1 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:03,720 The humble sausage. 2 00:00:03,720 --> 00:00:08,160 Every year in the UK we eat a meaty 3 billion of them. 3 00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:12,640 From coiled Cumberlands to herby Lincolnshires and skinny chipolatas. 4 00:00:12,640 --> 00:00:15,720 There's no doubt about it, we love our bangers. Mmm. 5 00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:23,560 Tonight we follow the production of traditional pork sausages. 6 00:00:24,920 --> 00:00:30,800 From farm to fork, via this rural factory in North Yorkshire. 7 00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:37,320 I'm Gregg Wallace. 8 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:39,080 Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! 9 00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:41,440 I'm finding out how the simple sausage... 10 00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:43,680 That's a sausage superhighway! 11 00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:46,320 ..is at technology's cutting edge. 12 00:00:46,320 --> 00:00:51,360 This is the first one we're running in a factory. Hey-hey! 13 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:53,560 I'm Cherry Healey. 14 00:00:53,560 --> 00:00:55,440 Slow and painful. 15 00:00:55,440 --> 00:00:58,880 I want to know how to get the best from our bangers. 16 00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:00,680 We've got a grill versus a fry. 17 00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:02,000 Fight it out! 18 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:06,200 And I'm discovering the secret of a favourite sausagey snack. 19 00:01:06,200 --> 00:01:08,760 And the egg drops into that sock of meat. 20 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:11,720 Is a meat sock a technical term? 21 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:15,560 And historian Ruth Goodman... Oooh! 22 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:20,800 ..learns how a German bratwurst became top dog in America. 23 00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:23,680 So we're getting an early association between sausage dogs, 24 00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:25,160 dogs and sausages. 25 00:01:27,720 --> 00:01:32,080 Every week, this factory produces more than 4 million sausages. 26 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:36,000 And this is the delicious story of how they put the sizzle 27 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:37,360 into every one. 28 00:01:37,360 --> 00:01:39,240 Welcome to Inside The Factory. 29 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:04,840 This is the Heck sausage factory in Ripon, North Yorkshire. 30 00:02:06,960 --> 00:02:11,160 It's the largest independent sausage company in Britain. 31 00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:18,760 22,000 square feet and 101 workers. 32 00:02:18,760 --> 00:02:22,360 All dedicated to one of our favourite traditional foods. 33 00:02:24,160 --> 00:02:27,920 Over a year, they turn out what would be a string of sausages 34 00:02:27,920 --> 00:02:30,880 nearly 13,000 miles long. 35 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:35,480 That would stretch from here to Honolulu and back. 36 00:02:35,480 --> 00:02:39,320 They make 17 different types of premium bangers, 37 00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:41,840 including chicken and chorizo. 38 00:02:41,840 --> 00:02:44,640 But tonight we're following the production 39 00:02:44,640 --> 00:02:47,400 of their 97% pork variety. 40 00:02:47,400 --> 00:02:50,080 Is that good? That's very good. OK, thank you. 41 00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:53,360 And pork comes from pigs. 42 00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:57,600 Most British pigs are born and reared indoors. 43 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:03,080 But to get a close-up look, Cherry's at a farm in Suffolk, 44 00:03:03,080 --> 00:03:05,440 where the piglets are bred outside. 45 00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:10,640 17,000 of them a year. 46 00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:14,480 Hi, Jonathan. Hello. I've never seen anything like this. 47 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:18,240 Jonathan Greene has been working with pigs for 25 years. 48 00:03:18,240 --> 00:03:21,360 They've all got their little houses and their courtyard 49 00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:24,200 and their feeding troughs. It's like a little town. 50 00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:28,360 Yes. On this field alone, there's 750 sows and their babies. 51 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:33,480 Jonathan and other large-scale pig farmers use crossbreeding 52 00:03:33,480 --> 00:03:35,400 for the best commercial results. 53 00:03:36,520 --> 00:03:38,120 What breed are these pigs? 54 00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:41,360 These sows are Landrace-Duroc crosses, 55 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:44,840 chosen for hardiness. So you get the combination of a hardy sow 56 00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:46,360 having large litters. 57 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:52,120 And we use the Hampshire boars because they give us good muscles, 58 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:53,520 good meats in the carcass. 59 00:03:55,120 --> 00:03:59,520 This sow is about two years old and this is her fourth litter. 60 00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:01,640 All right, shall we play count the piglet? 61 00:04:01,640 --> 00:04:06,000 Oh, look. Oh, Mummy's showing me her sign of "go away". 62 00:04:11,720 --> 00:04:14,080 They're four days old and they're already running around 63 00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:15,440 and are really strong. 64 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:20,160 Over the next five weeks, they'll double in weight 65 00:04:20,160 --> 00:04:23,000 and they'll look like this. 66 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:24,760 Then they'll be moved on. 67 00:04:26,440 --> 00:04:29,360 When will they leave the farm? They will leave the farm tomorrow. 68 00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:32,160 Tomorrow? Yes. Where will they go tomorrow? 69 00:04:32,160 --> 00:04:36,320 They will go to a farm and be reared indoors for 22, 23 weeks... 70 00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:40,320 ..on that farm. And then they go...? To be made into... 71 00:04:40,320 --> 00:04:42,600 Sausages. Sausages, yeah. 72 00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:45,160 Is it more cost-effective to take them indoors? 73 00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:48,120 Very much more cost-effective, because to rear them outdoors, 74 00:04:48,120 --> 00:04:49,880 running around in this cold environment, 75 00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:52,280 their food conversion's not very good at all. 76 00:04:52,280 --> 00:04:54,000 Cos they're burning off lots of energy... 77 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:56,280 Yes. ..protecting themselves from the cold? Yes. 78 00:05:01,080 --> 00:05:03,480 When they leave here, they'll go on to a diet 79 00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:06,560 that will grow them in such a way that they have 80 00:05:06,560 --> 00:05:09,760 lots of lean growth, but not excessive fat growth. 81 00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:11,680 Because people don't want to eat too much fat, 82 00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:14,280 but they want a little bit of fat for the succulence in the meat. 83 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:20,040 They'll go to an abattoir at about six months old, 84 00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:22,200 the same age and size as these pigs, 85 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:24,480 who are staying on Jonathan's farm to breed. 86 00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:29,280 Look how curious they are! Hello. 87 00:05:29,280 --> 00:05:32,280 How does it make you feel to see your pigs go off? 88 00:05:32,280 --> 00:05:36,120 It's part of the business that you're in, is to produce meat. 89 00:05:36,120 --> 00:05:38,000 You look after them as well as you can, 90 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:40,960 but I don't get attached to them, no. I'm getting attached now! 91 00:05:40,960 --> 00:05:42,720 Oh, my God, they're biting my boot! 92 00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:48,960 About 30% of the meat on a pig is suitable for sausages. 93 00:05:48,960 --> 00:05:53,200 That'll be the shoulder cuts, the belly, 94 00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:54,880 and perhaps some from the neck. 95 00:05:54,880 --> 00:05:56,480 It's a lot. It is a lot, yes. 96 00:05:56,480 --> 00:05:59,680 It's a huge amount. Yes. Yeah. Nothing on a pig is wasted at all. 97 00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:02,480 The loin is used for chops, the ham for ham. 98 00:06:02,480 --> 00:06:05,240 What about something like the snout or the ears? 99 00:06:05,240 --> 00:06:08,160 Well, the ears and the trotters will probably go over to China 100 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:10,960 because they're delicacies. No part is wasted. 101 00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:12,560 No. Snout to tail, nothing's wasted. 102 00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:15,400 You know, they're fighting over your welly boot because they all want 103 00:06:15,400 --> 00:06:18,280 to have a nibble of your welly boot. Yeah. And my coat. 104 00:06:18,280 --> 00:06:20,520 Will they just eat anything? 105 00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:22,400 SHE LAUGHS 106 00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:24,240 Or beat you up, yeah! 107 00:06:26,040 --> 00:06:27,920 I mean, it was inevitable! 108 00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:30,960 You know what? If you kneel in a field of pigs, 109 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:35,000 that's going to happen. It is, it is. Yeah. 110 00:06:38,200 --> 00:06:40,960 This farm doesn't supply OUR factory, 111 00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:43,600 but 60 other British pig farms do. 112 00:06:45,080 --> 00:06:46,720 All the animals are slaughtered 113 00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:48,840 according to industry-standard methods. 114 00:06:50,320 --> 00:06:53,680 Then the pork shoulders are taken to commercial butchers. 115 00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:57,680 One of them is a family firm in Consett near Durham. 116 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:05,200 Whoa! 117 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:07,400 You go through how many shoulders a day? 118 00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:08,760 3,000 to 4,000. 119 00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:10,520 That's immense. Yes. 120 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:13,640 Commercial director Jack Young checks them for quality. 121 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:15,800 You've got a good bit of solid lean meat there. 122 00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:18,360 Decent amount of fat coverage there, but not too much. 123 00:07:18,360 --> 00:07:20,760 What's a shoulder got that makes it good for sausages 124 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:22,120 that a belly wouldn't? 125 00:07:22,120 --> 00:07:26,040 A pork shoulder is about 80% lean, 20% fat. 126 00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:28,440 And that gives you a good mix for a solid sausage. 127 00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:31,040 I'm making sure there's no hair on the rind. 128 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:35,320 So a perfect sausage pig is bald with a bit of fat? Yes. 129 00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:39,600 THEY LAUGH 130 00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:46,560 These super-sized shoulders are about twice as big 131 00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:48,520 as the ones in your local butcher's. 132 00:07:51,400 --> 00:07:54,240 Arr, Jim lad! Ha-ha-haar! 133 00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:57,360 I'm on it like a car bonnet! 134 00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:02,560 So I hang on to the leg here, hook it somewhere... Oh! 135 00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:05,880 Oh, that's a slippery one. 136 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:07,400 Our countdown to sausages... 