Inside the Factory

Paddy McGuinness explores the secrets of the Original Biscuit Bakers factory in Shropshire to reveal how it makes 100,000 festive gingerbread figures every week in the run-up to Christmas. And it's all hands on deck as he's joined in the factory by co-presenter Cherry Healey. Together, they get stuck into the baking and icing, and following the production of Santa and reindeer biscuits.

The merriment begins outside at the intake area with a delivery of the all-important ground ginger, where Paddy meets managing director Gemma Williams. Then, with a sprinkle of Christmas magic, Paddy and Gemma appear in the mixing area – hair nets on – ready to mix a batch of biscuits. Paddy learns that two types of sugar are used, demerara for a caramelised flavour and granulated sugar for a neutral sweetness. Then, in goes a mix of vegetable oils called shortening, bicarbonate of soda to help the biscuits rise a little and, of course, the ground ginger. They're followed by flour, golden syrup and water before being mixed together to create gingerbread dough.

Gemma loads the dough into a machine, transforming it into one-centimetre-thick sheets, ready to make the gingerbread shapes. Meanwhile, Paddy can't resist wallowing in the Christmas joy of the factory, taking extra time to chat to the staff and even sign some autographs. Next, the sheets of dough travel through a special roller that transforms them into Santa-shaped pieces. And after 25 minutes in the oven, Paddy is able to taste the fruits of his labour.

Now it's time to create the icing which will adorn all the gingerbread figures. And for that, it's over to Cherry, who is helping to make sugar paste icing for Santa's red waistcoat. Cherry meets Steph to learn how icing sugar, xanthan gum and sugar gum are mixed together, along with a food colouring called Christmas red, to create a firm paste. The icing is then rolled out and stamped into waistcoat-shaped pieces before being stuck onto Santa's biscuit body.

Back with Paddy, he and Gemma are in the heart of the factory, the busy icing room, where Paddy gets a crash course in how to pipe runny royal icing onto the Santa biscuits. With the eyes of the staff on him, he's under pressure to create Santa's hands, eyes and eyebrows. He's never known stress like it, and it doesn't help that Cherry is watching on too!

Then it's Cherry's turn to ice by hand the reindeer figures – she concedes she shouldn't have mocked Paddy's attempt! Luckily, the factory's team of highly skilled professionals make quick work of decorating their biscuits perfectly every time. Once the icing has dried, every biscuit is packed, loaded into boxes and stacked onto pallets ready to leave the factory. Then it's outside for Paddy to watch a lorry full of 100,000 gingerbread figures leave the factory, destined for the stockings of well-behaved biscuit lovers everywhere.

Elsewhere in the episode, Cherry learns how to make it snow indoors, visiting a ski centre in Milton Keynes, where a huge snow cannon creates a winter wonderland. And she perfects the art of Christmas present wrapping with the help of mathematician Bobby Seagull. Meanwhile, historian Ruth Goodman settles in for a special message from history for peace on earth with British astronaut Helen Sharman.

Paddy McGuinness explores the secrets of the Jammie Dodgers factory in south Wales, revealing how they produce a whopping 4.4 billion biscuits a year.

In this episode, Paddy is in great spirits as he gets to know the factory staff, many of whom have worked there for decades. At this site, which has been making biscuits since 1939, Paddy's following the production of an icon in the biscuit world, the Jammie Dodger!

First up, Paddy meets head of R&D Gemma James and shift operations manager Jamie Caswell, who are weighing out some of the key ingredients for the biscuits, including a raising agent and a powder which acts as a butter replacement. But starting as he means to go on, Paddy wants to know an important fact: what do they dunk their biscuits into? To his mock horror, Gemma reveals it's a cup of herbal tea!

Paddy and Gemma head to the mixing area, just in time to see a huge lump of biscuit dough exit an industrial mixer. The dough is transported to the biscuit-moulding area of the factory, where Paddy meets general manager Rebecca Phillips. But before he discovers how the biscuits are made, it's the same dunking question for Rebecca! This time, Paddy is delighted with her answer: ‘a strong cup of tea'. To make the biscuit sandwich, she tells him that a huge brass roller creates 2,880 Jammie Dodger tops and bottoms every minute.

With the freshly moulded biscuits making their way through the factory, Paddy's taking the time to chat to members of staff, including a lady who has worked at the factory for an astonishing 30 years. Meanwhile, the biscuits travel through an epic conveyor oven, the length of eight double-decker buses, and after just eight minutes, they emerge a beautiful golden brown. Paddy can't resist having a taste – delicious, even without the jam, he says.

To sort the ingredient that the Jammie Dodger is famous for, Paddy and factory manager Rebecca stop off at the ‘depositor', where precisely 4.8 grams of smooth, raspberry-flavoured jam is dolloped onto the bottom half of every biscuit. Then, almost immediately, small vacuum cups lift and place the top halves to make the perfect jam sandwich. Paddy is given a very special taste, something his six-year-old self would have loved: biting into a warm Dodger straight off the line. He's in biscuit heaven!

