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The Best Episodes of Inside the Factory

Every episode of Inside the Factory ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Inside the Factory!

Binge this in 2d 23h•Peaking at 8.6/10

Paddy McGuinness and Cherry Healey get exclusive access to some of the largest factories in Britain to reveal the secrets behind production on an epic scale.

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    Inside the Factory Season 7 Episode 12 - Jaffa Cakes
    8.6/10(16 votes)

    #1 - Jaffa Cakes

    S7:E12

    How a factory in Manchester churns out 6 million Jaffa Cakes every single day - 1.4 billion per year. The legal significance of whether Jaffa Cakes are cakes or biscuits.

    Director:Duncan Thompson
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Inside the Factory Season 7 Episode 13 - Pork Pies
    8.5/10(18 votes)

    #2 - Pork Pies

    S7:E13

    How Vale of Mowbray make pork pies - including 425,000 a week of their 75g snack-sized traditional pie - in Northallerton, Yorkshire. Hacks for the perfect vegan shortcrust pastry. How piccalilli, a pork pie accompaniment, is made. The history of Britain's unusual stargazy pie, and powdered egg during the Second World War.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. Inside the Factory Season 9 Episode 6 - Sausage Rolls
    8.5/10(11 votes)

    #3 - Sausage Rolls

    S9:E6

    Paddy McGuinness visits a factory in Northern Ireland to learn how they make more than half a million sausage rolls every day. Cherry Healey discovers how black pudding is made, while historian Ruth Goodman reveals how the humble sausage skin gave a surprising lift to a weapon of war.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. Inside the Factory Season 4 Episode 2 - Toilet Roll
    8.3/10(30 votes)

    #4 - Toilet Roll

    S4:E2

    How a factory in Manchester produces 700,000 toilet rolls a day starting with spruce timber offcuts from Sweden, pulped and rolled onto 1.2-tonne 'mother reels'. How the water treatment works of Brighton remove debris, grease and bacteria to produce clean water in little more than an hour. How a high-tech Japanese toilet addresses hygiene. How waterless toilets could improve sanitation for one-third of the world's population. The history of the modern flush toilet.

    Director:Emma Pound
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. Inside the Factory Season 4 Episode 9 - Cheese
    8.3/10(29 votes)

    #5 - Cheese

    S4:E9

    How a cheese factory in Gateshead produces 3,000 tonnes of spreadable cheese every year - making cheddar, chopping and blending it with whey, water, and other ingredients. How bacteria affect the aroma, flavour and appearance of cheeses. How to make perfect cheese on toast. How cheddar became the predominant hard cheese world wide. How Kraft made processed cheese 100 years ago.

    Directors:Sam Bailey, Michael Rees
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Inside the Factory Season 5 Episode 5 - Pasties
    8.3/10(21 votes)

    #6 - Pasties

    S5:E5

    How a bakery in Cornwall produces 180,000 Cornish pasties a day. There are rules: A Cornish pasty must be made in Cornwall; the filling can only contain onion, potato, swede, beef and some seasoning; and each ingredient must be cooked from raw within the pastry parcel. The versatility of onions, and how they make us cry. How anaerobic digestion turns food factory waste into electricity. Challenging the pasty's origin story. How importation of pepper eventually transformed it from a precious commodity to a spice that everyone could afford.

    Director:Steve Bonser
    Writer:Unknown

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of Inside the Factory

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  7. Inside the Factory Season 8 Episode 8 - Chocolate Bars
    8.3/10(16 votes)

    #7 - Chocolate Bars

    S8:E8

    How Nestle make more than eight million bars of chocolate every day in York - the UK's city of chocolate. How a cocoa plant quarantine facility in the Berkshire countryside is preventing a worldwide chocolate shortage. The bitter history of drinking chocolate.

    Director:Duncan Thompson
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Inside the Factory Season 3 Episode 2 - Pasta
    8.2/10(35 votes)

    #8 - Pasta

    S3:E2

    Gregg Wallace is at the world's largest dried pasta factory in Italy, where they produce 150,000 kilometres of spaghetti each day.

    Directors:Sam Bailey, Michael Rees
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. Inside the Factory Season 3 Episode 4 - Fish Fingers
    8.2/10(23 votes)

    #9 - Fish Fingers

    S3:E4

    Gregg Wallace explores the Grimsby factory that processes 165 tonnes of fish a week and produces 80,000 cod fish fingers every day.