137 00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:08,800 Whoa! 138 00:08:08,800 --> 00:08:10,040 ..begins. 139 00:08:10,040 --> 00:08:12,760 There's something wrong with your hook there - it just slipped off. 140 00:08:14,600 --> 00:08:17,760 There are up to 28 butchers at work here 141 00:08:17,760 --> 00:08:20,160 deboning and preparing the meat. 142 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:22,080 They're protected by chainmail. 143 00:08:25,960 --> 00:08:32,040 A 21st-century stainless steel version of medieval battle dress. 144 00:08:34,080 --> 00:08:35,960 Mate, I'm dressed up. Can I get a knife? 145 00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:38,240 Not a chance, no. No? 100%, no. 146 00:08:39,600 --> 00:08:41,720 Tony Lawes is head of production. 147 00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:43,400 So, this is real butchery. 148 00:08:43,400 --> 00:08:45,800 There's very skilled people here, yeah. 149 00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:48,880 There's dangerous machines and dangerous, obviously, implements. 150 00:08:48,880 --> 00:08:52,120 Each knife is numbered and allocated to a butcher, 151 00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:55,080 who must keep it perfectly sharp. 152 00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:57,920 What do you have to do? Take out the bone, take off the skin, 153 00:08:57,920 --> 00:08:59,840 take out all the bits you don't need? 154 00:08:59,840 --> 00:09:02,560 First two gentlemen take the ribcage off. 155 00:09:02,560 --> 00:09:05,760 What is happening here? That's an open-top de-rinder. 156 00:09:05,760 --> 00:09:07,280 It's a very dangerous machine. 157 00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:09,200 Got to be very skilled to do this, I tell you. 158 00:09:09,200 --> 00:09:10,960 Wow! 159 00:09:10,960 --> 00:09:12,000 Wow. 160 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:13,960 There's a blade there, that's a big blade. 161 00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:16,160 Whoa, whoa. All the way across that way. 162 00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:21,600 The razor-sharp points on the roller pull the meat onto the blade, 163 00:09:21,600 --> 00:09:23,000 which strips off the skin. 164 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:26,120 He's the only one not dressed up in chainmail. Well, you can't wear 165 00:09:26,120 --> 00:09:28,880 one of these chainmail because he's got teeth on this machine, 166 00:09:28,880 --> 00:09:30,600 so that would grab you and take you in. 167 00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:32,480 Ah. So he can't have any of that. 168 00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:34,840 The skin can be made into pork scratchings, 169 00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:37,760 or sold to other factories for budget sausages. 170 00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:40,000 Brilliant. 171 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:42,520 The most skilled butchers work alone. 172 00:09:42,520 --> 00:09:45,560 This lad's the fastest in the building. 570 in a day. 173 00:09:45,560 --> 00:09:48,520 All I just saw was a blur of arms and a knife! 174 00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:50,800 The rest are on the pace line. 175 00:09:50,800 --> 00:09:54,680 They have about ten seconds to cut away their part of the shoulder 176 00:09:54,680 --> 00:09:56,280 as it moves along the conveyor. 177 00:09:57,480 --> 00:09:59,400 When I'm not here, do you play music? 178 00:09:59,400 --> 00:10:01,960 Yes. You do? I like Abba when I'm deboning meat. 179 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:03,680 Abba doesn't make you bone it fast. 180 00:10:03,680 --> 00:10:06,400 You want summat loud and summat with a beat in, you know what I mean? 181 00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:08,160 A bit of AC/DC. Yes. 182 00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:10,760 # You got it! 183 00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:11,960 # Yes, you have! # 184 00:10:14,120 --> 00:10:16,880 From the first to the last man on the line, 185 00:10:16,880 --> 00:10:20,480 it takes just one minute to completely debone a joint. 186 00:10:21,720 --> 00:10:24,920 And this line will do 2,000, 2,500 a day. 187 00:10:24,920 --> 00:10:26,120 Fabulous. Fabulous. 188 00:10:26,120 --> 00:10:28,840 Do you know what? I thought this would all be like machine. 189 00:10:28,840 --> 00:10:31,120 I didn't think I'd find a line of skilled butchers. 190 00:10:31,120 --> 00:10:32,600 Every animal's totally different. 191 00:10:32,600 --> 00:10:35,320 Yeah, you don't make animals in a machine, they're all different. 192 00:10:35,320 --> 00:10:36,800 Yeah, so every one is different. 193 00:10:36,800 --> 00:10:39,680 # If you want blood 194 00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:41,480 # You got it! # 195 00:10:41,480 --> 00:10:45,000 The shoulder blade comes out and the ball socket, 196 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:49,360 then a lean cut of meat named for its shape. 197 00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:52,160 Leg-of-mutton cut on a pig. Every animal's got them, you see. 198 00:10:52,160 --> 00:10:53,880 Every animal's got a leg of mutton. 199 00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:56,240 Yeah. It's solid. Solid, pure meat. 200 00:10:56,240 --> 00:10:58,360 That's a big steak. Yeah. 201 00:10:58,360 --> 00:11:01,480 It's only used in skinny ranges of sausages. 202 00:11:01,480 --> 00:11:03,360 There's not enough fat on it to make a sausage. 203 00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:05,680 Some people like more meat. All this health kick, no more fat. 204 00:11:05,680 --> 00:11:07,520 Do you know what I mean? You need a bit of fat. 205 00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:09,200 Of course you do. It's a sausage! 206 00:11:10,560 --> 00:11:13,240 Next one, he takes all the glands off. 207 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:15,520 Any bit of gristle that's been left on. 208 00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:20,240 The average shoulder has enough meat for around 100 sausages. 209 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:22,040 Is this now finally our sausage meat? 210 00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:25,360 It certainly is. Well, hang on a minute, we've taken quite a bit off. 211 00:11:25,360 --> 00:11:29,080 I mean, we started off with, what, 12, 14 kilos? Yeah. 212 00:11:29,080 --> 00:11:30,960 What have we got now? Four? 213 00:11:30,960 --> 00:11:33,240 Four, four and a half. Nothing gets wasted, though. 214 00:11:33,240 --> 00:11:35,040 Even the bones. The bones get taken away. 215 00:11:35,040 --> 00:11:38,320 They get boiled and... For lipsticks, mascaras, 216 00:11:38,320 --> 00:11:39,880 anything with animal fat in. 217 00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:41,880 Wine gums - that's where you get 'em from. 218 00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:43,360 Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. 219 00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:45,440 Well, you don't wear mascara, so you're all right. 220 00:11:45,440 --> 00:11:47,720 One minute. Lipstick, you do. 221 00:11:47,720 --> 00:11:49,440 GREGG LAUGHS Aye, I've seen it. 222 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:52,000 Thank you so much, mate. No problem. Honestly, I mean that. 223 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:53,480 Thank you so much. 224 00:11:55,320 --> 00:11:59,000 These workers slice their way through a pallet of shoulders 225 00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:01,120 every ten minutes. 226 00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:04,800 Then the meat for our sausages is vacuum-packed and dispatched 227 00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:06,240 on the same day. 228 00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:12,280 Pretty much every country in the world has its own kind of sausage. 229 00:12:12,280 --> 00:12:16,920 But whether you prefer salami, saucisson or saveloy, 230 00:12:16,920 --> 00:12:19,440 their history goes back a long way. 231 00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:24,480 Ruth is in St Albans investigating. 232 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:29,240 6,000 years ago, people in the Middle East were putting cooked meat 233 00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:30,880 into goat stomach linings. 234 00:12:32,360 --> 00:12:35,520 In ancient Britain we were probably doing something similar. 235 00:12:36,520 --> 00:12:40,960 But it was the Romans who gave us our first modern type of sausage. 236 00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:44,880 Back in 300 AD, 237 00:12:44,880 --> 00:12:47,440 St Albans was known as Verulamium 238 00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:50,560 and was one of the biggest towns in Roman Britain. 239 00:12:51,840 --> 00:12:54,800 Excavations have revealed tantalising clues 240 00:12:54,800 --> 00:12:57,160 about ancient sausage-making here. 241 00:12:59,800 --> 00:13:02,240 My guide is archaeologist David Thorold. 242 00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:04,080 David! 243 00:13:04,080 --> 00:13:06,720 Hello, welcome to Verulamium. Thank you. 244 00:13:10,680 --> 00:13:12,200 Were the Romans big sausage eaters? 245 00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:14,560 They seem to have brought a lot of their cuisine with them 246 00:13:14,560 --> 00:13:17,480 and sausages were one of the things that they ate regularly 247 00:13:17,480 --> 00:13:19,280 back in Rome and around the Mediterranean, 248 00:13:19,280 --> 00:13:22,200 so it does seem likely they would have been eating sausages here. 249 00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:23,680 Is there any proof at all? 250 00:13:23,680 --> 00:13:26,960 Well, it's hard to find definitive evidence for something 251 00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:30,200 like a sausage in archaeological context normally, 252 00:13:30,200 --> 00:13:33,080 but here at Verulamium we do look like we've actually got 253 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:35,080 some firm evidence for it. 254 00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:37,560 So we have a photo here of excavations carried out 255 00:13:37,560 --> 00:13:39,960 in the 1930s by Mortimer Wheeler, 256 00:13:39,960 --> 00:13:41,560 and in one of the buildings 257 00:13:41,560 --> 00:13:43,880 in the town he found under the floor 258 00:13:43,880 --> 00:13:45,440 a number of semi-articulated 259 00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:47,440 horse skeletons. 260 00:13:47,440 --> 00:13:48,920 And this is his report? 261 00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,880 And this is a section written by a professor who was an expert 262 00:13:51,880 --> 00:13:54,320 in bones at the time and he says in here, 263 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:57,160 "The pieces of horse dismembered in this way were perhaps the waste 264 00:13:57,160 --> 00:13:58,800 "of a sausage manufactory." 265 00:13:58,800 --> 00:14:01,800 So sausage manufactory - that's a sausage factory? 266 00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:04,320 Yes, it's a relatively small-scale one, but, clearly, 267 00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:06,240 if you're dealing with more than one animal, 268 00:14:06,240 --> 00:14:08,760 you're doing quite a few sausages from that. 269 00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:13,760 We don't know how horse-meat sausages would have tasted, 270 00:14:13,760 --> 00:14:17,600 but there is a 2000-year-old recipe for a pork variety 271 00:14:17,600 --> 00:14:19,600 cooked by the Romans. 272 00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:25,800 I've come to the Verulamium Museum, where Italian chef 273 00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:28,360 Valentina Harris... Hello! 274 00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:31,120 ..is helping me recreate a version of these sausages. 275 00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:35,480 "Lucanian sausage is prepared as written below. 276 00:14:35,480 --> 00:14:39,920 "Pound pepper, cumin, savory, rue and parsley. 277 00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:41,560 "Spice of bay berry. 278 00:14:41,560 --> 00:14:44,840 "And add liquamen and the meat that has been pounded well." 279 00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:48,240 So the main job, really, is to pound our meat up. 280 00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:53,760 Oh, look, there we go. Oh, yeah. Coming through. 281 00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:57,680 The recipe calls for sort of half the proportion being pork 282 00:14:57,680 --> 00:15:01,520 and the other half being pork fat or lard. 283 00:15:01,520 --> 00:15:03,160 Right. 