All language subtitles for Inside.the.Factory.S07E17.Mints.1080p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264_track3_[eng]

Whether you're enjoying your favourite
food...

- Going on a date...

- ..or you just enjoy the taste,

as a nation, we can't get enough of
mints.

In the UK we consume around 19,000
tons of them every year.

So I've come to see how they're made

at a factory that produces 32 million
of them every single day.

I'm Gregg Wallace.

This may be the best smelling factory
I've ever been in.

And I'm following the production of a
mint from a sugary avalanche...

That's snow!

You've made edible snow.

..to a super strong sweet...

Whoa, look at that! That is one tough
mint.

..while unwrapping one of the biggest
mysteries

for sweet lovers everywhere.

The holes, do you kind of pull your
finger through it

to make the hole in the middle?

- If we made them all like that,
Gregg, we'd never sell any.

- I'm Cherry Healey.

I'll be finding out how you extract
super strength oil...

My mouth is on fire.

That is so powerful!

..from mint leaves.

Control room. Do you read me?

And I'm on a mission to find out how
you get from this...

..to the purest white sugar.

The effort that goes into making sugar
is mind-blowing.

- And historian Ruth Goodman...

..is unearthing the strange but true
story

of the world's first minty mouthwash.

- Oh, my goodness. This is strong
stuff, isn't it?

- On this site, they produce a
staggering

2.1 billion mints a year.

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

Welcome to Inside the Factory.

This is the Nestle factory in York

covering an impressive 230,000 square
metres.

That's the same as 32 football
pitches.

This massive factory produces 650,000
tonnes

of chocolates and sweets every year,

made up of 180 different varieties.

But today it's the turn of something
fresh to take the spotlight.

I'm following the production of a mint

that's famous for the hole in the
middle, the Polo.

These little holey wonders have been
produced here since 1948,

and the team churns out 96 million
minty morsels every week.

The process starts as it always has,

with a great big delivery of sugar,

all for my sweets.

So I'm meeting up with process
engineer Mark Allen.

Mark.
- Hello.
- Hello, sir.

First things first. Goods in, right?
- Yep, that's correct.

- So how much sugar do you use every
day, roughly?

- 28 tonnes.

- Every day?
- Every single day, yeah.

- Where's it from, do you know?

- It's from Norfolk, from sugar beet.

- Oh, it's beet sugar. It's not cane
sugar.

- That's right, yes.
- Can I see the sugar?

Can I get a sample?
- Yeah, course you can. Yeah.

- May I?

Sugar produced from cane and beet is
chemically identical.

- So if you just pull that down, it'll
flow out.

- But only beet is grown in the UK,

so the factory can rely on a steady
flow of sugar grown nearby.

Oh! It won't stop coming out.

- There you go.
- Mark?
- Yep.

- That looks very much to me like
sugar I'd have at home.

- Yeah, granulated sugar.

But you can have different colour
grades.

- Sugar has a colour grading?

- It does, yes.
- Oh, blow me, I never knew that.

Stories about white sugar, there's
lots of them.

But stories about brown sugar - dem
are rarer.

OK.

It's the sucrose in sugar beet that
gives it the white colour.

And here at the factory,

they use the whitest sugar they can
get their hands on.

- It has to be the whitest of white,

so it makes our sweet nice and bright.

- Have you ever worked out how much
sugar you use in a year?

- Yeah, it's about 3,000 tonnes.

- Crying out loud.

That's an extraordinarily large amount
of sugar.

- If it was stacked in one-tonne
blocks,

it would be roughly 3,000 metres.

- Yeah, but what's 3,000 metres?

- It's about 30 Big Bens on top of
each other.

- You guys with your stats! No-one
should have worked this out,

you know that.
- I do.

- If you have a cup of coffee, do you
ever just get a spoonful?

- We do.

- I would.

No time for a break yet,

we need to get this crystal white
sugar unloaded,

with the help of the wonderfully named
driver, Greg.

- Do you want to put the pipe on?

- Yeah, I don't mind lending a hand.
Yeah!

Did you always want to be a fireman?

As the sugar is unloaded

at a rate of ten tonnes an hour into
this whopping 30-metre silo,

the production of my mint is under
way.

Come on!

It will take three hours to empty the
other Greg's tanker.

We use regular sugar granules all the
time

in our tea, on cereals or for baking.

But how do you extract something so
refined from a plant?

Cherry is BEETing a path to find out.

CHERRY: My mission begins at this 160
acre metropolis in Norfolk.

This is the largest sugar refinery in
Europe.

It processes a whopping 3 million
tonnes of British beet every year,

that's refined into nearly 25% of the
sugar we use in the UK.

But how on earth do they turn one of
these

into the purest, whitest sugar?

BEETS me, but refinery manager Chris
Flynn...

Hi, Chris. Lovely to meet you.
- Hello.

- ..oversees the extraction of the
sweet stuff

from these gnarly root plants.

Why does this vegetable in particular

have such high sugar levels?

- Sugar beet has a two yearly life
cycle,

so the first part of its cycle
involves storing sugar.

So we actually swoop in at the end of
its first year

and extract the sugar for ourselves.

- So a bit like a thief.

- Exactly.
- So this sugar beet has very
diligently

been getting lots of sugar,

and you come in just when it stocked
up the cupboards, and you raid them.

- That's right.

- After harvesting, they're washed,
chopped and loaded

into three enormous barrel-like
machines called diffusers.

Each hour, 280 tonnes of beet

are tossed in 200,000 gallons of
72-degree water,

the perfect temperature to extract the
sugar.

And when 60 minutes is up,

the water has absorbed the sugar
molecules and excess beet residue,

which is purified and evaporated to
make a brown sugar-packed syrup.

- We call this thick juice.

- So that is sugar beet juice.
- Yeah.

- So, what happened to the thick
juice?

Where are we now?