    Directors:Sam Bailey, Will Aspinall, Michael Rees
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. Inside the Factory Season 4 Episode 3 - Sausages
    8.2/10(26 votes)

    #10 - Sausages

    S4:E3

    How a factory in North Yorkshire produces 625,000 sausages a day, using machines that can fill 600 sausages in a minute. How low and slow shallow frying delivers the best combination of flavour, moistness and succulence. How veggie protein is created from a tiny speck of natural fungus. How a 'meat sock' is the secret to wrapping a Scotch Egg every three seconds. How German bratwurst became top dog in America, and how German immigrant Charles Feltman originated the hot dog. Cooking up a 2,000-year-old recipe for sausages. How the Romans contributed by importing pepper, bay leaves and other spices that spike modern sausages.

    Director:Emma Pound
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Inside the Factory Season 4 Episode 5 - Potato Waffles
    8.2/10(28 votes)

    #11 - Potato Waffles

    S4:E5

    How a factory in Lowestoft produces 450 tonnes of frozen food each day. The differences between waxy and floury potatoes, and which you should use for which job. How the potato's nutritional value compares to other fruits and vegetables. The history of potatoes is traced to Spanish explorers and an enterprising French chemist called Parmentier, who popularised the exotic new vegetable. How Mr Whippy ice creams inspired the potato waffle, a teatime treat.

    Directors:Michael Rees, Phil Stein, Simon Cheuk Pong Lee
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Inside the Factory Season 5 Episode 1 - Cherry Bakewells
    8.2/10(35 votes)

    #12 - Cherry Bakewells

    S5:E1

    How a factory in Stoke-on-Trent produces 250,000 little cherry bakewell tarts every day - from what makes a shortcrust pastry 'short' to the team of 12 precisely placing the cherry on top of every one by hand. How to swerve a soggy pastry bottom when baking pies and tarts at home. How almonds are roasted and milled into almond butter ready for toast. The origin story of frangipane, the fragrant almond filling used in cherry bakewell. How the modern cherry bakewell actually descends from a mistake.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Inside the Factory Season 7 Episode 15 - Vegan Sausages
    8.2/10(16 votes)

    #13 - Vegan Sausages

    S7:E15

    The futuristic process by which Heck churn out up to 90,000 vegan sausages a day in Yorkshire. How Canadian soy beans are transformed into protein-packed tofu. How a vegan superfood of the sea is harvested on the Scottish coast. The history of the vegetarian movement in Britain, and the high price that British sailors paid when deprived of their five a day.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Inside the Factory Season 9 Episode 3 - Cheese Curls
    8.2/10(13 votes)

    #14 - Cheese Curls

    S9:E3

    New presenter Paddy McGuinness visits a factory in Lincoln to explore how they make 500 million packs of Quavers every year. Cherry Healey learns how Bombay Mix is made, while Ruth Goodman reveals the wartime story behind our love of cheese flavouring.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Inside the Factory Season 1 Episode 1 - Bread
    8.1/10(34 votes)

    #15 - Bread

    S1:E1

    Gregg Wallace, Cherry Healey and Ruth Goodman look at the production, science and history of bread in Britain.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. Inside the Factory Season 4 Episode 1 - Coffee
    8.1/10(33 votes)

    #16 - Coffee

    S4:E1

    How a factory in Derbyshire produces 175,000 jars of instant coffee every day, from green coffee beans to the freeze-dried final product. How roasting alters the chemical composition of coffee. How caffeine affects the body and brain. How climate change is affecting coffee harvests worldwide, and the coffee species that could cope with warmer growing conditions. The history of instant coffee going back to the American Civil War. How passion for coffee led to the founding of the Stock Exchange, auction houses and newspapers.

