Food Unwrapped (2012) s06e02 Episode Script
Wagu Beef, Swiss Cheese
1 Let's go.
'Us Brits love our grub.
'And our shops and supermarkets are stacked high with 'food from all over the world!' Whoa! 'But how do we really know about where our food comes from?' I've come to ask you how dangerous my nuts are.
'We'll be travelling far and wide' Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Look at how high up we are! Ah! '.
.
to reveal the truth about the food we eat.
' That is not as I would expect at all! 'Coming up, I find out the catastrophic effect 'of not getting enough vitamin D.
' - He's walking very bow-legged, isn't he? - Yeah.
'Our bodies make vitamin D from sunlight.
'But where do the food manufacturers get it from?' - It's worth more than gold? - Sure.
- Ah No, I'm only joking! - Just put it down, please! 'I'm in Switzerland to ask why they put holes in their cheese.
' It's the bits missing that make the cheese.
'And I investigate how supermarkets 'can sell posh wagyu beef burgers at knock-down prices!' Never invite Matt Tebbutt to cook! 'First up, vitamin D.
'It's added to everything, from breakfast cereal to yoghurt drinks.
'But why do we need it and where does it come from?' Vitamin D -- what is that? 'It derives from maize and wheat.
' Where does the vitamin D in those boxes of cereal come from? 'That's obviously forced from fish and stuff like that and egg yolks.
' So there could be, like, added egg in my cereal? 'Yeah, it could possibly be the egg, 'cos it's a really good source of vitamin D.
' Worryingly, the Department of Health says a quarter of people in the UK have low levels of vitamin D.
'Children are especially at risk.
'Three-year-old Hamzah Khan from Middlesex 'is suffering from rickets, caused by vitamin D deficiency.
' - Hello, Mr Khan, lovely to see you.
- Hello.
And seeing your lovely family here.
But tell me, before you knew of your son's condition, had you really heard anything about vitamin D before - and the importance of vitamin D? - Not as much like it's very important.
'Hamzah is being treated by Dr Jacobs 'from the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital.
' What was the state of play a year or so ago? - We've actually got a video.
- So let's have a look, then.
Wow, look at that! He's walking very bow-legged, isn't he? Yeah, it is, yeah.
That was a worrying thing for us and our family.
'Little Hamzah should make a full recovery, 'thanks to a long course of vitamin D supplements.
'But it's not an isolated case.
' I thought that rickets was a disease of yesteryear, something that the Victorians suffered from.
Surely it's not coming back? We are now seeing vitamin D deficiency, rickets, again.
'Dr Jacobs estimates thousands of people in the UK develop 'bone problems every year as a result of vitamin D deficiency.
'At least 100 are children with severe rickets, just like Hamzah.
' Lack of vitamin D affects your bones.
Children with rickets end up short and deformed.
You can see his legs are not straight.
And, particularly around the knees and the ankles, either end of these bones basically looks rotten.
One of the main functions of vitamin D is to help you absorb the calcium from your diet.
Vitamin D is naturally present in a handful of foods, including oily fish, egg yolks and mushrooms.
But it's at such low levels that our bodies need more.
So we actually produce our own vitamin D with help from the sun.
When UVB rays penetrate the skin, they cause a chemical reaction that converts fatty acids into vitamin D.
So our bodies need sunshine to make vitamin D.
And using high-factor suncream hasn't helped.
As doctors, we've campaigned to avoid sunshine to prevent skin cancer, but we should add to the message, "Take some vitamin D some other way," take a supplement or fortify your food.
We shouldn't be seeing children with rickets due to a lack of vitamin D in this day and age.
'To top the rest of us up, vitamin D is added to many foods.
'But how does it get there? 'They can't be boxing up sunshine, can they?!' Now, I've been asked by the Food Unwrapped team to visit a particular farm, because apparently, at this place, this is where the production of vitamin D begins.
'I've come to Cannon Hall Farm in Cawthorne, South Yorkshire.
' Right, here we are! 'But I can't see any fish eggs or mushrooms here.