- We are in the refinery part of the
factory,

and we are converting our thick juice
into white sugar

in these large vessels called vacuum
pan crystallisers.

- How can I help?

- You can start the process off if
you'd like.
- Yes, please.

- If you tell the control room from
this walkie talkie

to charge pan three, that will happen.

- Control room? Do you read me?

Charge pan three. Go!

I added the go bit. Was that wrong?

- That's fine.

- The extraction of sugar crystals
forms the thick juice.

It happens here in six 45,000-litre
pans.

And it's a surprisingly steamy
business.

It's so hot in here, it's like a
sauna.

Why is it so hot?

- What we're doing is we're actually
boiling our thick juice

to remove the water

so that we can get the sugar crystals
to crystallise.

- But it can't get too hot inside the
pans

or the sugar crystals would be ruined.

So it's cooked in an unusual way.

- You do this under a very low
pressure,

so all of our pans are connected to a
vacuum system,

and the vacuum actually sucks out all
of the air inside the pan.

- The vacuums reduce air pressure to a
level

that allows the thick juice to boil at
70

rather than 100 degrees Celsius.

Why do you do that? Why not just boil
it at 100 degrees?

- The main reason is actually because
the hotter our thick juice is,

the more colour it forms,

and we are trying to make the purest,
whitest sugar.

So by doing it at a lower temperature,

we're able to do that easier.

- The juice thickens in the pans for
three hours.

As the water evaporates,

it forces the sugar that is dissolved
in it

to solidify into crystals.

Kind of.

I don't want to be rude, but you took
a lot of effort

to make sure it wasn't brown,

and, um, it's really, really, really
brown.

- Yeah, the crystals themselves that
are in there

are a perfect, pearly white.

- What is the stuff that you don't
want?

- So it's leftover liquid from the
first boiling process.

It will go for some further process
and eventually end up as molasses.

- Molasses, or black treacle, is often
used in baking,

but we are not making a sticky toffee
pudding.

So what you really want in here is the
white crystal sugar.

- That's right. We just have to
separate out the liquid that's left.

- You're gonna need some very small
tweezers.

- No, we've got some big machines
called centrifuges in front of us,

which do that for us.

You can start one if you want.

- Can I kick it off?
- Yeah.

If you just want to push this button
here.
- OK.

Three, two, one.

There it goes.

The centrifuge is like a high-tech
washing machine.

It spins the thick syrup around at a
rate

of 1,050 rotations per minute,

and a screen of stainless steel mesh
with 0.8 millimetre holes

sifts out the brown liquid, leaving
just solid sugar crystals behind.

Look at that.

Why does it need to be so fast?

- It really needs to generate a lot of
force

just to separate the sugar from the
liquor in there.

When they're spinning at their top
speeds

and they're fully charged with sugar,

they've got the same amount of energy

as a family sized car travelling at
200mph.

- Nothing about this process is small.

- No, it's all pretty big scale.

- These four huge centrifuges take
about three minutes

to turn the thick liquid into snowy
white sugar crystals,

churning out a whopping 1,700 tons of
sugar every single day.

But after all that spinning, it still
contains about 1% water,

and removing that requires one more
magical machine.

Wow!

Oh, my goodness!

It is as close to Willy Wonka's
factory as I think I've ever got.

That is a sugar waterfall.

- It is.

So this is our granulator.

What we've got is sugar coming in one
end wet

and travelling down the drum with
heated air

being blown back through it.

That air is picking up the rest of the
moisture

that's left in the crystal from our
centrifuges.

And at the end of this, out comes
powdery white sugar.

- Once cooled, it's stored in a silo
for a minimum of 48 hours

before it's finally ready.

This whole city-like factory is to get
this.

- Yeah. That is the sugar that started
in the beet.

- Amazing.

The effort that goes into making sugar
is mind-blowing.

Every week, this vast refinery

produces up to 11,500 tonnes of white
sugar,

and three truckloads of it make their
way

to Gregg's factory just for his mints.

GREGG: At the factory, 28 tonnes of
beet sugar

is pumped into a mega silo,

and then piped to the extruding room,

where I'm going to meet up with Mark.

This space is huge.

At 16 metres high, it could fit a
three-storey building in it.

Mark.
- Hiya, Gregg.

- Mate, this seems massive for a tiny
little mint.

What goes on here?

- Well, that sugar that was pumped
into our silo earlier, Gregg,

that's transported to a mill at the
top of this room.

- Where exactly is the mill?

Is it that one there on the left?

- It's the one just behind that one on
the left.

- Well, it looks like the overweight
robot.

What does the mill do?

- Well, the sugar in its current state
is 0.5 of a millimetre.

It isn't refined enough.

And we need to mill it even further

to get it down to 0.1 of a millimetre.

- What's that like a fine, fine flour?

- It's, yes, because it's not refined
enough,

it will create a grainy product,

and it won't stick together properly.

So we need to refine it down even
further to make a strong product.

- So is that a bit like a pepper
grinder,

it's grinding down the pepper into a
dust?

- That's correct, yes.

It just helps keep the product smooth

and taste better in your mouth.

- As soon as my sugar is milled to a
particle size of 0.1 millimetres,

it drops down to combine with a plant
based lubricant

to stop it sticking in the pipes as it
moves around the factory.

Then it's pumped to an extruder,

where it's also mixed with a binding
agent

made from corn starch, water and
glucose syrup.

Fabulous. All right.

So we've got the fine milled sugar.

We've got the binding agent.

Now what's happening?

- Well, inside our extruder,

there's an Archimedes screw that
oscillates, and rotates

and mixes everything together.

- My sweetie mixture is spinning at a
rate of 250 rotations per minute

and is heated to 90 degrees,

until 45 seconds later,

something magical appears.

That's snow!

You've made edible snow.

- That's what we call our flakes.