    Director:Emma Pound
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Inside the Factory Season 4 Episode 6 - Pizza
    8.1/10(28 votes)

    #17 - Pizza

    S4:E6

    How a factory in Italy produces 400,000 frozen pizzas each day. The science that makes mozzarella work so well on pizza. How pork is transformed into pepperoni. How freezer ships and trucks create the worldwide cold chain that enables this business to exist. How pizza was first popularised by a restaurant in London’s Soho in 1965

    Directors:Michael Rees, Phil Stein, Simon Cheuk Pong Lee, Taylor Richardson
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Inside the Factory Season 5 Episode 3 - Croissants
    8.1/10(36 votes)

    #18 - Croissants

    S5:E3

    How a factory in France produces 336,000 croissants every day - from the 21 tonnes of butter, to the 83-year-old strain of yeast that packs a flavourful punch, to the layering of very thin slices of butter between sheets of dough to create the famously flaky texture. How croissants are best served - and eaten. How 'concentrated' butter produced in north Wales enhances the shelf life of croissants. The history of the croissant, thought to originate from 17th-century Austria, and emerging in its modern French form as late as 1906. How bread played a vital role in the French Revolution.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. Inside the Factory Season 6 Episode 2 - Socks
    8.1/10(21 votes)

    #19 - Socks

    S6:E2

    How a Leicester factory makes one and a half million socks annually. What causes smelly feet, and which socks tackle it best. How a cotton spinner in Manchester produces 4,200 miles of yarn every hour. A revolutionary eco-cotton supplier. The history of 1980s sock fashion, and how the 'Kitchener stitch' helped save the feet of British soldiers in the trenches during the Great War.

    Director:Gavin Ahern
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Inside the Factory Season 7 Episode 6 - Tortilla Chips
    8.1/10(19 votes)

    #20 - Tortilla Chips

    S7:E6

    How the biggest tortilla factory in Europe makes 60,000 tonnes of snacks every year in Coventry, including their UK bestseller: chilli heatwave flavour tortilla chips. Tasting the hottest chilli in the world at the UK's largest chilli farm. The science behind the UK's first compostable crisp packet. How the Elizabethans kept their huge ruff collars standing to attention, and how American popcorn became a box office smash.

    Director:Gavin Ahern
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Inside the Factory Season 7 Episode 7 - Mugs
    8.1/10(19 votes)

    #21 - Mugs

    S7:E7

    How Denby - potterymaker since 1809 - produces one of their best sellers, the Halo Heritage mug, in Derbyshire. The journey starts at the factory's 100-metre-long, 100,000-tonne mound of clay.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. Inside the Factory Season 3 Episode 3 - Biscuits
    8.0/10(31 votes)

    #22 - Biscuits

    S3:E3

    Gregg Wallace follows the production of chocolate digestives and discovers that we are all eating them the wrong way up.

    Director:Michael Rees
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Inside the Factory Season 3 Episode 6 - Soft Drinks
    8.0/10(28 votes)

    #23 - Soft Drinks

    S3:E6

    Gregg Wallace explores Ribena's Gloucestershire factory. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey is in the lab figuring out why fizzy drinks are so appealing.

    Directors:Sam Bailey, Will Aspinall, Michael Rees
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. Inside the Factory Season 4 Episode 7 - Beer
    8.0/10(30 votes)

    #24 - Beer

    S4:E7

    How Britain's biggest brewery produces 3 million pints of beer a day in Burton upon Trent. How four basic ingredients – water, malted barley, hops and yeast – are manipulated to make dark, heavy ales; light, fragrant lagers; and everything in between. How the hard water of Burton – perfect for brewing flavourful stouts and porters – and its position on the canal network made it the centre of brewing in 19th-century Britain. How beer-making turned from a predominantly female cottage industry to an industrialised process dominated by men.

    Directors:Sam Bailey, Michael Rees
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. Inside the Factory Season 5 Episode 6 - Pots and Pans
    8.0/10(29 votes)

    #25 - Pots and Pans

    S5:E6

    How a foundry in France produces a cast iron pot every five seconds - from the arrival of 20 tonnes of crude iron right through to brightly coloured orange casserole dishes. How a South African iron ore mine - one of the largest in the world - produces a staggering 670,000 tonnes every day. The science behind cooking the perfect casserole - more cooking time isn't always better. The history of one-pot cooking to prepare simple meals, from communal ovens to 1970s slow cookers. How casting iron in sand moulds democratised the kitchen through affordable cookware.

    Directors:Sam Bailey, Steve Bonser
    Writer:Unknown

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Best Episodes Summary

"Jaffa Cakes" is the best rated episode of "Inside the Factory". It scored 8.6/10 based on 16 votes. Directed by Duncan Thompson and written by Unknown, it aired on 4/4/2023. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "Pork Pies".