdy,

almost cheesiness from the tofu.

I love that you go from a tiny, small,
hard bean

to this incredibly versatile, tasty
product.

Very clever.

- Back at the factory in Thirsk,

my high-tech spinach...

This is lovely, mate.

..has been harvested

and is heading to intake...

..where I'm meeting vegan production
manager, Guy Dillon.

Hey! Hello, Guy.
- Hiya, how are we doing?

- You got me spinach?

- Got your spinach. Looking good,
yeah.

- The production line gets through a
ton

of fresh leaves and veg every day,

and a whopping four tonnes of frozen
vegetables.

I'm a big fan of frozen veg.

It doesn't waste.

And the reason you can't have frozen
leaves is because

they go to mush when they thaw.
- Exactly.

- But there's no danger of mush here
because today's spinach

was grown fresh, on-site.

How much veg, fresh or frozen, goes
into a batch of sausages?

So we make our sausages in 50 kilo
batches.

But you haven't got 50 kilos of veg
here.

So what else is it made up of?

- So we've got some sunflower seeds
there.

We've got mushroom.

- Great, big tub of mushrooms.
- Yeah, that's right.

- So how many sausages,

roughly, in a 50 kilo batch?

- About 900 sausages.

On a day-to-day basis, we can make 50
to 100 batches of sausages.

- Well, that's about 45,000 vegan
sausages.

- That's right. It's a lot of
sausages.

- That is fabulous!

For every batch of 900 sausages,

Guy weighs out 3.5kg of frozen
chickpeas and frozen onions,

6.65kg of frozen tomatoes

and 13.3kg of mushrooms,

before we're ready for my freshly
picked spinach.

- All right, so shall we get this
weighed out?

- Sure. Want me to lift it?

- Do you want to give me a hand over
there with it?

- So, spinach, how much do we need of
that?

- So it's 3.3kg.

- Well, that's everything that I
picked.

- That's all of yours already gone,
yeah.

- Next, to add a lemony, minty flavour
to our sausage,

we need 450g of sage.

Wow. I've never mixed this much fresh
herbs into anything.

And finally, for a light, slightly
bitter taste,

we weigh out 1.9kg of parsley.

- So all the other ingredients are
ready for us.

So we'll take it over to the bowl
chopper.
- The what?

- The bowl chopper.

- Now that is a super-sized mixer...

That actually looks like the propeller
on a motorboat.

..designed to dice the veg perfectly.

- Our vegan sausages, we want to have
a nice, chunky texture.

- Why chunky?

- We're going for the more traditional
Cumberland texture.

- So the big blade doesn't chop our
veg too much,

the refined ingredients are added
first,

and we start with some very clever
powder.

- This is citrus fibre.

- And what is that?

- It's basically the pith from oranges
and lemons.

- What does it do?
- So it absorbs

water like nothing else.

It can take up to 80% of its own
weight in water.

- This sponge-like citrus fibre soaks
up any water released

into the mixture by the frozen veg

so we don't end up with a soggy
sausage mix.

- Also in there, we've got methyl
cellulose.

- Cellulose is what gives strength and
structure to plants and trees,

and it's extracted for use as a
natural, plant-based

thickener in foods.

- And to activate it, we add our
frozen veg.

And then that basically turns it into
something

like a vegan egg white.

- What, makes it all sticky and thick?

- Exactly.

- The reaction only takes place when
the methyl cellulose

drops below four degrees Celsius,

so adding 33.5kg of frozen veg

should do the trick.

Time to flex the muscles of this
mighty mixer.

I'm beginning to realise the strength
of that blade.

I can now clearly get the sweet smell
of vegetables.

The frozen veg reduces the temperature
of the mix

to minus six degrees, activating the
methyl,

which dissolves the cellulose and
creates a paste.

- That's acting as your binder, which
means that your sausages,

when it comes to forming them, aren't
just going to be all crumbly

and falling to pieces.

- What a crazy thing.
- I know.
- Wow.

These are ingredients I've never come
across.

- Science in sausages.

- And a strongly bound mix allows the
factory

to add even more texture.

Sunflower seeds provide a crunch,

while yellow split peas absorb more
moisture from the frozen veg

and with some seasoning...

- So we'll add these into the mix.

- ..all that's left to add is my fresh
spinach, sage and parsley.

That binds perfectly, doesn't it?
- It does, yeah.

- You are a clever little sausage.

- I am.

Come on.
- Our veg mix is ready to be made into
900 sausages.

Helping to meet the ever growing
demand for vegan food.