- # Snow is falling... #

- Two tonnes of these sweet, warm
snowflakes,

or dough, are forced out of the
extruder every hour.

You made hot snow!

Which is enough to make a whopping 1.5
million mints.

I would never have imagined that those
little mints

start off looking like this.

Isn't that odd?

It's really light and fragile,

but it's almost like a hot, sticky
powder.

- It is, yes.

- It's a little bit like the inside of
a chewy mint.

The big question, right, the holes.

So once you get it like that, you kind
of

force your finger through it to make
the hole in the middle?

- I think if we made them all like
that, Gregg, we'd never sell any.

But we will show you later.

- My sticky dough flakes now ski
uphill on a three-metre conveyor

before tobogganing into another of
Mark's marvellous machines.

- This is our granulator, Gregg.

This is where our dough comes down and
we create our smaller granules.

- You're breaking it down into even
smaller bits.

- We are, yes.
- Why would you do that?

- It's how it makes the product
stronger.

We've just stopped our machine, so I
can show you if you like.

- Yeah, yeah, please.

The granulator is a large metal
sieve...

Ah!

..with four-millimetre holes.

A mechanical arm rotates 90 times a
minute,

crushing my dough flakes into smaller
granules.

It's like little sweeteners.

Why do you still want lumps in it?

- Well, think of our dough as a brick
wall.

You need your bricks and you need your
cement,

otherwise, you can't make a good,
strong wall.

So we make the granules the different
sizes

to help create that strong mint.

- So my sweets are a feat of sugary
structural engineering.

That's a brilliant explanation, I
perfectly understand.

I've just never considered a mint like
a brick wall.

- Well, you learn something new every
day, Gregg.

- # All in all you're just another
brick in the wall. #

- My building blocks of sugar have
been reduced to granules

smaller than four millimetres

and are pumped to the drying room,

into an even bigger stainless steel
machine.

What?!

Tending to this monster is process and
product expert

Alison Stancliffe.

Alison. Do you know what it looks like
to me?

It looks like an enormous great drill.

You know, the thing that bore out the
space for the Channel Tunnel?

- Yeah.
- That's what it looks like to me.
Look at it.

Help me. What is that?

- So this is a dryer.

So it's really important

that we get the right moisture content
in our sweets.

Because if it's too wet, it won't
press to form the right shape.

And if it's too dry, it will be quite
brittle.

And if you think about how you eat the
sweet,

we want it to last, be nice and smooth

and last a long time in your mouth.

- So you spend all your time getting
it

as sticky and as gooey as you can.

And then you try and take most of the
sticky and the gooey out.

- Absolutely, cos it makes the perfect
sweet.

- Well, it makes...in your opinion.

I like humbugs.

Can I have a look in there?
- Of course you can.

- Oh, I see!

Ten tubes are encased in this
eight-metre long dryer.

As it slowly rotates,

each tube collects the sugar granules
that fall directly

into the dryer from the granulator
upstairs.

Air that's been heated to 55 degrees

is pumped into the dryer from the
opposite end.

The granules tumble towards the hot
air through the tubes,

which are positioned at a precise
angle of 3.83 degrees,

controlling the speed and ensuring
that they dry thoroughly.

When my batch reaches the end,

the moisture level in the granules
should have dropped

from 0.9% to 0.5.

And after 22 minutes, it's time to see
if the dryer has done its job.

- There's our sample of granules.

- So we're off to do one of 30
moisture checks

the factory must do every day.

- Right. We're going to go and get
that measured now.

- This machine here measures your
moisture.

- It does.
- Come on in, shall we?
- We shall.

So what we do is we put 5g of granules
on the tray.

- The machine weighs it.

Then the metal plate below the sample
is heated by infrared waves.

- It extracts the moisture out of the
granules

at a temperature of 105 degrees C for
two minutes.

They need to be less than 0.5%
moisture to make our mint.

- Then it's weighed again, and with
some clever maths,

we can work out if my sugar granules

have the correct percentage of
moisture.

If my sample fails this test,

every granule of my batch must be
recycled,

and we'll have to start all over
again.

To pass, it must contain less than
0.5% moisture.

- And you can see there, that's
finished. It's 0.33.

- Ah!

Well done.

Can I see our sample?

- 'Course you can.
- Cos I saw it when it went in.

Cos the last time I saw this, it was,
it was actually quite moist.

Oh, wow.

Well, that's dry like salt.

Right.

Now, we now know that our dried mix is
dry enough.

- Yep.
- So what do we now do?

- So now we need to add some mint oil,

and then we have to make it into the
sweets.

- Brilliant. We're going to make it
wet again.
- A little bit.

- You take dry things, make it wet,

and then work really hard to make it
dry again,

to make it wet again, after.

- Something like that.
- Are you sure you thought this
through properly?!

Allison assures me that my sugar is
perfectly dry

and the right texture to provide a
strong structure for my mint.

So it's finally ready for the
all-important flavour.

We all know what mint tastes like,

but how do you get that strong flavour
from a little green plant?

Cherry has gone to find out.

CHERRY: Many of us love mint.

It grows at a prodigious rate in our
gardens,

but cultivating it in the UK as a
commercial crop

is surprisingly difficult.

To find out why, I'm meeting Joe
Colman

on his 100-acre peppermint farm in
Hampshire,

one of only a handful still growing it
here.

Hi, Joe. Lovely to meet you.
- Hi, Cherry. Lovely to have you here.

- I really appreciate you're wearing a
mint-coloured shirt.

- Thank you. Well, I thought it would
be rude not to.

- So is this the same mint that I grow
in my garden?

- Cherry, no, this is peppermint.

So what you've probably got in your
garden is spearmint.

- There are more than 600 varieties of
mint.

Garden spearmint grows well,

but delivers a milder flavour than the
more picky peppermint,

which contains 40% menthol,

the chemical compound that gives it
its zingy taste.