' It's not quite what I expected, though.
'I'm meeting farmer Robert Nicholson.
' - Hi there, I'm Jim.
- I'm Robert.
I've got to say, this is a beautiful farm, but to be honest, I was thinking of lots of different varieties of vegetables, but it's just a field with some sheep in.
No vegetables here, I'm afraid, Jimmy.
No, we are sheep farming.
'Robert has 500 sheep here.
But how do they make vitamin D?' - Hi there.
I'm Jim.
- I'm Roger.
- Roger? - Yeah.
- Is this your dad? - He's my father, yeah.
Right, so the vitamin D from a sheep, where does it come from? Is it a leg of lamb, the kidneys, the liver, where does it come from? - It comes from the sheep's wool, Jimmy.
- The wool?! - Absolutely, the wool.
- That's incredible! 'To get at the wool, first, the sheep have to be sheared.
' My sound man, Jack, is an expert sheep shearer.
Come on, Jack.
- Want to have let Dad have a go? - It may be quicker, I reckon! That was rubbish! 'During the summer months, the wool becomes saturated with a grease 'called lanolin, which is excreted from the sheep's skin.
' It comes from the glands on the skin, it basically waterproofs the sheep's fleece.
Just touching it for a second or two makes your hands visibly greasy.
Right, good old girl, I think we can let her go now.
'Later, I discover how sheep's grease 'is turned into that crucial ingredient for our diet.
' - It's worth more than gold? - Sure.
- Ah No, I'm only joking! - Just put it down, please! Next, wagyu beef from Japan.
It's marbled with fat and famous for being one of the most expensive meets in the world.
Posh restaurants can charge around £150 for a wagyu steak.
But UK supermarkets have begun selling wagyu burgers for as little as £1.
89 for a pack of two.
What is the difference between wagyu beef and your standard beef? 'They massage the meat, which obviously makes it more tender.
' Really? It's slightly ridiculous.
I can't believe they actually massage cows and still sell 'em as cheap burgers.
'So, how do they taste? I know just the man to help me find out.
' You know how you often say that you don't get to go anywhere? I get to come over to your house and cook? - Is that what we're doing? - Yeah! Yeah, yeah! Right, I've got two wagyu beefburgers and I've got two normal beefburgers.
Well, instantly, if you look at them, you can see there's an awful lot more fat in that burger than there is in that.
Got any oil? Have you got extraction? - It's going to get smoky in here.
- No, we're going to be smoky.
Uh-oh! How do you turn that off? I don't know what to do.
Never invite Matt Tebbutt round to cook! - Call yourself a chef? - Shall we carry on? Look at me! With me, Neil! Aw! There, see, nothing to worry about! - It's shrunk! - It will, because a large part of that is fat.
So the fat shrinks away, the meat sort of comes together.
- Right, shall we eat them? - Yeah, let's do it! - Right 'First the wagyu.
' Oh, my God! Ooh! It's really fatty, but it's really soft.
- OK - It's so juicy! 'And now, for the normal burger.
' That is a very different thing.
Much firmer, less fat.
- It's much more dense.
- Mm-hm.
So, how on earth do you think that they make these wagyu burgers for a couple of quid a packet? - I'm hoping they don't fill it with other things.
- I'll find out.
'As much as I'd love to go to Japan, 'some wagyu cattle are now being reared in Abermule in Wales.
' Look, look, look! Cows! I wonder if those are wagyus! 'I'm meeting Ifor Humphries, a specialist beef supplier' Ifor! '.
.
with a herd of 30 wagyu cows.
' - Hello! - Wagyu actually means Japanese-style cow.
The reason that wagyu are different is because of the marbling in their meat.
They have more fat in the muscle than any other breed.
When you cook the meat, the fat melts and it produces a flavour that's stronger and superior to normal beef.
'The marbling takes a long time to develop.
'wagyu cattle are often reared for twice as long as normal cattle.
' It's a longer process and it therefore becomes more expensive.
'But if these cows are so expensive to rear, 'how on earth are wagyu burgers so cheap?' The bull is here in the middle.