Today in the UK, around 7 million
people follow a meat-free diet.

But when did this lifestyle choice
first become popular?

Ruth's gone in search of the answer.

- I'm in Salford in Greater Manchester
to meet the Chief Executive

of the Vegetarian Society,

Richard McIlwain, who's a hands on
historian

when it comes to the origins of the
movement.

Richard, hello!
- Hi, Ruth, how are you?

- Lovely. Oh, this looks great! What
we doing?
- Fantastic.

We're doing winter vegetable soup,
would you believe?

Shall we chop some veg?

- Why are we making soup?

- Yeah, it's a very good question.

Yeah, it was actually a tactic
deployed by a preacher in the 1800s.

He was using it as a means of
converting people

to a vegetarian diet,

and his name was William Cowherd.

- Cowherd? Oh, dear.

That's a bit ironic, really, isn't it,
for a vegetarian?
- It is.

- A Cowherd!
- Absolutely.

- With his trailblazing pro-veggie
preaching,

Cowherd tried to persuade the
wealthier members of his flock

to abstain from their love of meat.

And he wanted to convert the poor too,

whose diet was mainly bread, broth or
gruel,

and seafood

like eels, cockles and mussels.

Why does he feel this need to convert
people

to vegetarianism then?

- It's part of his faith.

He has his own church, the Bible
Christian Church,

which he sets up in Salford in 1800.

He doesn't believe that God is up in
heaven,

looking down from on high.

Actually, his belief is that God is in
all of us,

but not just in us, in animals, too.

And so hence, of course...
- Oh, right.

- ..if God is in animals...

..thou shalt not kill animals.

- I mean, that must have been quite
ground-breaking at the time,

and most people would have been very
suspicious

of a vegetarian diet in the early
Victorian era.

- Very suspicious.

- So what happened with the soup
itself?

- It would be given out free to
working people in the community.

- Free soup!

Come and get it!
- You didn't have to be a member of
the congregation.

- Oh, well, that would draw people in.

A free meal was a free meal.
- A free meal was a great advert.

He didn't force people to join his
congregation,

but the soup, clearly, was a good
conversation starter.

- Good morning, ladies.
- Morning.
- Hiya.

- Many of the poorer members of
Cowherd's congregation worked

in local cotton mills and iron works.

- Winter vegetable soup?

- They would have been glad of a hot
meal,

even if vegetables wouldn't have been
their first choice.

- Unfortunately, William Cowherd dies
in 1816, but his legacy

lived on through a member of his
congregation.

- The man who took up Cowherd's cause
was Joseph Brotherton,

who had made a fortune from his
family's cotton mills

and become Salford's first MP.

In 1847, he joined with like-minded
people from around the country

to found the Vegetarian Society.

And Richard has brought me to its
headquarters.

Ooh, goodness! So, what have we got
here?

- So, this is the meeting on the 30th
of September 1847,

which was the very first meeting of
the Vegetarian Society.

- Right.
- And here, you can see...
- The founder members.

- ..the name of Joseph Brotherton,
who's aged 64.

- Member of Parliament.
- "He has abstained from meat

"for 39 years!"
- 39 years!

- So, this is where they start to go
out and spread the word.

They're issuing pamphlets.

Joseph Brotherton's talking about it
in Parliament.

This society is very much about
actually taking

the message to the outside world.
- Yeah.

The Society also published and
circulated a magazine

containing veggie recipes

and recommendations for a new
phenomenon -

the vegetarian restaurant.

By the turn of the 20th century,

there were 52 operating across
Britain,

paving the way for the first shops,

which by the 1990s were selling
mass-produced vegetarian foods...

..all from humble beginnings in
Manchester.

And, thanks to trailblazers like
Joseph Brotherton

and William Cowherd, the vegetarian
movement had begun.

- Back at the factory, we're 1.5 hours
into production.

We've made our vegan mix, but there's
one thing missing.

- Before we turn them into sausages,
we need to make the casings.

- Oh, of course, you can't have animal
casing.
- No.

- So, we're heading to the mixing
room.

# I've got you under my skin... #

So, what do we have here?
- So, this is our alginate mixer.
- A what?

- Alginate mixer.

So, we use alginate sausage casing for
our vegan sausages.

So, traditionally, for a pork
sausages, you'd use the intestine.

We don't want to use an intestine,
obviously, for vegan sausages,

so we use alginate. This is it in its
powder form.

- And what is it?
- So, it's seaweed, dried and milled.

- This powder starts life as brown
kelp,

which grows in shallow, nutrient-rich
sea water

and turns white when dehydrated.