What are you going to make with this
peppermint?

- So we can do, really, two things
from it.

We can take the leaf and make it into
nice peppermint tea,

but we can also extract it for oil.

- The oil can be added to chocolates
and fragrances,

but the variety of peppermint that Joe
farms to get it,

Black Mitcham, is hard to grow.

Why is it so tricky?

- You've got a whole combination of
factors.

You've got a mint plant that roots
about an inch into the soil.

So it's very temperamental if the
conditions aren't right.

- Plants with short roots

can only absorb water near the surface
of the soil,

which dries out much more quickly than
deep soil,

so they need to be watered a lot.

Why have you chosen to grow a mint
that's really difficult to grow?

- It's the smell and the flavour that
you get from Black Mitcham.

So if you rub that flower head at the
top,

you get this brilliant, strong smell.

But if you rub the leaves,

you've got this different kind of
sweeter,

lighter notes that come through.

And that's what makes Black Mitcham so
special.

It's the whole package that this plant
gives us.

- But is that hit of minty fragrance
worth it?

And guess what?

This high-maintenance plant has to be
harvested carefully, too.

So I'm lending a hand.

All aboard Derrick Oliver's
multistorey machine.

Holy Moley.

It's like an apartment block.

- Give it a good slam.

- The peppermint has already been
carefully cut

by a tractor-drawn mower.

Next, it needs to be picked up and
processed within 24 hours,

or too much of the mint oil from the
flowers and leaves will evaporate.

It's the first time I've seen a
tractor like this.

Do you call it a tractor?
- It's a forager.

- It's a forager.
- A forager.

- It's not a combine harvester. It is
not a tractor.
- It's a forager.

This machine would normally be used on
grass,

but we're using the same technology,

just that we're not chopping the mint

as fine as you would chop grass.

- Are you saying that this is a
gigantic lawnmower?

- Well, not really, no.

- Derek's forager gathers up the mint
into a drum

where 40 knives chop it into 4cm
pieces,

before shooting it out into his
trailer.

That's it? It's like a mint smoothie.

- Yeah, it's a bit like a mint
smoothie. Yeah.

- It takes just 30 minutes to cut and
collect three tonnes of peppermint.

And so the valuable oil can be
extracted as quickly as possible,

it's all done on site by Joe's farm
manager, Ian Margetts.

Ian, lovely to meet you.
- And you, Cherry.

- So, where do we off-load it?
- Well, that's the thing.

We don't have to off-load it,

cos these trailers have got a special
trick up their sleeves.

Just watch this.

- The mint never leaves this high-tech
trailer.

Instead, a pipe connected to it blasts
the herb

with scorching 170-degree steam.

And the leaves luxuriate here for four
hours.

So how does it work?

How do you cook mint in a lorry?

- The peppermint plant that you
brought in,

each one of those leaves, the
underside of it

is covered in little oil capsules.

You can't see them with the naked eye.
And they contain the oil.

We use the steam to break them down,
and it turns it into a vapour.

- The mint vapour, or gas, then passes
through a condenser,

is cooled and turns back into a
liquid.

A bit like when steam from your kettle
hits a cold window

and turns back into water.

Look at this. It looks like a mad
science experiment.

- Pretty much is.

- Except here, what we end up with is
pure peppermint oil.

- Would you like to try a little bit
of the menthol?

And then if you just put your tip of
your finger in there and taste it.

But it is very, very strong.

That's plenty.
- It's not mucking about, is it, this
stuff?

Cor!

Oh! Ooh!

My mouth is on fire.

My eyes are starting to water.

That is so powerful.

- It is. You're getting a real hit of
menthol.

You've got 40% menthol in there.

And that is why you don't use
peppermint in your new potatoes.

That's why you use garden mint,
spearmint.

- Nearly half of peppermint oil is
made up of menthol,

so you may not want it on your spuds,

but it's the perfect pick if you need
a little to go a long way

when making minty products on a large
scale.

I mean, it's magical stuff.

- It really is.

- So maybe pernickety peppermint is
worth the hassle after all.

GREGG: I'm 30 minutes into production,

and my sugar granules have been tumble
dried

to the perfect moisture for mint
making.

Oh, wow.

Well, that's dry like salt.
- Yep.

- We're ready for the essential taste
bud tingling ingredient.

So I'm heading to the mint room to
meet quality manager Rachel.

Hello. Wow.

That is extraordinary!

That's like walking into an air
freshener.

I mean, that is a cloud of mint.

- Yeah! This is where the peppermint
oil is stored.

- These 180-kilo barrels of
concentrated peppermint oil

come from America, where most of the
world's mint is grown.

I don't suppose you know, do you,

how many individual mints would a
barrel make?

- Each barrel can make up to 40
million sweets.

- Extraordinary.

Hang on a minute. How much of those do
you go through?

- I go through about three barrels
every week,

and each barrel costs about £6,000.

- HE GASPS

Each one of those drums is about six
grand.
- That's it.

- This hefty price tag is because

it takes a whopping 200 million mint
leaves to make just one barrel.

So what are you going to do with these
barrels?

- We're going to put a pump in the
barrel

and the barrel is going to pump the
oil into a holding vessel here.

This is then pumped into the holding
tank in the press room,

where it's added to the sugar mix.

- Is there any way that I can help you
connect it up?

- Yeah. Let's give it a go.

- Do I have to get dressed up like
you?

- Yes, you do, I'm afraid.

Peppermint oil is extremely hazardous
in big quantities.

It's also a skin irritant, so you need
to wear protective gear.

- Do you reckon I might be putting too
much on my roast lamb?

- Only in large quantities, Gregg.
Don't worry.

- Well, no, I do have lamb in large
quantities.

I obviously need to cut back on my
chops.

But the level of essential oils in the
concentrated mint blend

is so high that it could harm my soft
TV presenter's skin.