He is a full-blooded Japanese black wagyu and his calves, they are either 50% or 75% wagyu, because some of the mothers here are half wagyu in the first place.
OK, and you can still call them wagyu? That's right, yes, anything over 50%.
'Ifor fought his 100% wagyu bull as an embryo from Australia for £460.
'He's now worth upwards of 10 grand.
'Traditionally in the UK, it's the breed of the bull 'that determines what breed his calf can be sold as.
'Therefore, these non-pedigree calves, which can have less marbling 'than purebred, are allowed to be labelled as wagyu.
' - I've heard lots of rumours about massage.
- That's right.
- It's a Japanese tradition.
- Can we have a go? I'm up for massaging one.
In Japan, it will be massaged, because they wouldn't have - much movement in their small Japanese environment.
- Really? That probably doesn't happen much these days.
And do you think this makes any difference to the meat at all? Whether it actually makes a huge amount of difference to the flavour of the meat is questionable, but it certainly calms the animal down.
Look, they're all queueing up now.
'In Japan, they may have once 'massaged cramped cows to keep them happy, 'but it doesn't affect the meat's marbling, which is due to genetics.
'Later, I find out exactly what goes into wagyu burgers.
' - And you're putting that in a burger? - Yeah.
'And now, Swiss cheese.
Why all the holes?' - Do you know why there's holes in Swiss cheese? - 'No.
' Because I suppose you're taking out valuable cheese space.
'Um' What causes the holes, by the way? Is it mice? 'Hopefully not!' 'Well, the machine for packaging has a hole punch.
' 'A hole punch?! Surely not?! 'So why do they put holes in there? What are they for? 'Later, I discover the secret in Switzerland.
' Is that what creates the holes within the cheese? Yeah, that's exactly right.
I'm on a mission to find out why there are holes in Swiss cheese.
So, I'm heading to the Emme Valley in Switzerland, birthplace of Emmenthal and home to many small traditional dairies.
Hans.
Matt.
Nice to meet you.
Right.
Lead the way.
Hans has a herd of 20 cows and favours the old-fashioned way of milking.
Really? OK, that's quite cool.
Pretty traditional, isn't it? It's certainly a traditional environment, not a fancy hi-tech dairy by any means.
I mean it is very, very basic.
I mean, you've just got an open bucket here and you've got lots of straw lying around, there's flies, there's cows, there's all kinds of things going on down there.
I'm surprised it's not a more clinical process in this day and age, but Hans clearly believes this environment is key to the quality of the end product.
I've come across the valley to Affoltern Dairy to meet cheese scientist Walter.
- Hello.
- Hello, Walter.
Matt.
Walter, I've come to find out what exactly is going on within - the cheesemaking process.
- Let's go in here and look.
Walter has spent the last three years studying how the holes form.
There's a lot of cheese going on in this room.
Yes, it's a maturing, fermenting room.
So, what are you looking for in a really good cheese? How can you tell that this is full of bubbles? I mean, the height, the height of the cheese, how it's - Slightly domed.
- .
.
domed.
That's important and also we tap on the cheese and then we can hear if there are enough holes, or not enough yet, or if they are too small.
- And this is ready to eat? - This is ready to eat.
- That's a big knife.
- It's seven months old.
- And that's a good, kind of, number of bubbles? Yeah, it's a good number, a good size.
That's delicious.
Very nutty.
It's the bits missing that make the cheese.
It tastes great, but how do the holes get there? Water is showing me the start of the process.
So, what's happening here then? He's inoculating now the milk with lactic acid bacteria.
All cheese is made using a combination of bacteria that gives it a distinct flavour, texture and appearance.
So, is it the combination of these three bacteria that you add here, is that what creates the holes so typical of Swiss cheese? They work altogether, these three types of bacteria, together with what you have seen in the cow shed on the farm.
Some of these hay particles, straw particles, come into the milk naturally and they are also important to start the holes.