Does it have a kind of salty, seaweedy
flavour?

- It doesn't have any flavour,
actually, no.

And then, it has a special property
where it turns to a gel

when it's hydrated.
- And that will turn into a clear
skin?

- Into a gel, exactly like you'd
expect a sausage casing to

look like.
- You clever fella! Go on, let's get
it in.
- No, it's your job.

You pop it in.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- OK. Bucket of seaweed.
- Yeah.
- Right, OK.

- Pour away.

- To make my seaweed sausage skin,

into the mixer, churning with 93 kilos
of cold water,

we add seven kilos of dehydrated
alginate powder

for a 100 kilo batch of gel,

enough to cover 30,000 sausages!

I used to live by the sea. I could
have brought you some over,

if I'd have known.
- Ah, you should have done.

- After mixing and thickening for 90
minutes,

the alginate is poured out, ready to
make our sausage skins.

That's it, is it?
- This is our gel that we've made,
yeah. Have a bit of a feel of that.

- That's not unlike silicon.
- Yeah. Yeah, that's right, actually.

- You can actually mould that into
shapes.

That's going to become a clear skin?

- That's going to become a sausage
casing, yeah.

- That is not what I expected at all.
- Amazing, eh?

- Yeah, that's incredible.

GREGG LAUGHS

- Funny stuff.
- That's brilliant!

100 kilos of rubbery alginate...

Whoa!

..is loaded into a hopper...

Wow! Look at that!

..ready for the start

of the vegan sausage production line.

But before we can get sausaging,

I need the mix I made in the bowl
chopper.

I love, like, the whole chunks of veg
and herbs in there.

That is very appealing, even in this
condition.

- So, next step is to tip this into
there.

That's your job. You like pressing
magic buttons.

- Nothing gets me more excited in
these factory programmes

than pushing a button.

- And there she goes. So it's going to
tip that into our hopper.

- The container holds 150 kilos of
veggie mix,

enough to make 2,700 sausages.

Whoa-ho!

I didn't expect it to come out in one
big mass!

I thought it might drip, bit by bit.

With my veg mix and alginate loaded,

the production line is ready to roll.

- Time to make some sausages!

Give that a tap.

And away they go.

- And there we have it. We are under
way!

It's funny, I cannot actually see that
skin going on.

Normally, with a sausage machine,
you'd have the skin

constantly coming and the filling
going into the skin.
- That's right.

So, what we have coming out the other
end is a tube in a tube

and that's coextrusion.

That's where it's wrapping that gel
around our sausage mix.

- From the hopper at the start of the
production line,

the alginate is vacuum pumped into the
filler machine

and is gently pressed down through the
pipework,

where it waits in a chamber.

The vegetable mix is then pushed into
a tube that leads to

a coextrusion nozzle, where the

sausage is coated in a 0.05mm layer of
alginate.

Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.

Why have you got water dripping on it?

- That's a calcium brine and that's
what sets our alginate gel.

- When the brine, water containing
calcium chloride, is poured

over the alginate coated sausage,
something remarkable happen.

- So, I can show you how it works with
a bit of our alginate gel.

I just want you to hold it underneath
this tap here

and see what it does to the gel.

- The calcium chloride is a salt

extracted from limestone that's
soluble in water.

Making it go even harder!
- Yeah.

- It absorbs moisture and acts as a
drying agent.

Wahey! That is fabulous!

It's like mine's got a plastic
coating.
- Yeah.

- In basic terms, how is that making
the skin set?

- So, it's a bit of sausage science
again.

The cells in the calcium

are replacing the nucleus within the
alginate gel

and the cells of the calcium are a lot
harder,

and that makes a tougher skin.

- It's actually firming it up.
- Yeah.
- Absolutely brilliant.

My miraculous seaweed coated sausage
has been formed.

But it's too long for a frying pan,

so it moves along the conveyor to be
brought down to size.

- And then they're hitting this belt
here, which is our cutter belt.

- This is a big cutter.

Unlike traditional meat casings,

alginate doesn't need to be twisted to
seal the sausage.

It sticks together at the end on its
own, when cut.

- It's got knives in there which are
basically going along

and cutting the sausages into these.
These are 12.5 centimetres long.

- 500 sausages a minute are sliced by
seven blades that

rotate on a belt, running at one metre
per second.

Can I take one off the line?
- Course you can. Try and grab one.

- There's your vegan sausage.

And encased in its own little
protective casing.

That's really clever.

I love the science behind this vegan
sausage!

