8.8/109 votesLoading...#1 - Pork Pies
Season 7 Episode 13 - Aired 4/11/2023
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: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.7/106 votesLoading...#2 - Stout
Season 8 Episode 5 - Aired 1/23/2024
How Guinness make two million litres of Irish stout every single day. How reservoir water is treated to provide clean drinking water to the people of Dublin, as well as to the stout brewery. How hops are harvested at a farm in Worcestershire. The history of Irish pubs, and how pub games helped the Allies in the Second World War.
Director: Duncan Thompson
Writer: N/A
8.4/1010 votesLoading...#3 - Jaffa Cakes
Season 7 Episode 12 - Aired 4/4/2023
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: N/A
8.4/108 votesLoading...#4 - Bath Bombs
Season 8 Episode 6 - Aired 1/28/2024
How Lush produce an astonishing 14 million bath bombs every year in Dorset. How taking a hot bath can provide some of the benefits of exercise. How a lab grows human skin for cosmetic testing. The notion that complex perfumes ward off the plague. How the living conditions of coal miners and their families were transformed by the introduction of communal showers.
Director: Duncan Thompson
Writer: N/A
8.4/108 votesLoading...#5 - Chocolate Bars
Season 8 Episode 8 - Aired 2/11/2024
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: N/A
8.3/1023 votesLoading...#6 - Toilet Roll
Season 4 Episode 2 - Aired 7/24/2018
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: N/A
8.3/1021 votesLoading...#7 - Cheese
Season 4 Episode 9 - Aired 3/26/2019
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.
Director: Sam Bailey, Michael Rees
Writer: N/A
8.3/107 votesLoading...#8 - Carpets
Season 8 Episode 7 - Aired 2/4/2024
How Axminster produces 46,000 square metres of carpet every year in Devon. The science behind the best ways to remove stubborn stains from carpets such as butter, milk and red wine. How the groundbreaking methods of a Devon-based carpet maker in the 18th century revolutionised intricate carpet making. The rise and fall of the hard-wearing flooring linoleum.
Director: Duncan Thompson
Writer: N/A
8.2/1027 votesLoading...#9 - Pasta
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 7/25/2017
Gregg Wallace is at the world's largest dried pasta factory in Italy, where they produce 150,000 kilometres of spaghetti each day.
Director: Sam Bailey, Michael Rees
Writer: N/A
8.2/1019 votesLoading...#10 - Sausages
Season 4 Episode 3 - Aired 7/31/2018
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: N/A
8.2/1024 votesLoading...#11 - Potato Waffles
Season 4 Episode 5 - Aired 2/26/2019
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.
Director: Michael Rees, Simon Cheuk Pong Lee, Phil Stein
Writer: N/A
8.2/1020 votesLoading...#12 - Pizza
Season 4 Episode 6 - Aired 3/5/2019
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
Director: Michael Rees, Simon Cheuk Pong Lee, Phil Stein, Taylor Richardson
Writer: N/A
8.2/1027 votesLoading...#13 - Croissants
Season 5 Episode 3 - Aired 8/13/2019
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: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.2/1018 votesLoading...#14 - Pasties
Season 5 Episode 5 - Aired 4/7/2020
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: N/A
8.2/1023 votesLoading...#15 - Pots and Pans
Season 5 Episode 6 - Aired 4/14/2020
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.
Director: Sam Bailey, Steve Bonser
Writer: N/A
8.2/1010 votesLoading...#16 - Tortilla Chips
Season 7 Episode 6 - Aired 1/26/2022
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: N/A
8.2/109 votesLoading...#17 - Crumpets
Season 7 Episode 14 - Aired 4/18/2023
How a factory makes 432 million classic British crumpets every year from a precise combination of ingredients, using some clever chemistry to create their famous 'holey' texture. The science of making the perfect pancake batter. How another British favourite, Eccles cakes, are made in Manchester for shipment all over the world. The history of how crumpets got their rise and eventually their bubbles, and Britain's obsession with toasting baked goods.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.2/106 votesLoading...#18 - Sofas
Season 8 Episode 9 - Aired 2/18/2024
How HSL make more than 5,000 sofas every year in West Yorkshire. The science of light bulbs, to create the perfect environment to snuggle up on the sofa. How foam padding is produced. The history of the sofa. One of the world's most famous sewing machines.
Director: Duncan Thompson
Writer: N/A
8.2/106 votesLoading...#19 - Paint and Wallpaper
Season 8 Episode 10 - Aired 2/25/2024
How Farrow & Ball produce up to 200,000 litres of paint and 10,000 metres of wallpaper a week in Dorset. How a key ingredient in paint-making is mined in Devon. The art of hanging wallpaper, and its history. How ships in the First World War were painted with dazzling patterns to evade German submarines.
Director: Duncan Thompson
Writer: N/A
8.1/1017 votesLoading...#20 - Fish Fingers
Season 3 Episode 4 - Aired 1/2/2018
Gregg Wallace explores the Grimsby factory that processes 165 tonnes of fish a week and produces 80,000 cod fish fingers every day.
Director: Will Aspinall, Sam Bailey, Michael Rees
Writer: N/A
8.1/1021 votesLoading...#21 - Soft Drinks
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 1/16/2018
Gregg Wallace explores Ribena's Gloucestershire factory. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey is in the lab figuring out why fizzy drinks are so appealing.
Director: Will Aspinall, Sam Bailey, Michael Rees
Writer: N/A
8.1/1024 votesLoading...#22 - Cherry Bakewells
Season 5 Episode 1 - Aired 7/30/2019
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: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.1/1013 votesLoading...#23 - Socks
Season 6 Episode 2 - Aired 1/5/2021
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: N/A
8.0/1026 votesLoading...#24 - Bread
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 5/5/2015
Gregg Wallace, Cherry Healey and Ruth Goodman look at the production, science and history of bread in Britain.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/1028 votesLoading...#25 - Tea Bags
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 7/18/2017
Gregg Wallace receives some tea leaves from Kenya and follows them through the factory that produces one quarter of all the tea drunk in Britain.
Director: Will Aspinall, Sam Bailey, Michael Rees
Writer: N/A
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!
Gregg Wallace and Cherry Healey get exclusive access to some of the largest factories in Britain to reveal the secrets behind production on an epic...
Genre:Documentary
Network:BBC Two
Best Episodes Summary
"Pork Pies" is the best rated episode of "Inside the Factory". It scored 8.8/10 based on 9 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 4/11/2023. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "Stout".