So I do need the right gear.

I've got, like, a space helmet and an
abattoir smock.

I'm like Darth Butcher.

- That's a new superhero.
- Right.

Now, what do we do?

- We're going to put this pump into
the barrel,

and then all we need to do is press
the button, and it's good to go.

- I got dressed up like this to press
a button?

I got dressed up like this to press a
button?

- I'm afraid so, Gregg.
- One of us is daft.

- We can't be too careful.
- Right. OK.

At no risk of irritation, to my skin
at least,

a 160-centimetre-long pump uses five
bars of pressure

to suck up the oil.

Oh, it's massive.

- Sorry, Gregg.

And put that in there.

- £6,000 worth of mint?

- Absolutely.
- You ready?
- Ready.

Just release the air.

- And now it's making the sound like
Darth Vader.

- That's it. The oil going into the
holding vessel,

ready for production.

- I'm pleased, at least I didn't get
all dressed up for nothing.

Right. Can I take these clothes off
now, then?

- I'm afraid not, Gregg. We need it
for the next bit.

- All right.

So, do they deliver the holes soon?

- Here we are.
- Up there?
- Up here.

- My mint oil is flowing towards the
production line

and its first stop is upstairs

at the intensely fragrant mixing zone.

This whole place has just got an
almost pine-like smell to it.

I mean, so much, it almost makes your
eyes water, doesn't it?

- Absolutely.

- It may be the best-smelling factory
I've ever been in.

- I'll take that, Gregg.

- The mint oil doesn't just smell
strong,

it has an intensely overpowering
flavour,

which is why it has to be added very
carefully to my granules.

- So here we've got 500g of sugar
granules from the dryer.

That equates to about 340 mints.

How much peppermint oil do you think
we need to put in the bowl?

- Well, I'm guessing, like, one of
these.

- Not quite.

- Just 1.3g flavours this whole bowl
of sugar.

Yeah, that's a ludicrously minuscule
amount, isn't it?

I mean, it's hardly, like, hardly
there.

In fact, so little is needed,

only 0.29% of each individual mint is
made up of peppermint oil.

That is a strong peppermint.
- And that's what we want.

- That may be one of the strongest
flavours I've ever experienced.

- Some strong stuff there.
- Absolutely.

Good job I'm dressed as a superhero.

Now, 104g of this powerful peppermint

is piped into ten giant mixers,

along with 50kg of my sugar granules

sent into each one directly from the
dryer.

Right. So if I could open up the
mixer, what would I see?

- There's metal paddles which move the
ingredients together.

- So how long does that take?

- Only 90 seconds.

- That's quick. That's ridiculous.

Why so fast?

- Because the peppermint oil is so
strong

and the flavour is so intense,

and the granules pick up the flavour
really quickly,

it doesn't take long at all.

- So how many mints would that make,
do you know?

- That would make just under 41,000
mints.

- And you've got ten of them going at
once?

- And we do that 80 times a day.

- So how many mints are you making a
day?

- That's just about 32 million sweets.

- 32 million individual mints every
single day.

- That's right.

- You don't really put holes in them,
do you?

- We'll find out in the next step.

- Surely they can't keep me in
suspense for much longer.

Most of us have had a mint to freshen
our breath,

but a quick gargle with mouthwash
works well too.

But that minty liquid in your bathroom
cabinet

has a very murky history, as Ruth has
been finding out.

RUTH: In 1864, the English countryside
looked idyllic

but didn't always smell that great.

The whiff was caused by raw sewage
that was being dumped into pastures,

making the grazing cattle ill.

Farmers tackle the problem with
carbolic acid

extracted from coal tar,

which had helped to eradicate rot in
wood caused by bacteria.

And an influential medic got wind of
their incredible results.

British surgeon Joseph Lister heard
that carbolic acid

had completely neutralised the foul
smell,

and moreover, that the cows were no
longer getting sick.

And he wondered, could this also work
in his operating theatre?

Lister's patients were dropping like
flies.

Their infected wounds gave off an
offensive odour,

and he deduced that the cause, as with
the sick cattle,

could be bacteria.

So he sprayed his operating theatre
with the same

bacteria-busting carbolic acid.

And deaths more than halved.

News of Lister's success spread, and
in 1879,

American chemists Joseph Lawrence and
Jordan Wheat Lambert

saw the potential for a milder
anti-bacterial product

that could be used in the home.

Using alcohol instead of carbolic acid
as a base,

they gave their new product a fresh
smell by adding mint,

eucalyptus and thyme.

They called their concoction Listerine

in honour of their hero, Joseph
Lister.

Medical historian Professor Jamie
Starke

has researched how the new product was
pitched to the public.

- In the early days, as you'll see
from the advert,

it was really billed as a catch-all
disinfectant.

It could be used to prevent infection
of cuts and wounds

to keep your teeth and mouth healthy,
as a lotion after shaving,

but they also claimed it could be used
to treat dandruff,

and it was used as a general

all-purpose household cleaner as well.

So, really anything and everything in
the home that you could need.

- By the 1920s, the market was crowded

with competing household disinfectants
and antiseptics.

So to stand out, Listerine needed a
stronger identity.

And an advertising executive called
Gerard Barnes Lambert

had a light bulb moment.

- He was brainstorming with his
brother

to come up with things which Listerine
would be useful for.

And on this list, they picked out on a
very obscure word for bad breath,

halitosis.

And that was the one thing which they
thought they could

bill Listerine as being distinctive in
treating.

- The word "halitosis" has its roots
in Latin and Greek,

so it sounded suitably serious.

- People had always had bad breath,

but halitosis was one thing which they
could make sound

medical and scientific.

They could bill it as a medical
condition which needed addressing.

- And what better to help tackle this
new-found disorder

than a mint-flavoured mouthwash?

How did they communicate this to
people?