Seaweed may seem like an unusual
ingredient for a sausage,

but it's making waves in the food
business.

Cherry is off to see why.

- I've travelled to the most northerly
coast on the UK mainland, in search

of a nutritious crop that grows in
these crystal clear Scottish waters.

The Shore Seaweed Company

has had a licence to forage for
seaweed here since 2016.

I'm meeting company founder Peter
Elbourne.

Peter, I have climbed a perilous
landscape to come and chat to you!

Oh, my God!

What is seaweed?
- Seaweed is a type of marine algae.

Seaweeds have been around for over a
billion years.

It's one of the earliest forms of life

and there's over 600 species of
seaweed in UK waters.

- Can I eat all of them?
- Some taste better than others.

There's a lot of variety in taste and
texture.

- In Asian countries like Japan and
China,

seaweed's been a big part of the diet
for thousands of years.

Peter and his team hand-pick ten
different kinds of seaweed here,

including knotted wrack and spiral
wrack,

which are good for making umami-rich
seasonings.

Have you seen it becoming popular
recently?
- Yeah, so, absolutely.

I think there's a real interest at the
moment with health foods

and also sustainable foods,

and people care about where their food
comes from now.

- Seaweed flourishes here because the
water is full of nutrients,

like potassium, calcium and magnesium,

brought in by the cold Atlantic
currents.

So, is it really healthy?
- So, it's really good for fibre,
really great

for gut health, and in particular,
it's a really good source of iodine.

- Why do we need iodine?
- For brain health, for energy and for
growth.

- So, it's like an aquatic
multivitamin.
- Absolutely.

We call it our local superfood.

- OK, so what are we looking for?
- We're after dulse.

- How can you tell which is dulse?

- Dulse is a gorgeous red colour...
- Oh, is this it?

- ..and lovely and shiny.
- Look at that.

Dulse contains red pigments, which can
absorb light at low levels,

enabling to grow in very deep water.

So, how do you harvest dulse?
- So, dulse grows like a palm of your
hand

and so, what you're trying to do is
cut it

so you're leaving some of those
fingers behind to grow back from.

- I see. Can I give it a go?

Like that?
- Yeah, that's fine.

We can cut very carefully to allow for
regrowth and check for quality.

And then, that protects the habitat.

It requires no fertilisers, no
pesticides, no land,

no freshwater, so it's an incredible
crop for the 21st century.

- Well, our bucket is full and the
tide is getting pretty close.

- Let's head up the shore.
- All right. It was a good day of
foraging.

To put my crop to good use,

I'm visiting a seafront cafe to meet
award winning chef Jim Cowie.

Hello, Jim.
- Hi.

- A superfan of seaweed, Jim's
preparing one of his favourites,

sole fried with dried dulse-flavoured
butter.

Oh, that's a great sizzle!

We're adding the dulse butter at the
end of cooking, so it doesn't burn.

Jim, it's looking pretty good, I would
say. Is it butter time?

- We're there now, yes.

- Oh, it's sizzling away.

Do we need to put any salt and pepper
on this fish?

- We don't need it.

It's come from the sea, it's got the
saltiness of the sea.

- Seaweed contains 85% less unhealthy
sodium than salt.

And as well as boosting your iodine
levels, it's a

great source of antioxidants, iron and
vitamins.

- Every time I eat and use dulse, it
reminds me when I was a kid

and my father used to take dulse home

and roast it in our fire in the
sitting room.
- Oh, wow!

- So, every time I taste it and use
it,

it just gives me that memory back.

- But how does our fish with seaweed
butter taste?

Wow! That is such a clever ingredient!

It packs a really intense umami
flavour,

without overpowering the delicate
flavour of the fish.

It's like a multivitamin. You can use
it in replacement of salt.

I mean, everyone should have it in
their kitchen.

- I couldn't agree with you more!

- At the factory in Thirsk, we're
three hours

and 50 minutes into production.

It takes some serious science to make
my vegan sausages,

and I want to get under the seaweed
skin of these bangers,

so I'm following my nose to meet head
of R&D, Calum Smith...

Good to see you, mate. That smells
good, even through the visor.

..who runs the inner sanctum of
sausage skin research.

I'm guessing you are doing something
important,

not just cooking a big breakfast!
- Well, they tell me that.

- What are we doing?
- We're going to test the texture of
the skins.

- But this isn't a taste test, this is
the thickness of the skin.

- Absolutely. So, you want the same...

..similar bite, reminds you of a
sausage, when you were a kid.

We haven't got the protein structure
that you have with meat, so

we're trying to replicate something
that gives you a nice mouth feel.