Paddy follows the finished biscuits through the vast factory and watches as they're wrapped in packs of eight and travel on towards the packing department. There, Rebecca has a challenge for him – helping Jenny put the packets into boxes ready to leave the factory. Jenny has worked at the factory for over 34 years and even met her husband there. She makes the process of precisely placing the packs of biscuits into boxes look easy, but as Paddy finds out with hilarious consequences, it's anything but. Jumping ship, he leaves Jenny and her colleagues to clean up his mess and follows his biscuits to the dispatch area, where half a million jammy biscuits get loaded onto the back of a lorry and leave the site. Every day, four or five lorries leave the factory, which is capable of producing 2.2 million Dodgers a day.

Elsewhere in the episode, Cherry is astonished as she and a former Great British Bake Off contestant test which biscuit, scientifically speaking, is best for dunking. And she heads to a bakery near Leeds to learn how luscious marshmallows are made. Meanwhile, historian Ruth Goodman reveals how a million women risked their lives during the Second World War to provide a brew and biscuit where it was needed most. And she visits the site of an old biscuit factory, revealing a remarkable old film from 1906, showing how the factory in ‘Biscuit Town' in London produced hundreds of millions of biscuits a year.

Paddy McGuinness explores the secrets of the McCain factory near Scarborough to reveal how it cuts, fries and freezes 80 million chips a day. Today, he's following production of their best seller, the straight cut frozen Home Chips.

Of course, when it comes to making chips, the main ingredient is potatoes. And as Paddy steps out to the delivery yard, a lorry full of 28 tonnes of them has just arrived. Welcoming in one of up to 70 lorry loads that the factory receives a day is operations manager Mike Hartnett. He tells Paddy that on the back of the lorry is a special variety of potato called ‘Daisy', which is perfect for making chips. And on the back of one lorry are enough potatoes to make 1.7 million chips! Paddy can't quite get his head around the sheer numbers involved at this factory, and he's even more blown away when Mike tells him that it'll only take two hours to transform this load of spuds into frozen chips!

After passing a series of rigorous tests to check they have the correct starch content, the potatoes snake their way through the enormous factory on a series of conveyor belts. Half an hour into the process, Paddy is keen to find out more about Mike, asking him what condiment he prefers on his chips. To his horror, Mike tells him brown sauce! Wishing he hadn't asked, Paddy follows Mike and the spuds through a series of washers which remove stones and soil. Then it's on to the peeler, where Paddy leaves ‘Brown Sauce Mike' behind and meets production director Ashley Bowsley. To Paddy's amazement, Ashley tells him that they use an advanced steam peeling method which ‘explodes' the skin off the potato, minimising waste.

The next important production step is another hi-tech one. Instead of parboiling the potatoes to soften them, as you might do at home, they travel through a Pulsed Electric Field machine. Paddy learns that it sends electric pulses into the water that the spuds travel through, which softens them ready for cutting into chips. He states, ‘the amount of stuff what goes on with a humble chip in here is amazing.' And it doesn't end there, as the spuds travel through a cutting machine at 60 miles per hour, flying through a series of blades which transform them into chips. The result is spectacular, as Paddy sees 1.7 million chips cascade down a chip waterfall every hour. Just 67 minutes into the production process, he gets his hands on a chip.

The freshly-cut chips travel along huge conveyor belts from one hi-tech machine to another, and Paddy and Ashley are hot on their heels. The next process is another surprise: battering. Every chip is coated in a light batter, to create extra crispness after you've cooked them in the oven at home. Then, the chips are sent through a fryer, followed by a freezer and onto the vast packing hall, where Paddy's co-presenter Cherry is waiting for him. She's done a bit of genning up on the equipment and talks Paddy through the complicated process of weighing out the chips and putting them into one-kilogram bags.

Finally, the packed frozen chips snake their way towards the distribution area, where Ashley is waiting for Paddy and explains how an automated system loads 26 pallets onto the back of a waiting lorry. After just two hours, 1.7 million chips head out of the factory to be enjoyed with everything from sausages and beans to pies and pasties.

Elsewhere in the episode, Cherry delves into the science behind malt vinegar production and heads to a farm in the West Midlands which is busy harvesting potatoes for the chip factory, while historian Ruth Goodman tucks into the origins of everyone's favourite seaside dish, fish and chips.

Paddy McGuinness visits a medicine factory in Nottingham that's helping to tackle the nation's colds and flu, producing 230 million tablets and lozenges every single week.

Paddy McGuinness explores the Kellogg's factory in Wrexham to reveal how it makes 120 million boxes of breakfast cereal a year, inside a huge factory covering an area bigger than seven football pitches. In this episode, he's learning the secrets of how they make Special K.