Cherry’s hunt for chillies

The lifestyle documentary maker on her upcoming series of BBC’s Inside the Factory

In the making Cherry Healey at the coffee factory

BBC presenter Cherry Healey likes to live life on the edge. Trips down to the sewers, harvesting spicy chillies, and most difficult of all, laying off the caffeine. “It was awful,” she says with a laugh. “Never giving up it again.” The 38-year-old gave up coffee for a week ahead of shooting an episode on the brew for series four of BBC’s Inside the Factory .

Healey, along with fellow presenters Gregg Wallace and Ruth Goodman, visited a Nescafe factory in UK’s Derbyshire to learn how instant coffee is made for the first episode of the four-episode series, all set to première next week. “We visited a scientist to figure out why caffeine is so strong and we talked about why it’s good to have some caffeine when you need it,” says Healey, known for her light-hearted documentaries for BBC Three, such as Cherry Healey: Old Before My Time , How To Get A Life and Cherry Has A Baby .

Inside The Factory , like its name suggests, delves into the process behind the making of a particular product. Explaining the show’s three segments, She says, “Gregg takes a look at the main factory — he does the spine of the show. I do the bit that looks at the science and the ingredients that go in, while Ruth talks about the history of the food or the item.”

In the fields

The new series also looks at how toilet paper rolls and sausages are made. In addition, the fourth and final episode takes a look at the making of ‘curry sauce’ in Nottinghamshire. The show also travelled all the way to Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, to take a peek at how chillies — an integral part of UK’s curry sauce — are harvested.

“We walked through the chilli fields and harvested them. We went to a chilli market too. It was quite stunning to see the amount of chillies, spread as far as the eye can see,” says Healey, adding, “I thought I handled spice well, until I went to that market! We also took a look at the factory where they turn it into powder. The people there were not bothered about the heat, but we could barely breathe.”

Digging in

Inside The Factory began in 2015, with a short three-episode season that covered a variety of products — from milk and chocolates to shoes and bicycles. The second series’ bicycle episode is also Healey’s favourite. “It was very interesting to see how bikes have been developing constantly and how people have come up with interesting inventions.”

There are quite a few non-food related episodes coming up in Series 5, as well, teases Healey. The show is currently under production. “The ones that we are making that are not about food are absolutely fascinating. We’re making 10 episodes so it’s a big one,” she says.

Inside The Factory S4 premières on February 11 at 8 pm on Sony BBC Earth