- What would be the problem with
having it slightly thicker or slightly
thinner, seriously?

- Well, if it's too thin, it can cook
off in the pan,

so you don't get a skin.
- And if it's too thick?

- If it's too thick, what happens is
the calcium that was being run over

the sausage, that doesn't penetrate
right the way through,

so it's still gel underneath. It'll be
rubbery and slimy.

- I see. How do you test the thickness
of a sausage skin?

- So, we use this machine, called a
texture analyser.

- This highly sensitive piece of kit,

a bit like a super-sharp biting
machine, will detect exactly

how much force is required to break
the skin on the sausage.

I'm a basic fella. Why don't you just
bite it to tell?
- We do,

but I do that every day. I'm trying to
lose some weight, Gregg.

But also, there are very subtle
differences

and we're looking for a difference of
maybe two or three

newton-metres between different
thicknesses.
- Newton-metres?

- Newton-metres.
- You haven't just invented that?
- No, it's a measure of force.

- One newton-metre is equivalent to
just 0.1kg of force.

In this case,

the force is the push of the machine's
bite on the sausage skin.

- We're going to try three different
thicknesses,

so this one we've got with a thick
skin,

this is the one in the middle, and
then, we've got one that's thin.

- This is interesting.

What kind of newton-metres are you
looking for in the perfect sausage?

- So, we're looking around four to
five newton-metres

of pressure for the skin.

- MUSIC: Ride Of The Valkyries by
Richard Wagner

Time for the sausages to be subjected
to the texture detector's

lethal guillotine blade,

which will measure how much force is
required to break through each skin.

First for the chop is our
thick-skinned banger.

Any last requests? Anybody you want to
say goodbye to?

- Right, so we're going to run the
machine. Are you ready?

Here we go.

- The 1.2 millimetre blade slowly cuts
through the sausage.

Not quite as dramatic as I'd hoped, if
I'm honest!

I thought it was going to come down
like a guillotine.

Cut its head off.

- The thick skin has taken about six
newton-metres of pressure.

- We are looking for newton-metres of
between four and five.
- Yes.

- Next up, the thin-skinned sausage is
on the block...

Very slow. You'd never have cut Marie
Antoinette's head off with that,

would you?

..which takes just four newton-metres
of pressure to crack.

And finally, the medium-skinned.

Waiting with bated breath here!

- About five newton-metres.

- The differences are so, so small.

The real test here, of course, is if
you let me taste all three of them.

- Yeah, go for it.

- Let me first try a thin one.

I do love my job!

It doesn't feel right.

It's almost like the texture of like a
mashed potato.
- Yes.

- The skin is not noticeable at all.
- No, it's not there.

- Now, for the thick one.

I don't mind this fat one at all,

but you can clearly see how thick that
skin is.
- Yeah.

To the point that it almost becomes
two separate products.

It becomes a mix and a skin, rather
than one thing.

- Right, now, let's try the one in the
middle.

You can bite through it, but it
instantly dissolves on your tongue.
- Yeah.

- I particularly like the crunch of
the nuts and the seeds in it,

but it's got a herby, peppery feel,
like a pork sausage.

- That's what we were going for.

- Wow!

I would never, ever have imagined the
skin would have been so important.

- Our little saying, we've got it in
the factory,

is that we are sausage scientists.

- These days, we know that getting
your five a day is good for you,

but 300 years ago, they were a lot
less enlightened.

Ruth's been investigating how that
changed.

- For centuries,

the British Navy was overwhelmed by a
fearful killer disease.

Scurvy.

It killed millions of sailors

and remained an incurable mystery to
the medical profession

until a Scottish doctor came up with a
rather unlikely cure.

HMS Victory in Portsmouth is the
world's oldest commissioned warship.

Launched in 1765, it was a cramped and
poorly ventilated home

to more than 800 men, often for years
at a time.

I want to understand what happened
onboard ships like this,

when sailors became seriously ill at
sea.

Permission to come aboard?
- Absolutely. Welcome.

Mind your head.

- Ship historian Andrew Baines is
showing me the ropes.

- If you just want to come round to
your left, we'll head aft.

- So, how big a problem was scurvy for
men on ships like this?

- Scurvy was a huge problem.

In the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries,

it's estimated that it kills two
million men.

- Not only was scurvy deadly, for
sailors inflicted with

the disease, it had some horrific
symptoms.

- Welcome to the sickbay.

- Can I have a go?

- Have a go.

- Well, okey doke. One, two, three.
Oh!

