How Polos produce 32 million mints every day in York - part of the 19,000 tonnes of mints consumed every year in the UK. The largest sugar beet factory in Europe. How one of the last surviving peppermint farms in the UK harvest their crop. How clever marketing persuaded people to buy minty mouthwash.

Gregg Wallace visits Britain's largest bicycle factory, which produces 150 folding bikes every day, and joins a production line to make his own bike.

In this Christmas special, new presenter Paddy McGuinness and Cherry Healey visit a chocolate factory in Belgium that produces four million chocolate seashells every day. Cherry Healey is also in Belgium, learning the secrets of white chocolate production at the biggest chocolate factory in the world, and Ruth Goodman is in a city with a familiar-sounding name, Saint Niklas, exploring the European origins of Santa.

Gregg Wallace visits the UK's largest sports shoe factory to see how they produce 3,500 pairs of trainers every day.

Paddy McGuinness makes a wonderfully nostalgic trip to the Warburtons factory in his hometown of Bolton where, thirty years ago, he had a Saturday job cleaning the machines. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey discovers how waste bread is turned into beer, and historian Ruth Goodman reveals why white bread was banned during World War Two.

How JCB make as many as a hundred iconic yellow diggers every single day in Rocester, Staffordshire, requiring just 45 hours to make a digger from scratch, and consuming 650 tonnes of steel, 170,000 bolts, 5,000 litres of paint and 236 miles of wiring each week.

How a factory in Wigan produces two million tins of soup a day. Vegetable soup is followed from a pea harvest in Yorkshire right through to the finished soup going into cans and being dispatched. How the vitamin content of frozen vegetables can greatly exceed that of fresh. How a spinach soup based on a 17th-century recipe doesn't much resemble soup as we know it today. The history of the soup kitchen.

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.

How Woodmansterne produces 35 million greeting cards a year in Watford - from sketching a card design, to creating an aluminium plate for printing, to guillotining the sheets into cards and the final shipping process. Creating a vegan Christmas feast. The history of the year Christmas was cancelled.

How a 32-acre site in Somerset makes 1.2 million Henry vacuum cleaners every year.

How a family-run factory in rural Aberdeenshire churns out fifty thousand litres of dairy ice cream every day. How best to stop 'brain freeze.' How sprinkles are made. How ice cream vans made soft whip a favourite on Britain's streets.

How Alstom builds a 187-tonne, five-carriage electric train on their 84-acre site in Derby. How the train's aluminium is made at the UK's last remaining smelter in Scotland. How tunnel boring machines are digging ten miles through the hills for the new HS2 line. The history of the UK’s first electric train - Brighton's seafront tourist train, still used today - and how that technology went on to be used in underground transportation all over the world.

How Aunt Bessie's produce a staggering 500 million Yorkshire puddings every year in Hull. How wheat is tested before it can be milled into flour. How to cook the perfect gravy for a Sunday roast. The history of the roast dinner, and the art of washing up Tudor-style.

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.

Gregg Wallace helps to unload 27 tonnes of dried haricot beans and follows them on a journey through the world's largest baked bean factory.

How the largest malt loaf factory in the world makes the sweet and squidgy cake-cum-bread, a popular teatime treat consumed at the rate of 130 million a year. How a British baking company cooked up the first business computer. How wheat flour was ground the traditional way, until the Victorians' demand for white bread brought about the demise of Britain's iconic windmills.

Gregg Wallace visits a bootmaking factory in Wollaston, Northamptonshire to follow the production of a pair of Dr. Martens, while Cherry Healey gets to grips with the machines that make shoelaces.

How Jelly Bean Factory make ten million of their colourful little sweets every day in Dublin. The important role glucose plays in our bodies. How one of the ingredients in jelly beans plays a key role in the production of lipstick. The history of jelly and post-war pick'n'mix.

How denim cloth is made, and how Welsh jeans brand Hiut transform it into one of the world's most popular items of clothing - jeans. How zippers are made. How denim is distressed to make a new pair of jeans look old, in environmentally friendly ways. The little-known person who helped shape the design of jeans forever. The history of indigo dye.

Paddy McGuinness visits a factory that makes forty million flapjacks a year. Meanwhile, Cherry Healey learns how oats can benefit gut health, and Ruth Goodman savours the history of the Staffordshire oatcakes and golden syrup.

Gregg Wallace helps to unload a tanker full of sugar from Norfolk and follows it through one of the oldest sweet factories in Britain.

How a factory in Ireland produces 540,000 bottles of liqueurs a day. From grain, to barrel aging, to mixing cream and whiskey together, the show traces the production of a cream liqueur over the span of three years. How Ireland’s bottles and jars are recycled at a plant processing 500 tonnes every day. How all alcoholic drinks - not just aperitifs - stimulate appetite. The rules for producing and labelling whiskey, bourbon, and blends. How monks invented liqueurs. The impact of modern distillation methods on traditionally made alcohols like Irish whiskey.

How a factory in Essex produces 400,000 cereal bars a day - from nuts to cranberries and sultanas to puffed rice, with a carefully balanced blend of honey and glucose binding it all together for the ideal texture. How macadamia nuts are harvested in South Africa, and shelled under extraordinary pressure. The scientific distinction between botanical nuts, legumes and drupes. The history of Britain's cereal bars, including one Kendal Mint Cake snack bar made popular by famous explorers Ernest Shackleton and Sir Edmund Hillary.

How London's famous red double-decker bus - including a fully electric model - is built in Scarborough, Yorkshire, highlighting the tough laminated heated windscreens and bright red coat of paint. How the turbines at an offshore wind farm convert wind into watts. The history of London's earliest double-deckers and their vital role in the First World War.

Gregg Wallace explores the Ambrosia factory in Lifton, Devon, to reveal how it makes up to 360,000 rice puddings every single day. How fresh water from the Alps is used to grow more than a million tonnes of rice every year in Italy's Po Valley. The history of school dinners.