- They started a new advertising
campaign

which billed halitosis as the central
reason for buying Listerine.

So if you look at this one from the
1920s...

- Oh, my goodness.

"Halitosis makes you unpopular."
- Yeah.

Absolutely.
- "It is unexcusable. Can be instantly
remedied."

Goodness. This is strong stuff, isn't
it?

- It is. So they're really identifying
halitosis, not just, I suppose,

as a medical condition, but also
something which

it's your social responsibility to
address.
- Right.

I mean, one of the things about bad
breath is that

if you've got it, you probably don't
know you've got it.

Only somebody else can smell it. It's
hard to smell your own breath.

- And in their adverts, they were very
clear that people

wouldn't necessarily be aware that
they had it,

and even that their friends would be
too kind to them.

They wouldn't actually mention it.

- And young women were specifically
targeted

by these mad men of mouthwash

at a time when they were particularly
vulnerable.

- In the 1920s, in the aftermath of
World War I,

there was very widespread social
anxiety about lots of young women

who might be widowed at a young age.
- Less men about.

- That's right. Lots of men have been
killed in the trenches,

and some of their advertising is very
heavily gendered.

- "Often a bridesmaid, never a bride."

Jeepers!
- And Listerine, like many other
products of its day,

tapped into this really fundamental
and deep-seated anxiety

that you would have a society with
lots of ageing spinsters

who had lost the opportunity to start
a family,

to be at the centre of their domestic
life.

- I find this really, really
distasteful.

I'll be honest.
- Yeah. It is.

Yeah, absolutely.

And, of course, if you were at risk of
these disastrous consequences,

there was a very easy solution.

- Of course, Listerine.

Transforming Listerine from an
all-purpose antiseptic

to a product that could eliminate
halitosis

and save people from terrible
loneliness

was a breath of fresh air for the
company's balance sheet, too.

These advertising campaigns boosted
the company's profits by 60 times

in just five years.

But the man who inspired the product
was apparently less than impressed.

For while Joseph Lister's scientific
breakthrough

would go on to save untold thousands
of lives upon the operating table,

his name was attached to a cleverly
marketed product

that treated a much more minor
complaint.

GREGG: Back at the factory in York,

and my mints are 33 minutes into
production.

The concentrated oil and dried sugar
granules have been blended together.

That is a strong peppermint!

And that minty mixture is on its way
to the press hall,

where I hope I'll finally find out

how this famously holey sweet is made.

- And here we are in the press hall.

- What do you want to show me, Rachel?

- The peppermint oil and sugar mixture
that we saw in the mixers

falls down into those two cylinders
there,

that look a bit like trouser legs.

- Yeah, it looks like a robot's
trousers.

Each metal leg has a sieve inside to
make sure

my falling minty powder mix is
lump-free

before it's fed into a mysterious
revolving carousel.

So could this be the moment of truth?

How do they make the mint with a hole
in it?

Do you mould your mint to make the
hole

or do you punch a hole in it?

- We mould it.
- Yay!

I thought you might.

You don't have to make holes at all,
do you?
- We don't.

- All right, yeah, can you show me how
it's done?

- Gregg, do you want to rotate the
punches,

and I can show you how it replicates
the process?

- Yeah, come on, then.

- So as you can see, we've got a punch
on the bottom as well as the top,

and it's that top punch that presses
down on the powder

and moulds it into the mints

and creates the iconic branding on the
sweet.

- We need just 1.5g of my powder mix
to make one individual mint.

- The powder's quite sticky,

and so it's able to be compressed into
that mould

and create that shape.

But it's so sticky, we have to
lubricate the punches once a shift,

to make sure the powder doesn't get
stuck on the stamp.

- So every six hours, a food-safe
lubricant

makes the moulds non-stick.

Well, that's great. I'm turning the
handle,

and they're going up and down.

- You're not doing it fast enough,
it's 78 rpm usually.

- All right, I'm doing my best.

When it's cranked up to full speed,

the punches exert huge downward
pressure

to crush any remaining rough granules
in the mix.

So the force of that is enough to turn
it from just a powder

into something shiny and solid?

- That's right. About eight tonnes is
required to compress the mint,

which is the same weight as a ship's
anchor.

- Hang on a minute, hang on a minute.

Each of those little mints has been
pushed

with the pressure of eight tonnes.

Eight tonnes?
- Yep.

- Exerting this massive pressure
creates friction

which warms, smooths and compacts the
mints,

so they are no longer sticky

as they drop from the press

onto a 60-metre-long system of
conveyor belts.

Whoa!

That's a river of mints.

Look at that!
- A never-ending river.

- # Hold back the river, let me look
in your eyes

# Hold back the river so wide

# And stop for a minute and be by your
side.

# Hold back the river, oh! #

- I almost want to row down it.

That's an impressive sight, isn't it?
- It is.

- So, how many is coming past my eyes?

- We've got ten presses in here,

each making 3,500 sweets per minute.

That's 35,000 every minute.

- 35,000 a minute.

You won't miss one, then, would you?

Am I allowed to?
- Go on, have a taste.

- They're still warm.

It feels like I'm having one from a
packet I've been sat on.

- We've just had one hot off the
press,

so that's why it's still a bit warm.

- Can we stick another one in the
fridge?

Hang on a minute. Why would you make
it into a ring

and not just, like, a solid mint?

- So the mint is inspired by the US
brand "Life Savers".

They replicate a life-saving rubber
ring.

- Is that right?
- That's right.
- Brilliant!

Where does the word "Polo" come from?

- So the name "Polo" comes from polar,

which references the fresh taste and
flavour of mint.

- They're having a giggle with that
name, aren't they?

- No, that's facts.

- Who signed off on that one?

Is that right? Now, can we send them
to the wrappers now?

- Not just yet. We've just got to do
some quality checks

before we're comfortable sending them
to the wrappers.