Traditionally, the farmer uses straw and hay on the floor and there's dust particles in the air and the open bucket, that has a bearing on the size and the development of the holes within the cheese.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
So it turns out the holes occur naturally as part of the age-old cheesemaking process.
Bacteria eats lactic acid in the milk and burps out billions of carbon dioxide molecules.
Tiny hay particles that have found their way into the milk at the traditional dairy then provide a surface for the CO2 molecules to gather around, so they slowly join together and form a bubble.
In our experiment, we added defined amounts of microparticles of hay and we could see, according to the amount we added, - the more holes we had.
- Really? Yeah, that was really impressive for us, quite surprising.
So, it's a combination of traditional milking methods and special bacteria that creates the holes, not a hole punch, and thanks to Walter's research, the Swiss have more control over the size and number of their holes than ever before.
Earlier, I met three-year-old Hamza Khan, one of over 100 children in the UK diagnosed with rickets every year due to a lack of vitamin D.
- Wow! Look at that.
He's walking very bow-legged, isn't he? - Yeah.
Many supermarket foods are fortified with vitamin D and I learned it can be sourced from the grease in sheep's wool.
It comes from the glands on the skin.
I'm in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, to see how a family firm extracts the crucial component of vitamin D supplements.
Mark Andrews is the general manager.
- Nice to see you.
- Nice to see you.
I'm here to find out what you do with your wool and how you wash out all that grease.
- Walk in and we'll show you.
- Let's do it.
- OK.
Wow! Look at all this wool.
Mark and his team process 25,000 tonnes of sheep fleeces every year.
The wool is used in carpets and clothing.
It's just a vat of water and detergent in there and some agitation.
Generally moving the wool Yep, it's a triple mechanism that's generally opening the wool up as it moves down the scourer.
- What a difference that is.
It's dry - Yeah.
- .
.
clean Right, well, I've seen the pretty side of the wool.
- Show me your grease.
- OK.
I'm glad you tidied it up! We're running the water through one of these centrifuges here and separating the oil from water.
So, all the water that you've used to wash all the oil has come in here.
It's spinning.
Spinning very fast and it's separating oil from water.
- So, that's it? - That's it, that's the final product.
It's hard to imagine this revolting stuff in my cornflakes.
- Look how thick that is.
- Yeah.
- That smells like wax.
- It is.
People call it wool grease but, actually, it's a wax.
We'll vial that up and sell that on to the refiners.
And Mark sells his wax to a company in Veenendaal, in the Netherlands.
I've come to Dishman Laboratory to meet chemist Cor Veldhuizen.
- Hi, I'm Jim.
Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- You're going to show me the next process? - Yes.
Come on.
- Thanks.
When the sheep's grease arrives, it isn't edible.
It's purified, refined, refined some more and then crystallised before finally arriving in Cor's lab.
It looks just like sugar.
Next comes the most important part of the process.
It seems to me you're big on red lights here in Holland.
'This lamp is specially designed to replicate the sun's rays.
' I thought it was going to be bright white.
It's actually red.
If that glass wasn't there, what would happen to us, then? Tiny light particles called photons bombard the crystal compound, causing a chemical reaction that creates vitamin D.
After four hours of light blasting, the solution is filtered and then refrigerated to allow crystals to form.
- This is it.
- That's it.
So, the foods that you see in the supermarkets - that says, "added vitamin D", it's created like this? - Sure.
Yeah.
It seems like a lot of work and a lot of effort for a tiny amount.
- How much is in here? - About half a gram.
But just one vial contains twice the amount of vitamin D that little Hamza will need in his whole lifetime.
What would this be worth? - A small house? - Sure.
So, would you say, like, £250,000, more? It's worth more than gold? That is incredible.
Imagine that - No, no, no.
- Only joking.
From sheep's grease to a precious powder that will transform young Hamza's life.
Purebred wagyu beef is one of the most expensive meats in the world, with prices as high as £900 a kilo.
Yet discount supermarkets are selling wagyu burgers for £1.
89 for two.
How on earth do you think that they make these wagyu burgers for a couple of quid a packet? I'm hoping they don't fill it with other things.