Oh, it's... Oh!

So, what state would I be in, if I was
admitted with scurvy?

- Well, by the time you get here,

the real telltale sign is going to be
probably on your shins.

You've started with some red and black
spots

and that is the signal that, yes, it's
definitely scurvy,

and you're probably looking at someone
next to you who is

a little bit further along than you
are.

Their gums are going to have swollen,

maybe teeth have started falling out,

they're bleeding, black, rancid,
blood,

and then they start haemorrhaging.

The body is quite literally falling
apart.

- Horrified by the number of men
dying, in 1747,

ship's surgeon on HMS Salisbury, James
Lind, began to investigate.

Initially, he suspected the rapid
spread of the disease was

due to the cramped conditions.

- 450 men would sleep on this deck.
- This is just extraordinary!

Can you imagine trying to get up in
the night for a wee?!

You're so crammed in! I mean... Wow!
- Yeah.

- And then, of course, everybody's
breath is in the air.

In line with his airborne
contamination theory,

Lind's first plan was to improve the
ship's hygiene.

- So, making sure that the hammocks
are washed regularly,

the clothing is kept as clean as it
possibly can be.

- So, he addresses hygiene, but men
are still dying of scurvy.
- They are.

- Desperate to end the suffering, Lind
had an idea.

He took 12 men suffering from scurvy,

divided them into six pairs and gave
each pair a different treatment.

This was one of the first recorded
clinical trials in medical history.

Lind was ahead of his time,

but the six medicines at his disposal
were not.

So, these are sort of like the wives'
tale remedies.

- These are the remedies that have
been tried over years

and used over centuries, but there's
no evidence for it,

so that's why the experiment's
important. He wants evidence.

- First was a daily quart of cider.

Second was elixir of vitriol.

- Nowadays, we call it drain cleaner.

Probably best not to try that one.
- No!

The third cure he trialled was
vinegar.

- So, you can see there's an idea
here.

These are all things that are quite
acidic.

Acidic might have something to do with
it.

And then we have these herbal pastes.

- A mixture of mustard seeds, radish
and garlic,

believed to make you sweat.

So, it might be about, like, driving
poisons out of the body.
- Absolutely.

- The fifth remedy was sea water.

- It's cheap, it doesn't cost the Navy
anything.

- And then, finally, what have we got?
- And finally, we have citrus.

A lemon every day.
- Right.
- And after six days,

they find that the two men who have
been given the citrus fruits are

well enough that indeed one of them

is helping to care for the other ten
people in the trial.
- Good gracious!

- This has worked well.
- So, they know it works, just don't
know why.

And nobody isolates vitamin C until...
What, early 20th century?

- Absolutely. Lind doesn't know why it
works,

but the reason it works is because
they contain vitamin C.

But that's the ingredient that is
allowing these guys

to regain their health.

- Vitamin C is found in fresh fruit
and vegetables and is

vital for healthy bones, skin, blood
vessels and the immune system.

So the sailors' usual diet of salted
meat and starchy grains

would have resulted in a serious
deficiency, leading to scurvy.

But lemons, packed with vitamin C,
proved a cure.

The simple lemon saved countless lives

and Dr Lind is remembered as a pioneer
of clinical testing.

- LOUD SIZZLING

Back at the vegan sausage factory,

my vitamin-rich vegetable mix has been
wrapped in a seaweed skin

and passed the all-important bite
test. This is good!

Now, it's time for me to lend a hand
with packing,

so I'm meeting Georgetta Iclodean.

Hello!
- Hello.
- I'm Gregg.
- Nice to meet you.
- Good to meet you.

Tell me what happens on this stretch
of your production line.

- I am taking care of the line to make
sure nothing is broken,

nothing is unsealed, everything looks
OK.

- How long have you worked here?
- Five years.

- And if something is going to go
wrong, what is going to go wrong?

- The sausages can be underweight or
overweight

and they will not fit inside the tray,
see?

So, somebody have to take care of
this.

- So, how many sausages are going
through here?

- 1,200 sausages per minute!

- That's a lot of sausages.

I would only do two packs. You know
why?
- Why?

- Because "2Packs" is a good rapper.

- It's a joke?
- Yeah. Very nearly. Very nearly.

Well, you can't win 'em all!

What is going to happen to these vegan
sausages when they go in here?

- They will be sealed.

- Once Georgetta has checked the
sausages, a shelf picks up

four packs at a time and lifts against
a reel of plastic film.

Heat pads on the top sealing machine
then press the film

onto the packaging.