284 00:15:03,160 --> 00:15:05,080 Oh, yum. 285 00:15:05,080 --> 00:15:09,760 Along with the extra fat, they added a salty fermented fish sauce. 286 00:15:09,760 --> 00:15:11,800 That is liquamen. 287 00:15:11,800 --> 00:15:14,400 Right. It seems an odd thing to be putting with meat, really, 288 00:15:14,400 --> 00:15:17,720 doesn't it? I know, but they put it everywhere. 289 00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:21,880 This fish sauce is similar to the kind still used in Asian cooking. 290 00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:25,280 I'm going to go...there. 291 00:15:25,280 --> 00:15:29,040 But the innovation from the Romans that's still in our sausages today 292 00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:34,160 is the spicing and seasoning. Cumin, bay leaves and pepper. 293 00:15:34,160 --> 00:15:35,800 So that's very salami like. 294 00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:38,960 We need a good pinch of salt going in there. Mm-hmm. 295 00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:40,800 In goes the parsley. 296 00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:45,280 So, now, the next thing we need to do is to get it 297 00:15:45,280 --> 00:15:47,120 into the pork casing. Right. 298 00:15:51,480 --> 00:15:55,080 Push down like this, OK? Mm-hm. Mm-hm. 299 00:15:56,120 --> 00:15:57,960 OK. 300 00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:00,400 OK, squeeze and twist. 301 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:03,400 Ooh! Ooh! THEY LAUGH 302 00:16:03,400 --> 00:16:06,920 Perfect. Right, let's tie them all off. 303 00:16:09,800 --> 00:16:11,920 If they were to be kept long term, 304 00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:14,520 the sausages would have been smoked before frying. 305 00:16:15,800 --> 00:16:18,480 So... There we are. 306 00:16:18,480 --> 00:16:22,120 There we go. These are very elegant ones that we prepared. 307 00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:23,320 OK. 308 00:16:25,560 --> 00:16:28,280 That's salty. That is seriously salty. 309 00:16:29,240 --> 00:16:31,920 This probably shouldn't be a surprise. 310 00:16:31,920 --> 00:16:34,720 The name sausage comes from the Latin salsus, 311 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:37,400 meaning salted or preserved in salt. 312 00:16:39,480 --> 00:16:42,400 To me, it tastes like the sort of food that is for filling you up 313 00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:45,960 after...heavy labour. Like a long march or something. 314 00:16:45,960 --> 00:16:47,640 Mmm. Yeah, they're quite spicy! 315 00:16:48,640 --> 00:16:52,280 So what did the Romans ever do for us? 316 00:16:52,280 --> 00:16:56,760 They certainly gave British cooking flavour, and that, I think, 317 00:16:56,760 --> 00:16:59,200 includes the great British sausage. 318 00:16:59,200 --> 00:17:01,840 I won't look at it quite the same again! 319 00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:03,480 THEY LAUGH 320 00:17:10,840 --> 00:17:12,880 The pork shoulders from the butcher's 321 00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:14,680 have travelled just over an hour 322 00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:17,280 down into North Yorkshire. 323 00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:19,480 And they've arrived at our factory... 324 00:17:24,560 --> 00:17:29,480 ..where every day, they make around 625,000 bangers. 325 00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:36,400 The intake area receives a steady supply of fresh meat 326 00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:38,080 from 7am to 5pm... 327 00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:41,680 ..overseen by Jack Tate. 328 00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:43,720 Is this the pork shoulder? This is it, yeah. 329 00:17:43,720 --> 00:17:46,360 Brilliant. OK, all right, how do we get it off? 330 00:17:46,360 --> 00:17:49,880 20 of these one-tonne meaty mountains come into the factory 331 00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:51,880 every day. 332 00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:53,920 Test your driving skills! 333 00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:57,520 It's 38 minutes since sausage production began at the butcher's. 334 00:17:57,520 --> 00:17:59,360 OK, mind your feet. 335 00:17:59,360 --> 00:18:03,600 Mind your feet! Pork coming through! Prime pork! 336 00:18:05,600 --> 00:18:08,200 I just need to check the temperature, make sure it's all OK. 337 00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:11,040 I can tell you what the temperature is. It's cold, mate. 338 00:18:11,040 --> 00:18:12,640 Sitting around two degrees. 339 00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:15,960 That's good? Spot on. Better get on with it, then, hadn't we? Yeah. 340 00:18:17,640 --> 00:18:20,360 We need to grab you some seasoning. What's that, a mix? Yeah. 341 00:18:20,360 --> 00:18:23,120 Do you know what's in it? Salt, pepper, little bit of ginger, 342 00:18:23,120 --> 00:18:26,040 little bit of coriander in there, and preservative. 343 00:18:26,040 --> 00:18:28,000 I tell you what, let's not bother with it, 344 00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:29,680 because I don't like coriander. 345 00:18:29,680 --> 00:18:31,640 We'll try it. 346 00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:35,920 The factory get through 1,000 kilos of herbs and spices every day. 347 00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:38,480 That's it, we just need to go grab some frozen pork. 348 00:18:40,480 --> 00:18:44,240 Cor, that is super cold. Super, super cold! 349 00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:46,840 Whoa! 350 00:18:46,840 --> 00:18:48,200 Whe-ey! 351 00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:53,760 Oh, that is freezing! 352 00:18:53,760 --> 00:18:56,560 What temperature is that freezer? About minus 18. 353 00:18:56,560 --> 00:19:00,200 Why have you got a load of fresh and some frozen? 354 00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:02,280 That's to help with temperature control. 355 00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:04,320 As the pork's going through the machines, 356 00:19:04,320 --> 00:19:07,400 they tend to heat up and it's just to help with keeping the temperature 357 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:09,720 of the pork down. Oh, OK. Is that it? 358 00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:12,840 That's your lot. So to make sausages, just the pork shoulder, 359 00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:15,960 just seasoning? That's it. Thank you very much indeed, Jack. 360 00:19:15,960 --> 00:19:17,920 I'll take it from here. Yeah. 361 00:19:19,840 --> 00:19:21,080 Oh! 362 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:23,840 THEY LAUGH 363 00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:26,080 Right, I'm coming! I'm coming! 364 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:33,120 I'm taking these ingredients along the length of the building 365 00:19:33,120 --> 00:19:36,600 and into the first stage of production, mixing. 366 00:19:39,560 --> 00:19:41,880 You, I suppose, are Mica. 367 00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:44,840 I am, yes. And you are in charge of all of this? 368 00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:47,120 Yeah. Let's get some frozen meat flaked. 369 00:19:47,120 --> 00:19:49,920 You get a box. Can you manage? 370 00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:51,600 I'm strong as an ox, me. 371 00:19:53,360 --> 00:19:56,800 The workers wear hygienic head covers and layer up underneath 372 00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:00,880 because the factory is kept at a chilly 4 degrees C, 373 00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:02,280 for meat safety. 374 00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:05,280 This is Vadim. He works in this area. 375 00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:06,680 Right. 376 00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:12,200 This is the pork that I saw at the deboning place. 377 00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:14,160 It's just the frozen stuff, right? 378 00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:17,160 It is, yeah. So we put it in there to flake into little bits 379 00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:21,480 so that when we put it in to be mixed, it doesn't break the machine. 380 00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:24,240 Here we are. Whey-hey! 381 00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:26,360 They must be very strong, fast blades. 382 00:20:26,360 --> 00:20:27,760 Yeah. Very strong. 383 00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:31,680 I think that's lovely. You're making little gammon steaks. Yeah. 384 00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:36,840 What do we do now? Right, so this goes over to the bowl chopper. 385 00:20:36,840 --> 00:20:41,240 The what? The bowl chopper. Bowl chopper? Bowl chopper, yeah. 386 00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:42,560 It's a big bowl. 387 00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:46,280 Now push it straight onto there. 388 00:20:47,600 --> 00:20:48,960 Go on! 389 00:20:51,160 --> 00:20:54,480 Fab. So we're mixing the meat together. 390 00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:59,120 This big bowl spins, so it's moving the meat round 391 00:20:59,120 --> 00:21:03,400 whilst those blades are chopping. Oh! So the arm stays static. 392 00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:05,480 Yeah. Ah! 393 00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:08,680 All that we need to do is just to press the button. 394 00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:09,800 It's going. 395 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:13,240 Have you ever dropped on the floor? 396 00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:15,880 No. Never did? 397 00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:18,120 Maybe once, right? Maybe... 398 00:21:18,120 --> 00:21:20,520 THEY LAUGH 399 00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:23,640 We're using 97% shoulder meat, 400 00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:29,000 but legally, a pork sausage can contain just 42% meat, 401 00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:32,160 which could include skin and fat. 402 00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:34,520 Rusk can make up the rest. 403 00:21:34,520 --> 00:21:36,520 The blades are now chopping up the meat. 404 00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:41,960 In here is 50% fresh and 50% frozen pork. 405 00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:44,200 Now we stop. Why do you stop? 406 00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:47,280 Why do you stop? Next up we need to put in the seasonings. 407 00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:51,240 Seasoning? Yeah. The stuff I got earlier, right? Yeah, that's right. 408 00:21:56,080 --> 00:21:58,040 Is there no way of doing this quicker? 409 00:21:58,040 --> 00:22:00,520 Unless you want a rubbish sausage, that's how we do it. 410 00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:05,120 Yeah! 411 00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:08,360 Ha-ha-ha! 412 00:22:08,360 --> 00:22:12,440 I love the sudden waterfall of sausage meat. 413 00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:14,320 I love that. 414 00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:16,440 After 15 minutes of mixing, 415 00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:22,600 we've got a 150-kilo batch of roughly minced seasoned meat. 416 00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:24,320 Where does this go, Mica? 417 00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:27,480 Just on here. You're going to need to push it hard. 418 00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:29,400 Push it real good? Yeah. 419 00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:31,560 # Uh uh uh uh uh... # Push it real good! 420 00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:33,480 Oh, my God. Yeah. 421 00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:35,400 The floor's slippery. Right, I need a run-up. 422 00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:38,000 Sorry, I should have listened. I wasn't listening. 423 00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:45,240 Right, now what? So, that is going up there. 