- 23 randomly picked sweets are
checked every hour...

- Do you want to take a sample and
we'll go?

- Grab some from that one.

..to make sure these mighty little
mints

can retain their newly formed shape.

- This is our texture analyser,

which is measuring the strength of the
sweet.

The perfect mint should be able to
withstand

6kg of pressure.

- That's quite a bit.

- It needs to withstand the pressures
of the wrapping machines

as well as being transported to the
supermarket.

- So what's it going to do? Squeeze
it?

- That's right.
- And then record the amount of
pressure?
- That's right.

- But what happens if your mint can't
withstand six kilos of pressure?

- Then that's a big problem, and it
can stop production.

It means we have to alter the
consistency of the powder

back at the beginning of the process.

- Right, so this is a big challenge.

- So if you want to put the sweet
there

in between the metal plate and the
rods.
- Like that?
- That's it.

Close the plastic cap, and then it
will do the rest.

- # I've got the power. #

- Let's go.

Strong mint, strong mint, strong mint.

Whoa! That one broke at nine!

This is fun.

Right, let's torture another one.

Let's see what... The record is nine.
- Nine.

Can we beat it?
- Can we beat nine?

- Yes, it did, 9.32.

- Yeah, look at that!

That is one tough mint.

- So the fact that it goes up to 6kg
shows that we've got

good distribution of particle size
within the sweet.

- All that milling, binding, mixing
and drying has paid off.

And my particle size is perfect.

I knew it would be.

That is fantastic.

That is one of the best tests I've
ever seen in any factory ever.

But there's one more test that I want
to try.

There's a game, apparently, where you
can see how long

you can make the mint last in your
mouth.
- Right. OK.

- Up for a challenge?
- Absolutely!

- Go on, then.

One, two, three.

Careful.

I have to be careful.

Right, you do that. Where am I going
now?

- To the wrapping hall!
- Wrapping hall.

- See you, Gregg.

- Mint has a very distinctive taste.

So why aren't all minty products
exactly the same?

Cherry's been finding out

just how adaptable this humble herb
can be.

CHERRY: So many of the groceries in
our shopping basket

pack the zingy punch of mint
freshness.

So, how do manufacturers make so many
different flavours?

Omega Ingredients in East Anglia
creates flavourings

from natural ingredients to provide
the tastes and smells

for hundreds of products.

And the man who sniffs them out is
master flavourist Steve Pearce.

Hello, Steve. Lovely to meet you.
- Cherry, nice to see you.

- So, how do you become a master
flavourist?

- Well, Cherry, it takes a bit of
time.

If you think that there's roughly
about 12,000 materials

identified as being responsible for
the aroma and flavour of food,

there's no short cut to this.

You've got to taste.

You've got to put things in
combination and work with them.

You've got to smell.

- Have you insured your nose?

- Yes, it's insured for a lot of
money.

Three million pounds.
- Three million pounds!

Steve's sensational senses have
created minty essences

for chocolates, chewing gums and
mouthwashes.

And that's not easy because the
ingredients

that make up the flavours of our
favourite products

are surprisingly complicated.

- Peppermint typically is around about
150 components in there

that lead to the degree of fruitiness,
sweetness, sharpness,

floral character, and they're all
important

to having a quality mint flavour.

- So when I have something that tastes
of mint,

I just recognise that mint flavour.

But you're saying you have to break
that particular flavour

into its components?
- Yeah.

- Is it as complicated as, say, making
a new perfume?

- This is far more complicated than
making a perfume.

For one thing, we're working entirely
with natural materials,

and most fragrances are made almost
entirely of artificial materials.

- Today, Steve will be helping me to
conjure-up something rather special.

I want to make my own flavoured sweet,

and the client brief is very simple.

I would like Cherry's Mints to take
someone's breath away,

be really exciting, just like me.

- Of course, we can do that.

- 90% of what we perceive as flavour

actually comes from our ability to
smell.

And that's down to a piece of tissue
at the top of our noses

called our olfactory epithelium.

It's directly connected to the
emotional

and memory centres of our brain,

which can decipher if we like what
we're smelling.

So I need to sniff out the best minty
flavours for my sweets,

and there's quite a few to choose
from.

- First of all, there are 25 different
varieties of peppermint,

and it grows pretty much all over the
world.

- Different peppermints also have
different levels of menthol,

the chemical component in the plant

that gives a fresh zing in the mouth.

And the intensity of the menthol
depends on the conditions

in the country where it's grown.

- Menthol is much higher in the mints
from India and China, so 85%,

whereas in the USA it would be 50% to
65%.

We're going to start with some Indian
peppermint oil.

- That's lovely. Ah, it's gorgeous.

OK.
- So we'll have some of that.

Then we're going to have the quality
of the flavour

from some American Midwest, and that's
very full,

so just be careful with that.

- Oh, I don't like that.
- OK.
- Ooh!

Too overpowering for the more

delicate flavours I want in my sweets.

Do you have to add menthol quite
carefully?

- Yes, you do. So you might want a
bigger hit, say, in a mouthwash,

for example, or a toothpaste,

or even a touch in chewing gum, but in
your confectionery,

you may just want to control that a
bit better.

- So we've created a mild minty liquid
base flavour for my sweet

and are ready to add some additional
complementary flavours.

To do this, we've been granted access

to Steve's inner sensory sanctum.

What is this magical place?

- So this is our applications lab,

and here are about 5,000 flavours to
choose from.

- This is absolutely amazing.

There's almost every flavour under the
sun.

Butterscotch, lemon, almond, beer,
strawberry, hibiscus.

Look at all these! Tiramisu!

This is extraordinary. Did your team
create all of these?

- Yes, we did.

- But I need to stick to the brief

and find some cherry flavours for my
mint.

- It's here somewhere.
- Oh, there's one.
- OK.

- Ooh, that packs a punch.

This says, "I am here."