- It's lifting them up and it's
heating them on 200 degrees.

- But not enough heat to cook the
vegan sausage?

- It's not cooking them.
- Good to know.

This is brilliant! Boom!

Come on! Show me the rest.

My vegan sausages are sealed,

but there's still a tricky task to
tackle.

- This is the packing area.
- I like it here.

- This is where the hard job is
making.
- Why is it hard?

A whopping 17,000 packs of vegan
sausages arrive here every day.

And each one needs a sleeve, so
Georgetta's putting me to work.

What do I have to do?

- Take the sleeves from there. Put
them on your waist.

- Oh, like this?
- You press on them, yeah?
- That one's stuck.
- No.

It isn't stuck. You broke it.
- What do you mean?

What do you mean, I broke it?

- One more time.
- So, you press here?
- Yeah.

- All right, this is very complicated.
- OK.

- Something tells me I'm not
impressing my new boss very much.

Like that? In like that?

- You're pressing too strong.

- Well, I have big muscles.
- Yeah.
- I can't help it.

Unfortunately, it takes more than
brawn to pack a sausage.

This job's all about speed.

So, how fast am I supposed to do this?

- Usually, they are doing one pack per
second.

- No way!
- Yes.
- 60 a minute?

Wow! This is really hard work.

What do you think about when you're
doing this? Do you think about your
holidays?

Do you talk about MasterChef and
stuff?

- I'm watching MasterChef Romania,
very sorry!

- Once my sausages are slipped into
their sleeves, they're boxed,

four packs at a time, before the final
process.

This is the good bit. No, no, no. It
needs a special kind of touch.

This is the job for me.
- Yes.

- Each box of vegan sausages is sealed

using a box tape machine, which gets

through 1,256 metres of tape a day!

Who says I can't work fast?

We've run out of sausages. Come on,
you have to be quicker than this.

- Oh...
- I can do this. I can do this.
- You can. Yeah.
- Brilliant.

We've done it! We've done the batch.

I am really tired. That is hard work.

You have to work fast, you have to
concentrate,

you need precision. I am exhausted.

- Then you shall need a rest, yeah?
- Thank you. Thank you.

I may need a lie down, but my vegan
sausages just keep coming.

On one day alone,

the workforce here can pack a
staggering 15,502 boxes!

Whether it's packaging for food or
fragiles,

manufacturers are always on the
lookout for something

more environmentally friendly,

and Cherry's on the trail of a
solution from Mother Nature herself.

- Nowadays, we receive more items
through the post than ever before.

- DOORBELL

- And that can only mean one thing...

Hello. Thank you so much.

..more packaging.

Delicate items need protection, but
the materials used,

like polystyrene, can be really
difficult to recycle.

Single-use plastic packaging accounts
for nearly

70% of our annual plastic waste.

But what's the alternative?

I'm visiting a company that uses a
surprising material

to make more sustainable packaging.

CEO Paul Gilligan is going to let me
in on the secret.

So, I need an alternative to this
rather squeaky, unpleasant plastic,

that takes hundreds of years to
biodegrade, if at all.

- And we have the solution here. Shall
we swap?
- Ooh!

OK. Wow! I mean, it looks and feels

quite similar to polystyrene. How is
it different?

- It's biodegradable at home in 45
days.

Even if you put it in the ocean or
water,

it will be biodegradable within 180
days.

- What on earth is this made out of?

- Well, Cherry, believe it or not,
this is made out of mushrooms.

In fact, let me show you how.
- Intriguing.

Mushrooms are a type of fungus.

There are more than a million species
of fungus,

from mould and yeasts that help food
production

to woodland mushrooms and truffles.

Paul's taken a delivery of a fungus he
needs

to make his sustainable packaging.

Paul, I don't want to be rude, but
where are the mushrooms?

- It's a good question.

We're working with mycelium, which
is...

Imagine the roots of mushrooms.

- Can we have a look?
- Course you can. Yeah.

- Oh, wow! It looks like a mixture of,
like...
- Yeah.

- ..wood shavings, or cereal.

These living mushroom roots, or
mycelium,

are cultivated locally by specialist
growers

and have been mixed with chippings of
hemp stems, a woody plant

once used to make ropes, which adds
strength to this product.

- You can't see it with the human eye,

so I'm going to show you on the
screen.

- What are we looking at here?

It looks like fibres from a woolly
jumper.

- This is sped up footage of the
mycelium

making its journey across the forest
floor.

- Magnified 1,000 times,

each of these filaments is one of a
mushroom's thread-like roots.