424 00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:47,120 So you're going to have to lift it. 425 00:22:47,120 --> 00:22:49,000 Yeah, get out. What button do I push? 426 00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:50,400 This button here. 427 00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:58,360 Excuse me. Excuse me, pointless me being here 428 00:22:58,360 --> 00:23:00,320 if you're going to push the buttons. All right? 429 00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:03,520 You can push it again. I'll push the next button, all right? 430 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:07,240 This will become 2,250 sausages. 431 00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,760 It's, like, undulating, like waves on the sea. 432 00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:14,920 It's a bit like a meat lava lamp. 433 00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:18,840 And it's just one of 130 batches being made today. 434 00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:22,800 There's a big corkscrew pushing all that meat down here 435 00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:24,840 to make a sausage. 436 00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,160 The meat moves down the giant funnel. 437 00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:32,880 At the bottom it's finely minced and any remaining gristle 438 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:34,960 or cartilage is removed. 439 00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:39,040 The meat gets pushed through these little holes and anything that 440 00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:44,600 does not fit in those holes, this swipes it round into this hole. 441 00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:45,880 That is brilliant. 442 00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:54,760 Every day in the UK we cook up almost 8 million sausages, 443 00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:57,880 but one in four us is reducing the amount of meat we eat 444 00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:01,040 and looking for alternative sources of protein. 445 00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,600 Cherry is on a meat-free mission. 446 00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:13,080 This might look like meat, but it's a meat alternative. 447 00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:17,240 It's all made from a veggie ingredient invented in the UK 448 00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:20,880 which developed into a multimillion-pound industry. 449 00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:24,920 I've come to meet technical manager Nigel Baines 450 00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:26,920 at Quorn's Middlesbrough factory. 451 00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:28,680 Lovely to meet you. Hi, Cherry. 452 00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:31,720 Nice to meet you. So, where does it all begin? 453 00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:35,840 Well, Cherry, it starts with a tiny little natural fungus. 454 00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,880 Fungus? It's very, very tiny. I mean, it's a speck! 455 00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:44,200 This fungus is found in soil and is high in protein. 456 00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:49,000 A speck of it is fermented by feeding it with oxygen, 457 00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:51,400 carbohydrate and water. 458 00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:54,920 Rather like fermenting yeast when you make bread. 459 00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,480 What we try to do is make sure that it's growing at its maximum rate. 460 00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,040 What's the optimal temperature? 461 00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:03,000 About 28 degrees centigrade. 462 00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:04,960 I understand. 463 00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:06,920 That's my optimal temperature, too. 464 00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:08,040 It's wonderful. 465 00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:09,880 Yes. Holiday temperature. 466 00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:14,680 The mix doubles in size every five hours. 467 00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:19,160 If you just slacken that, you can transfer. 468 00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:23,720 After 24 hours, the mixture is moved to a bigger space. 469 00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:26,400 There it goes. There it goes. There it goes. 470 00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:32,680 A 40-metre-high fermenter with a 165,000-litre capacity. 471 00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:38,720 Over the next four days, they continually feed the solution. 472 00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:42,640 And as it ferments, it forms solid protein. 473 00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:46,200 Then they can start harvesting it. 474 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:55,200 Wow! Below the silos are 850-litre containers. 475 00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,800 Well, this is where the raw material comes out. 476 00:25:57,800 --> 00:25:59,400 If you press that button there. 477 00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:04,160 Whoa! Oh, my goodness me. 478 00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:06,240 We've separated out the liquid and kept the solids, 479 00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:07,280 that's what we want. 480 00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,360 This is now called mycoprotein. 481 00:26:11,360 --> 00:26:13,720 Oh, wow. It looks like cake mixture. 482 00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:21,400 Each fermenter will make 60 of these containers every day. 483 00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:23,960 Well, that's staggering! 484 00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:29,320 1,500 tonnes of mycoprotein from one tiny speck. 485 00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:33,200 That's the same as the weight of 250 elephants. 486 00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:35,440 And there's enough in that container 487 00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,400 to make more than a quarter of a million sausages. 488 00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:41,040 Nigel, that is mind-blowing. Just that one container. 489 00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:44,200 Yeah. No cows, no field, no cattle feed. 490 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,480 No. Absolutely amazing. 491 00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,120 Has this got the Nigel seal of approval? 492 00:26:52,120 --> 00:26:53,280 It has. OK. 493 00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:55,240 It's now ready to go off to our other factory. 494 00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,400 The raw ingredient is transferred 16 miles away 495 00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,480 to the care of factory manager Brian Hammond. 496 00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:06,400 Hi there. What are we making today? 497 00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:07,800 Today we're making mince. 498 00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,880 Mince is the most popular product in their range. 499 00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:16,160 Oh! 500 00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:17,280 Oh! Wow! 501 00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,640 The mycoprotein takes the lift. 502 00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:22,080 Goodbye, paste. 503 00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:24,680 And is dropped into a giant mixer. 504 00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:28,440 Just connect it onto there. Just like that? 505 00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,000 Using a vacuum pump we add seasoning, 506 00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:34,000 flavourings and egg to bind it all together. 507 00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:37,560 It's blended with water 508 00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:40,640 and then tipped into a machine that slices it up. 509 00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:44,120 So you see it's now got the colour. 510 00:27:44,120 --> 00:27:46,320 Yeah. You see the flecks in there, the brownness? 511 00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:48,240 That's where the malt is still in there. 512 00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,200 They look like giant hamburgers. 513 00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:52,720 But meat free, obviously. 514 00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:58,400 The mycoprotein now mimics the taste of meat. 515 00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,400 Next it needs to look like it. 516 00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:05,520 The blocks are steamed at 85 degrees and then chilled. 517 00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:11,080 But it doesn't look quite right yet. 518 00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,480 So next it's chopped. 519 00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:15,840 Hey-hey. We have mince. 520 00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,240 We do. If you take a little bit... Whoo. 521 00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:19,400 It's very fragile. 522 00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:25,280 The soft consistency means it would just squash back together when cooked. 523 00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,480 So in here is our freezer and you'll see 524 00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:32,000 that we've taken our delicate mince 525 00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:36,240 and we've got this freezing process... Hello there! 526 00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,320 We throw the mycoprotein up in the air - 527 00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:43,480 it allows the cold air to allow each individual piece to be frozen 528 00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:45,280 and stops it from clumping together. 529 00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:48,040 It looks like the front of a gig at Glastonbury, 530 00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:49,640 it looks like the mosh pit! 531 00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,200 Ice crystals help further develop the fibrous texture. 532 00:28:57,160 --> 00:28:59,120 Oh, absolutely amazing. 533 00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:01,480 So that is hard now, and brittle, 534 00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:04,800 but without that freezing it would just be gloopy and sticky. 535 00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:08,480 Yeah. And now you have something that can be used in almost anything 536 00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:10,480 you would use mince. Oh, exactly. 537 00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:15,920 With different treatment, as well as mince, 538 00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:19,040 the mycoprotein can be turned into veggie versions 539 00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:24,360 of more than 100 dishes, including nuggets, burgers... 540 00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:25,720 ..and bangers. 541 00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:30,200 It's so amazing to know that from such a tiny, tiny starting point, 542 00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:34,320 so many different foodstuffs can be made with different flavours 543 00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:36,080 and textures. 544 00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:50,840 In North Yorkshire, we're in the factory's filling area, 545 00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,720 ready to turn 150 kilos of pork mince 546 00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,440 into their best-selling bangers. 547 00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:03,440 They have machines to put their sausage meat into skins, 548 00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,440 but supervisor Mica is showing me how it used to be done. 549 00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:08,840 By hand. 550 00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,560 Looks easy. All you've got to do is hold the end, right? 