These complementary flavours boost the
blend.

They're ingredients with the same
chemical element,

and when they're brought together,

they become a match made in taste
heaven.

- So if you smell eucalyptus, for
example,

it has some common components with the
mints we've already used,

so it will work well with that.

Thyme is complementary,

because we have those green herby
notes in there already.

We might even add materials in here

to make it difficult for a competitor
to copy your product.

- So you make it purposefully
complicated?

- Yes.

- Finally, my unique flavour blend is
added to sugar and water

and shaped into test sweets, which are
then set before tasting.

So if this was a hit, what would I do
now?

- So we'd make maybe a small batch in
the lab or the factory.

We'd get some product out there for
consumer research,

get some feedback,

and then it would be gung ho, tonnes
being made in the factory,

shipping it around the world for
manufacturing.

- So, has my mint got what it takes to
be a global brand?

Or will Steve crush my sweet dreams?

- Cheers.

- It's not very cherry-ish. It's
swamped.

- Yeah. The cherry flavour has been
swamped by the sugar in the fondant.

Sweetness now drives the perception of
flavour,

enhances some parts, depresses others.

It's quite minty.

So you've achieved that.

- Tick.
- Yeah. Tick that out. Yeah.

- When shall I come and work for you?

I'm not going to give up my day job.

Goodbye, mint.

GREGG: At the factory, I'm 38 minutes
into production.

My mints have been moulded into
shape...

You don't have to make holes at all,
do you?
- We don't.

- ..and face the ultimate test of
strength.

Whoa! That is one tough mint.

Now, they're flowing to the wrapping
hall

on a 44m sky-high conveyor

that wraps around this 1,600 square
metre space,

before dropping down to meet process
operator Andrew Ross.

Hello.
- Hello, Gregg.

- Wow.

Now, that's fantastic!

How many are going through here,
Andrew?

- 155 tubes every minute coming
through each one of these.

- How does that work?

- So this is one of ten wrapping legs
that we have.

They're all fed from one main conveyor

from the press hall, where you've just
been.

- Every hour, 2.1 million freshly
pressed mints

circulate on the conveyor,

as they wait to be called to a hopper

that feeds the wrapping legs, or
stations, beneath.

- An arm opens and sweeps in, sweeps
off the main conveyor.

There'll be a few thousand come in at
a time.

- Superb. Superb.

- As they come in, they come across
this vibrating sieve,

which filters out any broken ones.

- How does it do that?

- Literally holes just the right size.

Just small enough that the full one
can go across.

- Brilliant.

Once they've hurtled down these
vibrating rapids,

the machine drops the sweets into a
23-lane conveyor,

forcing them to stand upright between
metal walls.

They are marching, aren't they?

They are regimented, and they are
marching.

- This is how we like to see it.

They're stood up into a row of 23
across here.

- Oh, each line is a tube?

- Each line of that is one tube line.

- As they parade down the conveyor,

the lanes become narrower,

before merging and then falling away
completely,

leaving rows of exactly 23 sweets
ready for wrapping.

- There's a little arm inside there
that lifts each row of sweets up.

- And then what? First the foil and
then the paper?

- Foil and paper go on together.

- A series of cogs feed aluminium foil

and the wrapping paper into the
machine,

where a 12cm knife cuts them into
11x8cm strips.

Then both sheets are wrapped around
the mints at the same time.

The foil is tightly secured inside the
wrapper,

to keep my minty flavours locked
inside the packet.

And then, what, do you stick it
together...?

What's the glue?

- It's called Arabic gum.

- And what is that?

- That is the dried sap from two
different kinds of acacia tree.

- The factory uses 40 kilos of this
super-sticky sap every month.

Why don't you just have a pot of glue,
like anybody else would?

- The mint oil is that strong that
it'll degrade the glue,

and then everything will come unstuck.

- HE CHUCKLES

Naughty little mint.

Essential oils like mint can break
down oil-based glues.

But my Arabic gum is water-based, so
it won't budge.

A mind-boggling 1,550 securely wrapped
rolls

come off the production line every
minute.

May I?
- Help yourself.

- I'm keeping these. I'm going to put
them on my shelf in my office.

I saw that start as a lorry load of
sugar.

The rolls are carried to the packing
area,

where a hydraulic arm sucks up 24
rolls at a time,

and then drops them into boxes.

They're given a protective plastic
covering

before riding a roller-coaster
conveyor

to their final destination at the
factory.

- So, here we are on dispatch.

- You still stack them by hand.
- Still stack everything by hand.

- I've helped with loads of tests
during my time here.

So as we count down to loading the
lorry,

it's time to set Andrew one of my own.

Right. How good are you at numbers?

- I'm pretty good at numbers.
- Are you?
- Yep.

- You have the swagger of a confident
man. Right.

How many boxes on a pallet?
- 705 on one of these pallets.

- Right. How many pallets do you get
in a truck?

- On each truck, you'll get 18
pallets, total.

- And how often does a truck leave
here?

- We go through around about three
trucks a day, every day.

- Really?
- So that's just over ten million
sweets per truck.

That's over 32 million sweets per day.

- Your numbers are really impressive.

- It's a lot of sweets.

- Andrew passes with flying colours,

and that mind-boggling amount of
marvellous mints

are on their way to freshen the breath

of people right across the UK,

with Londoners loving them the most.

And they're also destined for shops
across the world,

with Turkey as the biggest fan.

I've been amazed how hard they work
here

to make every tiny mint just right.

From the micro-management of moisture
in the sugar...

You make it wet, and then work really
hard to make it dry again,

to make it wet again, after.
- Something like that.

- ..to the colossal cost of making
them minty.

- Each barrel costs about £6,000.

- And I finally found out how they put
the holes in the middle.

- We mould it.
- Yay!

Result.

But you know what I really love? That
wonderful minty smell.

It's everywhere.