So when I see a mushroom on the forest
floor,

actually, what's going on underneath
in the soil is that,

this kind of fibrous structure.

- That's it. And sometimes they can be
very, very large organisms,

going to thousands of acres.

- Unlike plants, which get their
energy from sunlight,

mushrooms get their nourishment from
plant and animal matter in the soil.

The mycelium roots produce enzymes
that cause a chemical reaction

to break down organic matter into
nutrients to help it grow.

So, if there was an insect, a dead
animal, leaves, anything,

it would cover them...

- Yeah.
- ..and slowly digest them.
- Yeah.

- This white part, is that the fungus?
- That's the mycelium working.

It's binding the materials together.

- It's like nature's glue.
- Exactly what it is.

- To transform the mycelium and hemp
mix into packaging, first,

we add a generous helping of flour.

- Do you want to feed it
this...appetiser?

- Hang on, everyone! It's party time!

This activates the fungus

by giving it something easily
digestible to feed on.

Ooh, there she goes!

Once active, it's more able to break
down larger organic matter,

like the hemp chippings already
present in the mix.

After churning for 20 minutes,

it drops into custom-made moulds,

designed for specific products.

What are these trays made out of?

- Plastic, but it's recycled plastic
called ABS.

We'll use these over 200 times.

- And you can recycle them afterwards?
- Yeah.
- Fine. OK.

- And they'll become new trays.

- The mix is compacted to remove any
air bubbles that could

compromise the strength of the final
product.

The filled trays are then covered with
a plastic jacket

to retain the temperature.

For the next four days, the mycelium
continues to feed on the hemp

and grows to fill the mould.

- These have been in the pod for four
days.
- Ooh! Can we open it?

- Yeah, let's unzip it.
- OK.

And this is the almost finished
article.

So, this has gone from almost a dust
to a solid form.
- Yeah.

- It's very malleable. Look, it's very
squishy.

When the still flexible packaging is
removed from the mould,

the mycelium continues to grow over
the top of the hemp chippings,

covering the outside with a fine white
layer of threads.

The packaging then spends six hours in
a kiln

and the 92 degree heat deactivates the
mycelium.

Altogether, it takes six days from
woodchips and fungus roots

to a complete, bespoke packaging.

- We've been working on this all day.
This is a perfume brand.

- So, is that what we've been working
on?

Look at that, snug as a bug in a rug!

And the potential for this fungi-based
packaging doesn't end there.

- This is for a printer. This will
replace polystyrene.

We have gift boxes for alcohol.

This is a gift box for cosmetics.
- The sky is the limit.

- It really is, and you're only
limited by your imagination.

- So, when you next unwrap a delivery,

the packaging could be even more
interesting

and better for the planet than what's
inside.

- At the factory, my vegan breakfast
sausages have been speed-packed

and boxed, and are arriving at the
distribution centre.

Hello, Calum.
- Hi, Gregg.
- You all right? Should I follow you
out with these?

He may be an expert on the thickness
of a sausage skin,

but does Calum know how many sausages
the factory makes?

- So, we're going to get this lorry
loaded up.
- Lovely. I like this bit.

I do. And I'm going to check you on
your numbers. Are you good?
- Hit me.

- You have got six sausages in a pack.
- Yup.
- Four packs in a box.

- Yep, that's right.
- Is that right?
- Yeah.

- How many boxes on a pallet?

- So, we're getting 250 boxes on each
pallet.

- How many sausages on a pallet?

- So, that's 6,000 vegan sausages on
the pallets that we send out.

- And how many pallets can you get on
a truck, then?

- So, we send out 20 pallets of vegan
sausages a day.

So, that's about 120,000 vegan
sausages

that are going out the door.

- How do you explain the success of a
non-meat sausage?

- People are reducing their red meat
and white meat intake.

And having a product that works the
same as what they're used to,

normal sausages, has just slotted
right in there

and people are finding it an easy way
to change.

- Makes sense. It does make sense.
This is nice. That looks good.

Very proud. A lot of hard work went
into there.

Four hours and 55 minutes after the
start of production...

..my vegan sausages are heading to
stores throughout the UK

and Ireland.

They travel as far as the United Arab
Emirates

and are even bunged on the barbie in
Australia.

Before I visited this factory, I'd
never imagined what it takes to

create the right texture and flavour
for each and every vegan sausage.

After space-age spinach picking...

Wow!

..seaweed skinning...

Making it go even harder!
- Yeah.

- ..and super-speedy packing...

We've done it! We've done the batch.

..I'm ready for a sit down and a
sausage.