551 00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:19,960 Hang on a minute. Who on earth is going to want a 20-yard sausage? 552 00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:21,000 So you knot it after. 553 00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:25,000 Oh! Look at that. 554 00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,160 Do you reckon you could do it that fast? 555 00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,160 No. I think I can do that bit. 556 00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:31,400 I've no idea what's happening with that bit. 557 00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:33,680 That is amazing. 558 00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,480 Right. Let's limber up, right? 559 00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:42,720 Using the button there. 560 00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:45,200 Pressing it here, right? Yeah, that's correct. 561 00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,640 Whoa, whoa, whoa! 562 00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:51,920 Shall we try again? 563 00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:56,640 You're letting go of the skins too quickly. 564 00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:58,160 That's it. 565 00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:00,200 Filling a sausage requires precise meat flow, 566 00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:04,040 speed and pressure... all at the same time. 567 00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:06,600 Oh, that's better. 568 00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:10,200 That's the best you've done so far. 569 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,360 Right, and now I've got to try and knot it, right? Yeah. 570 00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:22,440 I can't do it. I mean, I literally cannot do it. Oh... 571 00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:23,800 MICA LAUGHS 572 00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:25,080 That is really bad. 573 00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:35,040 Our batch of 2,250 sausages will need over 280 metres of skin. 574 00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:38,720 That's nearly five times the height of the Tyne Bridge. 575 00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,240 What is this? It's a collagen skin. 576 00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:43,400 Made out of what? This is beef hide. 577 00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:45,800 Weren't they traditionally made from intestine? 578 00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:47,240 Yeah, they did used to be guts, 579 00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:51,040 but this makes the consistency of the sausage better. 580 00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:56,160 Even a sausage-filling expert can only make 1,500 of them an hour. 581 00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:01,360 And this factory needs to work 24 times faster than that 582 00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:02,960 to keep up with orders. 583 00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:11,680 So this machine is making 600 sausages per minute. 584 00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:13,120 No way. Yeah. 585 00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:15,640 A minute? A minute? Not an hour? Yeah, a minute. 586 00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:20,440 Sausage meat is inside those tubes? 587 00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,160 Yeah. The metal tubes. You call them horns, right? 588 00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:28,040 Horns. And that horn is constantly pushing sausage meat out? Yeah. 589 00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:33,040 The skin is loaded onto the hollow horn, which starts spinning. 590 00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:36,440 The meat is pushed through the middle and into the skin, 591 00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:40,640 creating one long rotating sausage. 592 00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:46,120 So there's two horns on the machine, so it can reload really quickly. 593 00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:48,600 This is it, right, here we go. 594 00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:51,560 Skin on the top. That one will get to the end. 595 00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:54,240 Spins it round. Genius stuff! 596 00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,880 Then two silicon belts grip the sausage between them. 597 00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,480 A quick pinch as the sausage is spinning 598 00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,120 creates a twist every 12.5 centimetres. 599 00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:08,760 How good is that? 600 00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,240 That is very efficient sausage-making. 601 00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:14,520 It is a bit faster than your sausage-making, isn't it? 602 00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:16,480 But I would have caught up eventually. 603 00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:21,800 It's brilliant! 604 00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:23,160 What's this bit doing? 605 00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:24,960 This is cutting them. 606 00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,400 The linked sausages are pulled into the cutter, 607 00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:29,840 which has three spinning blades. 608 00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:34,120 They slice and separate them at a rate of 2,000 a minute. 609 00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:37,880 That's a sausage superhighway! 610 00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,000 Look at the speed of them! 611 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:42,920 It's crazy, isn't it? Oh, this is fabulous. 612 00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,040 In just one hour and nine minutes, 613 00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:47,680 we've made bumper-to-bumper sausages. 614 00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:53,000 But what's the best way to cook them for the fullest flavour? 615 00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:57,240 Cherry's in Chester, 616 00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:00,720 putting that burning question to local sausage lovers. 617 00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:02,320 Excuse me. 618 00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:05,440 Can I ask you a question? What is the perfect way to cook a sausage? 619 00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:07,560 Fry it. It's got to be fried. 620 00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:10,160 What about you? Under the grill, it's got to be. 621 00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,880 Under the grill. So we've got a grill versus a fry. 622 00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:14,480 Fight it out! 623 00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:17,000 How does one cook them to perfection? 624 00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:18,960 What is the proper way? In the oven. In the oven. 625 00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:21,160 What's the perfect way to cook a sausage? 626 00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:24,840 Oh, fried. Oh, not a grill or an oven? No, definitely fried. 627 00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:27,360 It's a really mixed bag here in Chester. 628 00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,600 Some people like to fry, some people swear by grilling. 629 00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,080 Some people can't get enough of the oven. 630 00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:35,040 The people of Chester have spoken, 631 00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:37,280 but I need to know what science thinks. 632 00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:42,080 I'm heading to the University of Chester 633 00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:47,280 to run an experiment with food scientist Dr Stuart Farrimond. 634 00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:48,680 Dr Stu. Hey, Cherry. 635 00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:52,120 How do you cook the perfect sausage? 636 00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:54,720 Very good question. We're going to put them to the test. 637 00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:03,840 Cherry, first off, we're going to do a long, slow fry for 25 minutes. 638 00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:05,520 And is there a trick to it? 639 00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:09,160 Plenty of oil, keep it turning, don't let it go black. 640 00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:12,640 So it's quite a high-maintenance method. It is. OK. 641 00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,240 Oh, it smells so good. 642 00:35:15,240 --> 00:35:18,200 The next batch go in the oven. 643 00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:22,680 170 degrees C for 25 minutes. Give them a flip halfway through. 644 00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:24,680 I like doing it this way. 645 00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,680 It's very lazy. You put them in a pan, boom, done. 646 00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:33,440 Our final set head under the grill. 647 00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:37,640 So, what is the secret to cooking sausages under the grill? 648 00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:40,000 We're getting them on there for 15 minutes and, 649 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:41,200 like when you fry, 650 00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:43,960 you need to turn them to make sure that they're brown all over, 651 00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:46,080 and the brown is the secret to the flavour. 652 00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:48,680 Oh, it's such a thing of beauty! 653 00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:50,880 There you can see the fat drips down. 654 00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:55,280 More fat in the pan and less in your tummy, whereas actually you can see, 655 00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:58,280 with the frying pan, it's all right there, isn't it? 656 00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:01,360 In their different ways, all our sausages are browning up, 657 00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,280 developing their flavour. 658 00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:05,640 What's going on is a very important reaction 659 00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:07,240 called the Maillard reaction, 660 00:36:07,240 --> 00:36:09,440 and on the surface, you can see it's browning 661 00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,280 and that's the reaction taking place. 662 00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:13,600 When it gets hot, the building blocks of the proteins, 663 00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:14,880 called the amino acids, 664 00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:18,040 react with traces of sugar and they produce thousands 665 00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:21,600 of different chemicals, the ones that give it meaty flavours. 666 00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:24,240 You can kind of get nutty, caramely flavours. 667 00:36:24,240 --> 00:36:26,800 It's what makes it taste good. 668 00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:29,400 We're dividing up our cooked sausages 669 00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:31,120 and giving some of each type 670 00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:36,840 to the lab to measure their fat content, moistness and texture. 671 00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:39,640 Wow! Mm! Slow and painful! 672 00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,080 We've also asked ten sausage fans to rate them 673 00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:46,840 in a controlled taste experiment. 