Premier Foods’ Barnsley factory has featured in a Christmas edition of BBC TV show Inside the Factory.

The Mr Kipling owner’s Carlton Bakery site – described by the company as the biggest mince pie factory in Europe – starred in the Inside the Christmas Factory show that aired earlier this week. The episode will be shown again tomorrow (23 December) at 6pm on BBC 2 and is also available on iPlayer.

Premier said the bakery, which employs around 850 staff and takes on 300 additional workers during the peak Christmas season, is expected to produce more than 180 million mince pies this year.

The company said this is the greatest number it has ever produced, and follows Premier recently announcing that it had secured its first production contracts for premium mince pies.

In the episode, presenter Gregg Wallace is shown helping the bakery team throughout the production process: including unloading key ingredients such as flour, sugar and sultanas; making the pastry dough; and cooking the mincemeat, which is made on site. Wallace also bakes, tests and packs the pies, and loads them in the lorry.

“Mr Kipling mince pies are a key staple of the British Christmas season, so it was a perfect fit for the programme,” said Simon Wood, factory general manager at the Carlton bakery. “It was great hosting Gregg Wallace for a couple of days to show him how to make a batch of his own pies. As he found out, it’s not as easy as it looks!”

Earlier this month, Asda innovation development chef Mark Richmond explained how he created a way to remove the ‘air gap’ from the retailer’s mince pies, which are produced at Premier’s Cartlon Bakery.

Quick bites: Premier Foods mince pies

  • Premier Foods’ Carlton Bakery has been making mince pies since 1975
  • Carlton can produce more than 43,000 mince pies a minute
  • The site also makes 7,000 tonnes of mincemeat a year
  • Mr Kipling frosted top mince pies are made at Premier Foods’ bakery in Stoke-upon-Trent

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