674 00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:48,400 It's a blind test, 675 00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:51,440 so they don't know how each sausage has been cooked. 676 00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:54,800 Good day to you, Sofia. 677 00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:56,840 Hello. So which was your favourite sausage? 678 00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:58,400 418. Why was that? 679 00:36:58,400 --> 00:36:59,880 I love a barbecued sausage 680 00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:01,800 and I love it when they're all brown 681 00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:04,800 and quite dark colour on the outside. 682 00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:09,680 Rob, you've left the most mouse-like portion of sausage on each plate. 683 00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:12,040 I just kept trying bits and bits. 684 00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:15,040 It's so wonderfully...unusual. 685 00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:16,360 This one I liked. 686 00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,760 539. But to be fair, 687 00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:20,520 they were all very nice sausages. 688 00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:21,880 There's got to be a winner. 689 00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:24,920 I think it's that one, but who doesn't like a good sausage? 690 00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:28,080 Hi, Jenny. Hello. 691 00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:30,520 Which was the sausage for you? 692 00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:32,680 Definitely this one. 693 00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:35,400 Every side is brown and I do like my sausages to be brown. 694 00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:37,200 That is your one true love. 695 00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:38,800 It is, 418. 696 00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:44,200 Our testers chose 418, the slow-fried sausage, 697 00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:46,000 as their favourite, 698 00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,120 with a score of 76 out of 100. 699 00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:53,240 Can science explain why it came out on top? 700 00:37:53,240 --> 00:37:57,240 The lab results are in, and here we have the texture analysis 701 00:37:57,240 --> 00:38:01,080 of the sausage. That was the cutting through the sausage. 702 00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:04,240 So it gives us an idea of how soft, how juicy it is. 703 00:38:04,240 --> 00:38:07,960 Grey is the fried, and you can see the fried one needs 704 00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:11,880 about half the force to cut through it, compared to the other two ways. 705 00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:16,520 So the fried is softer and will give you a more succulent sausage. 706 00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:18,640 Why is so much softer? 707 00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:20,840 The surface hasn't dried out. 708 00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:23,640 It had oil over it the whole time, whereas the other two ways, 709 00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,080 they were dry ways of cooking, 710 00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:28,240 so it's got drier and a bit tougher on the outside, as well. 711 00:38:28,240 --> 00:38:32,360 It has a lot more fat in, though, so if we go to the next results, 712 00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:35,880 here's the percentage of fat in the different kinds of sausage. 713 00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,800 So when you compare the fried sausage to the oven and the grilled, 714 00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:42,600 that difference, in fact, is huge. 715 00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:45,680 Is a lot of the flavour in the fat? 716 00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:50,640 Yes. The fat conveys a lot of those flavour molecules and also there are 717 00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,400 fat-sensitive taste receptors in the mouth. 718 00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:54,920 Kind of melt in your mouth. 719 00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:59,200 The tasters confirmed that the fried has a better texture, 720 00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:01,160 and in terms of overall liking, 721 00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:04,320 they loved the fried much more than the other two. 722 00:39:06,240 --> 00:39:10,240 Frying might not be the healthiest option, but our test confirmed 723 00:39:10,240 --> 00:39:13,320 it delivers flavour from your sausage. 724 00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:15,720 I'll just take one for the road. 725 00:39:15,720 --> 00:39:18,760 So it seems that it's low and slow frying all the way 726 00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:22,840 if you want to get the most flavour from your banger. 727 00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:27,040 It does take more work, but like most things in life, 728 00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:28,920 good things come to those that wait. 729 00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:41,360 In this rural factory, 730 00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:47,720 there are 37,000 sausages an hour heading into the packing area. 731 00:39:47,720 --> 00:39:49,920 It's the biggest part of the building, 732 00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:53,440 with an average of 32 workers across four lines. 733 00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:59,960 Sausage production is an hour and ten minutes in, and they're ready 734 00:39:59,960 --> 00:40:01,400 to be packed. 735 00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:04,840 Let's see how you get on with this. 736 00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:08,680 OK. You're going to need some of these. This looks like a giggle! 737 00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,000 Well, you're welcome, you're welcome. 738 00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:14,600 What do we have...? Thank you, thank you very much. This is Solis. 739 00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:18,480 Solis? Yes. If you were my brother, you'd be Solis Wallace! 740 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:21,240 Solis Wallace. Ah, nice! Yeah! 741 00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:27,680 I've been to many factories that are almost fully automated, 742 00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,200 so it's unusual to see so many people hand packing. 743 00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:34,240 Crying out loud, you have to work fast here, don't you? 744 00:40:34,240 --> 00:40:37,800 Yeah. The machine is shooting out 600 sausages a minute 745 00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:42,080 and we're packing ten at a time for the family-sized pack. 746 00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:44,680 Argh! Argh! 747 00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:45,880 Put nice in... 748 00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,280 What do you mean, "put nice"?! Solis is very good with his sausages. 749 00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:52,880 That thing there is called the sausage separator. 750 00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:55,240 Solis actually created that himself. 751 00:40:55,240 --> 00:40:59,120 No way! Why did you make a sausage separator? 752 00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:04,560 Well, better system, easier job. 753 00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:11,040 There used to be workers only on one side of the conveyor. 754 00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:13,360 Then Solis drew up his invention 755 00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:16,200 on a beer mat and the factory got it made. 756 00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,120 As a result, they've doubled their packing rate. 757 00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:21,320 What was your job in Lithuania? 758 00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:23,080 Mechanic. Mechanic? 759 00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,160 I see. That's fantastic! 760 00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:30,280 Have some sausages! 761 00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:32,160 Coming down! Oh! 762 00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:34,480 Georgeta, she's one of our best packers. 763 00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:35,720 Is your surname Sausage? 764 00:41:35,720 --> 00:41:39,640 Georgeta Sausage? Not quite, but I will change it. 765 00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:43,240 What do I have to do to be a good sausage packer? 766 00:41:43,240 --> 00:41:46,080 You have to want to work. 767 00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,360 If you don't want to work, you can't be... 768 00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:50,000 Do you ever sing songs on the line? 769 00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,720 Yeah, we always sing songs on the line. 770 00:41:52,720 --> 00:41:56,760 The butchers who deboned our pork liked working to hard rock. 771 00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:02,320 What is the best music to pack sausages? Disco music. Disco! 772 00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:06,280 MUSIC: Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel by Tavares 773 00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:16,080 What is the most spoken language in this factory? 774 00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:19,960 Russian. Russian? What other nationalities do we have here? 775 00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:24,560 Latvia, Lithuania, Polish people, yeah. And I'm from Romania. 776 00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,080 What is the Romanian for sausage? 777 00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,360 Carnat... Carnat... 778 00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:34,320 # Heaven must be missing an angel... # 779 00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:36,520 The company is growing fast 780 00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,520 and trying new ways of speeding up production, 781 00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:42,800 including testing this prototype packing robot. 782 00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:48,360 This machine is the first one of its type to be running in a factory. 783 00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:49,840 Really? Yeah. 784 00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:52,640 So, it makes all of our packing automatic. 785 00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:02,200 The sausages go into the machine, collecting them into sixes, 786 00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:06,440 passing them along and putting them into the trays on its own. 787 00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:07,760 I see. 788 00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:15,080 It will be able to pack 1,800 sausages a minute. 789 00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:16,960 40% quicker than by hand. 790 00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:19,680 Hey-hey! 791 00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:21,240 Packs of sausages! 792 00:43:21,240 --> 00:43:22,560 It's amazing. 793 00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:28,600 The company says better productivity means they'll be able to allocate 794 00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:30,400 the packers to other areas... 795 00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:34,920 ..but there's one tradition that won't change. 796 00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:36,520 PA SYSTEM CHIMES 797 00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:39,920 Why did you build this factory so close to the airport? 798 00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:43,520 Every day, the whole factory stops for lunch together. 799 00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:47,240 What are we going to have for lunch? Sausages. No way? Yeah. 800 00:43:47,240 --> 00:43:49,640 At 4 degrees C, it feels like 801 00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:52,560 we've been working in a giant fridge. 802 00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:54,920 Oh, it's warm! It's nice and warm! 803 00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:57,280 Yeah. Can I have three sausages, please? 804 00:43:57,280 --> 00:43:59,760 Course you can. You're a Corsican? 805 00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:02,840 Of course you can. Course you can, course you can. 806 00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:05,120 I am hungry! 807 00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:12,840 Give me a factory canteen and a traditional lunch and I am happy. 808 00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:14,840 I'll eat sausages with anything, 809 00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:18,800 and one particularly British way is wrapped around an egg. 810 00:44:22,240 --> 00:44:26,640 I've always wondered, how do you get an egg inside a Scotch egg? 811 00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:31,240 And that's not the only mystery. 812 00:44:31,240 --> 00:44:34,080 No-one knows who invented them. 813 00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:36,960 One theory is that Fortnum and Mason created them 814 00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:38,760 for rich coach travellers. 815 00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:42,600 Another that they were developed from an early Indian dish 816 00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:45,400 called nargisi kofta. 817 00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:47,440 One thing's for certain... 818 00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:49,480 ..we love them! 819 00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:54,240 The biggest Scotch egg factory in the UK is in Lincolnshire. 820 00:44:54,240 --> 00:44:55,960 That's a lot of eggs. 821 00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:03,200 Production starts with 20,000 pre-shelled hard-boiled eggs, 822 00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:05,880 being checked over by Andy Dawson. 823 00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:07,400 Hi, Andy. Hi there. 824 00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:10,360 There is something weird about a big bag of eggs. 825 00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:12,800 Bit strange, yeah. Got to put it into here first of all. 826 00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:14,760 Right. Oh, wow! 827 00:45:19,240 --> 00:45:20,640 That is really good fun. 828 00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:23,480 They almost look like ping-pong balls or golf balls. 829 00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:26,640 Golf balls! Then we need to use the ladle. 830 00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:30,960 Any ones that are defective, we'll take out here. 831 00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,760 We're looking for eggshells, we are looking for smaller eggs, 832 00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:37,520 broken eggs, like that one. Pull them out. 833 00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,040 Yeah, pull them out. And then they go into the bottom. 834 00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:44,000 What happens to the waste eggs? They get used again for mayonnaise. 835 00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,960 So nothing gets wasted? No, nothing gets wasted. 836 00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:50,120 What happens next? These are moved along the egg-steppers 837 00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:52,880 and then they get dropped into a little hole there 838 00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:54,760 and that's where the meat comes in. 839 00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:56,760 I feel like this is where the magic is. 840 00:45:59,240 --> 00:46:02,760 A red laser checks if an egg is there, 841 00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:06,440 then a piston pushes it into a tube of sausage meat. 842 00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:09,840 The meat basically forms a sock 843 00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:13,400 and the egg drops into that sock of meat. A meat sock! 844 00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:17,280 Is a meat sock a technical term? No, not really! 845 00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:23,280 The meat sock twists and seals the top and bottom. 846 00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:29,560 It takes just three seconds to wrap an egg. 847 00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:36,480 They start out oval, but tumbling off multiple conveyors 848 00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:38,360 rolls them into a spherical shape. 849 00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:40,120 It goes into the batter machine. 850 00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:42,120 Ooh! 851 00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,280 Is that a batter waterfall? 852 00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:46,800 Just flour and water. That's fabulous. 853 00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:57,200 The egg parcels drop onto a conveyor slide filled with crumbs and, 854 00:46:57,200 --> 00:46:59,080 as they roll, they get covered. 855 00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:02,040 What is the crumb made out of? 856 00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:04,720 Depending on the customer, we have different ones. 857 00:47:04,720 --> 00:47:06,600 We have tortilla crumb. Tortilla? 858 00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:08,920 Tortilla crumb. Then we also have seeded, 859 00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:12,720 breaded that goes on certain ones. You could put almost anything on. 860 00:47:12,720 --> 00:47:14,320 Anything. Anything you like. 861 00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:22,960 They look much more like a Scotch egg now. 862 00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:25,160 Yeah. So how many of these do you make? 863 00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:28,480 Approximately, average, 1.4 million a week. 864 00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:33,040 That's around 74 million Scotch eggs made here every year. 865 00:47:33,040 --> 00:47:36,080 Who eats all those Scotch eggs?! 866 00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:38,680 British summer time, everybody loves them. 867 00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:40,720 Now covered in breadcrumbs, 868 00:47:40,720 --> 00:47:46,400 they enter the fryer for about seven minutes at 170 degrees C. 869 00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:48,720 Oh, they're so beautiful! 870 00:47:48,720 --> 00:47:50,360 Fresh out of the fryer. 871 00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:52,040 Yeah. Can I crack one open? 872 00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:54,600 Go for it. Oh, that is a lovely thing. 873 00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:59,480 So there we go, the mystery of the Scotch egg is solved. 874 00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:03,840 It's all down to amazing machines and the magic of a meat sock. 875 00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:20,400 An hour and 20 minutes after we began making sausages, 876 00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:24,680 and our porky parcels have reached the sealing section at the end 877 00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:26,040 of the line. 878 00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:28,240 Mica, explain me, please, what happens in here. 879 00:48:28,240 --> 00:48:32,240 So, this is wrapping them, so it's putting a film round them. 880 00:48:32,240 --> 00:48:36,560 You see the arms? They grab the trays and then it's pushed up 881 00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:38,720 onto a hotplate, and the hotplate 882 00:48:38,720 --> 00:48:41,760 melts a little bit of plastic on the top. 883 00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:51,320 That is how they come out, heat sealed. 884 00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:54,400 That is the film that is so satisfying to... 885 00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:56,640 Pop. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! 886 00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:02,320 Now they have to go through a series of safety checks. 887 00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:07,360 Every tray of sausages passes under a detector to make sure 888 00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:09,920 no metal has slipped into the meat. 889 00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:11,480 Why is it going so fast? 890 00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,080 It's like a... It's like a toboggan ride! 891 00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:19,080 Is that the end of the production line? It is for this room. 892 00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:21,000 Thank you, Mica. You're very welcome. 893 00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:23,240 I never knew there was so much to a sausage. 894 00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:31,160 There's still one more test to go, and it happens in the canteen. 895 00:49:34,240 --> 00:49:36,320 Hello. You do the quality check, right? 896 00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:38,800 You're in the right place. Hi. Isabel. 897 00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:42,160 Right, what do we have to do to check quality? 898 00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:45,480 Well, first thing is make sure that it's sealed properly 899 00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:48,880 and it's properly filled. Then the next thing is to smell. 900 00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:51,920 How many sausages do you smell in the course of a day? 901 00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:53,640 More than I ever thought I would. 902 00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:57,960 The sausages are weighed and then shallow-fried. 903 00:50:05,720 --> 00:50:11,800 That's a mildly seasoned, mildly spiced, very meaty, bouncy sausage. 904 00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:13,880 I think that is exactly as it should be. 905 00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:17,000 The interesting thing is that you say it's mild, 906 00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:19,320 because it's quite strong seasoning, 907 00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:22,440 but because these are literally fresh off the line, 908 00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,440 they haven't had time to kind of develop, 909 00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:28,240 so it'll be a couple of days before they hit the shelves. 910 00:50:28,240 --> 00:50:31,400 They'll get a stronger flavour? Yeah. Ah! 911 00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,480 Brilliant. Thank you very much. You're very welcome. 912 00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:42,720 Traditional bangers like these are the best-sellers in the UK, 913 00:50:42,720 --> 00:50:45,400 but in the US, they're partial to a hot dog. 914 00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:47,400 But just how American are they? 915 00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:53,160 # Hot dog, she's my baby Hot dog, drives me crazy 916 00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:55,800 # You want to see my baby in a hot dog stand... # 917 00:50:55,800 --> 00:51:00,640 A red sausage in a white bun with mustard over the top. 918 00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:02,160 It's an American icon. 919 00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:07,280 But it turns out, it didn't originate in the USA. 920 00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:11,520 American food anthropologist Kaori O'Connor has invited me to sample 921 00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:14,280 the sausage that led to the hot dog. 922 00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:17,240 Oh, yummy! Look at that. Oh, they look nice. 923 00:51:17,240 --> 00:51:19,400 They do look nice, thank you. Yes, yes! 924 00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:23,000 So where exactly did the hot dog really come from? 925 00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:25,840 From the distant past, by way of Germany. 926 00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:28,920 What we've got here is the classic bratwurst. 927 00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:33,240 Very finely processed, mild sausages. 928 00:51:33,240 --> 00:51:36,040 And one of the great things about these sausages, 929 00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:39,040 they're so mild that they are very adaptable. 930 00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:42,600 So how do we get, then, from this sort of German-style sausage 931 00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:44,320 to what we think of as a hot dog, 932 00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:47,480 always, and it's always, in a bun? This is how... 933 00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:51,840 This is the father of the American hot dog, Charles Feltman. 934 00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:56,920 Feltman was one of hundreds of thousands of German immigrants 935 00:51:56,920 --> 00:52:00,080 who sailed into New York in the 19th century. 936 00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:03,280 He arrives in New York about 1856. 937 00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:06,680 He's young, he's 15, and he has to make a living. 938 00:52:06,680 --> 00:52:10,600 What's he going to do? He thinks, "Food, fast food." 939 00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:12,040 Now, in Germany, 940 00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:16,160 the sausage has been a street food from before there were streets, 941 00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:19,240 you know. He said, "Well, there are these sausages. 942 00:52:19,240 --> 00:52:22,080 "What can I do to make them more attractive?" 943 00:52:22,080 --> 00:52:25,560 And he thought, "I can put them in a bun. It's really easy." 944 00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:28,680 And he would slash open the bun, put in a warm hot dog, 945 00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:30,680 put on some mustard and there you are. 946 00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:34,360 He sold them at Coney Island, which was the big resort. 947 00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:37,040 So it's a sort of holiday food, it's cheap. 948 00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:39,440 The Coney Island Red Hot! 949 00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:43,120 And it was the fact that it was hot that sort of first captured 950 00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:44,320 the imagination. 951 00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:47,800 OK, a cold sausage is one thing but a hot sausage, yes, 952 00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:49,280 it's much more appealing. 953 00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:52,880 That explains half the name we know today, 954 00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:55,440 but what about the other half? 955 00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:56,880 Whoa, look at that! 956 00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:59,800 When was the first reference to a hot dog? 957 00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:01,840 We scoured the archives. 958 00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,080 OK. And one of the earliest is here. 959 00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:08,200 The Paterson Daily Press, 1892, 960 00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:13,800 and it's a young boy who is so keen to get his hands on it. He says, 961 00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:16,800 "Hey, mister, give me a hot dog, quick!" 962 00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:23,160 The dog part can probably be traced back to a popular German pet. 963 00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:27,720 One of the things the Germans brought over was their dogs. 964 00:53:27,720 --> 00:53:31,400 Notably the dachshund, or sausage dog. 965 00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:34,720 So we're getting an early association between sausage dogs, 966 00:53:34,720 --> 00:53:36,120 dogs and sausages. 967 00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:40,920 Because the sausage is long and narrow, and so was the dachshund. 968 00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:45,680 In 1904, the association of dog and sausage was so close, 969 00:53:45,680 --> 00:53:50,080 Thomas Edison, the inventor of the modern world, did a comic shot, 970 00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:52,160 The Patent Dog Transformer. 971 00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:55,640 I see! This is a complete howl. I love this! I love it. 972 00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:00,440 Dogs go in one end and sausages come out the other. 973 00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:02,440 A comical take on the urban legends 974 00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:06,080 about the kind of meat in cheap sausages. 975 00:54:06,080 --> 00:54:09,920 So that's it, then. The hot dog. All elements assembled. 976 00:54:09,920 --> 00:54:13,080 You don't need much, do you, to make us happy? 977 00:54:13,080 --> 00:54:14,360 This is perfect. 978 00:54:15,640 --> 00:54:18,560 # Hot dog, that's a-what I like. # 979 00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:28,920 At the factory, the sausages 980 00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:31,680 have passed quality check with flying colours. 981 00:54:33,960 --> 00:54:35,800 And they're ready to be boxed up. 982 00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:38,000 Are you Harry? 983 00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:40,520 Yes, nice to meet you. What happens here? 984 00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:43,040 This is the sleeving side, so grab some of these. 985 00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:46,280 Oh, I'm doing it, am I? You can give me a hand if you like. All right, OK. 986 00:54:47,920 --> 00:54:51,120 Harry's been sleeving sausages for two years. 987 00:54:52,440 --> 00:54:54,360 So with your finger, you want to 988 00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:55,920 prop it against your hip like that 989 00:54:55,920 --> 00:55:00,440 and then push it with your finger, like that, and all you have to do is 990 00:55:00,440 --> 00:55:03,000 grab a pack and then just slide it in, just like that. 991 00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:04,200 That's not difficult. 992 00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:06,680 And then just pop it... I can do this, I can do this! 993 00:55:09,200 --> 00:55:15,480 We have just four minutes to sleeve 175 packs before the next batch 994 00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:16,880 rolls off the line. 995 00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:19,640 Cannot get these things to fold up quick enough. 996 00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:22,200 How many packs are you doing in the course of a day? 997 00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:25,200 In a day, tens of thousands. Oh, my word! 998 00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:27,840 And they won't stop coming along, will they? 999 00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:29,320 I can't! I can't do it! 1000 00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:34,120 The fast pace is set by the sausage packers on the production line. 1001 00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:37,960 You can't stop here, really. What can go wrong? 1002 00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:39,640 If the sausages all fall on the floor, 1003 00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:41,200 which is what I don't really want. 1004 00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:44,080 We're doing it, we're getting in front. Gimme, gimme, gimme. 1005 00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:46,000 Look, this is good. This is really good. 1006 00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:49,800 We've eventually caught up. This is a job that is easy to do, 1007 00:55:49,800 --> 00:55:51,400 but very hard to do quickly. 1008 00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:54,800 Now the packs are date-stamped 1009 00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:58,880 for a ten-day shelf life and put in display cases of six. 1010 00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:01,680 I can keep up with this. 1011 00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:05,360 It's this bit here that fascinates me. 1012 00:56:05,360 --> 00:56:08,760 That's the box strapper. Box strapper? Box strapper. 1013 00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:16,320 What's your name? My name is Greg. Greg. 1014 00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:20,320 That's... Let me do it, let me do it, let me do it. 1015 00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:22,240 Try... Good! 1016 00:56:22,240 --> 00:56:24,360 You must have trapped your finger in... 1017 00:56:24,360 --> 00:56:26,680 You're not allowed to use your finger. 1018 00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:28,800 Show me. The sensor is working. 1019 00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:32,120 It sees your hand. 1020 00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:34,640 Oh, yeah, it's OK. It's nothing. It's OK! 1021 00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:41,000 I've got it. 1022 00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:46,200 It's been just two hours and 28 minutes since our pork shoulders 1023 00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:47,600 were deboned, 1024 00:56:47,600 --> 00:56:50,240 and we've made it to the final stage. 1025 00:56:50,240 --> 00:56:52,320 Distribution. 1026 00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:55,160 You must be Izzie, right? I am. Nice to meet you. 1027 00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:57,560 I'm Izzie. You're in charge of distribution. 1028 00:56:57,560 --> 00:57:01,160 I am. So we have about five lorries that load onto the dock each day. 1029 00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:03,400 How many pallets on each lorry? 1030 00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:06,280 So we usually get about 26 to 28 pallets, 1031 00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:10,240 so you're looking at about 10,000 sausages per pallet. 1032 00:57:10,240 --> 00:57:11,640 10,000 sausages per pallet?! 1033 00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,640 Per pallet. So if you look down the lorry now 1034 00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:19,200 we've got roughly 170,000 sausages there, so that's a lot of sausages. 1035 00:57:23,800 --> 00:57:26,960 These chilled bangers will be on the shelves 1036 00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:30,800 of 10,000 British supermarkets within two days, 1037 00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:32,840 and more are bought in London 1038 00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:34,360 than anywhere else. 1039 00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:39,200 I've enjoyed watching the sausages being made and I am pleased that 1040 00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:41,280 they actually contain so few ingredients, 1041 00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:45,960 but I am surprised that it's still really a people industry. 1042 00:57:45,960 --> 00:57:50,040 It requires enthusiastic and highly skilled people, 1043 00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:51,560 especially in the butchery. 1044 00:57:51,560 --> 00:57:55,480 But really, what they're making is something that we've all enjoyed 1045 00:57:55,480 --> 00:57:57,920 for hundreds and hundreds of years. 1046 00:57:57,920 --> 00:57:59,240 That is a sausage. 1047 00:58:02,720 --> 00:58:04,040 Next time... 1048 00:58:04,040 --> 00:58:05,800 Whoa! 1049 00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:09,640 ..I get saucy in a Nottinghamshire curry factory... 1050 00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:11,880 I kind of want to strip off and get in. 1051 00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:16,320 ..making a super-sized batch of tikka masala. 1052 00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:17,560 That smells good! 1053 00:58:20,960 --> 00:58:24,320 And Cherry turns Spice Girl in India. 1054 00:58:24,320 --> 00:58:25,800 When I woke up this morning, 1055 00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:28,280 I didn't think I'd be standing in a bag of chillies.