What are they putting in them? I've come to the Scottish Borders to meet Walter Murray, who runs a factory making wagyu burgers for UK supermarkets.
- Hello, Walter.
- Hi, Kate.
How are you? So, you're knocking out wagyu burgers.
We do wagyu burgers, yes.
- Can we see? - Yes.
Come on, let's go.
This way.
Walter wants to show me the trick to producing a cheap wagyu burger.
It's so cold.
Look, can you see that, right? It is that cold, the camera can't even cope with it.
It's freezing! So, what we bring in is the offcuts of steaks from different countries, in blocks and that's what we make the burgers out of.
So, it's not prime cuts, it's offcuts of steaks.
So, you wouldn't use the prime cuts in your burgers? No, it'd be far too expensive, it'd make it prohibitively expensive.
You have to use the offcuts to make the burgers.
So, Walter is reducing cost by buying in frozen wagyu offcuts in bulk from abroad.
That doesn't sound very appetising.
So, this is the trim that we use.
I tell you what, they don't really look like trimmings to me.
I mean, that's a good cut of beef.
- And you're putting that in a burger? - Yeah.
So, this will now get minced.
At this stage, you can see there is a lot of fat in that.
But it's not gristle in there.
Now it goes into the next mixer and then we'll add our seasonings in here.
The season is a mixture of gluten-free pea flour and salt and pepper, and together with water, this helps bind the mince together.
Any other type of beef going in at this stage? No, it's just wagyu, that's it.
- And you still manage to do it this cheap? - Yeah.
Just.
Walter doesn't use purebred wagyu meat.
His mixed breed beef with less marbling is way cheaper.
Look at that.
And that's how you can make cheap burgers out of one of the world's most expensive meats.
- That's it? - Yep, that's it ready to go now into supermarkets.
Next time, I'm in Spain investigating why canned tuna looks nothing like tuna steaks.
- That's a steamer? - Yeah.
- I thought it was the subway.
I thought I was going to get a train to Madrid.
I discover the lengths ice cream makers go to to keep their products as smooth as possible.
That is smoother than Barry White, isn't it? And I'm in for a bumpy ride as I find out why some frozen peas cost so much more than others.
'Us Brits love our grub.
'And our shops and supermarkets are stacked high with 'food from all over the world!' Whoa! 'But how do we really know about where our food comes from?' I've come to ask you how dangerous my nuts are.
'We'll be travelling far and wide' Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Look at how high up we are! Ah! '.
.
to reveal the truth about the food we eat.
' That is not as I would expect at all! 'Coming up, I find out the catastrophic effect 'of not getting enough vitamin D.
' - He's walking very bow-legged, isn't he? - Yeah.
'Our bodies make vitamin D from sunlight.
'But where do the food manufacturers get it from?' - It's worth more than gold? - Sure.
- Ah No, I'm only joking! - Just put it down, please! 'I'm in Switzerland to ask why they put holes in their cheese.
' It's the bits missing that make the cheese.
'And I investigate how supermarkets 'can sell posh wagyu beef burgers at knock-down prices!' Never invite Matt Tebbutt to cook! 'First up, vitamin D.
'It's added to everything, from breakfast cereal to yoghurt drinks.
'But why do we need it and where does it come from?' Vitamin D -- what is that? 'It derives from maize and wheat.
' Where does the vitamin D in those boxes of cereal come from? 'That's obviously forced from fish and stuff like that and egg yolks.
' So there could be, like, added egg in my cereal? 'Yeah, it could possibly be the egg, 'cos it's a really good source of vitamin D.
' Worryingly, the Department of Health says a quarter of people in the UK have low levels of vitamin D.
'Children are especially at risk.
'Three-year-old Hamzah Khan from Middlesex 'is suffering from rickets, caused by vitamin D deficiency.
' - Hello, Mr Khan, lovely to see you.
- Hello.
And seeing your lovely family here.
But tell me, before you knew of your son's condition, had you really heard anything about vitamin D before - and the importance of vitamin D? - Not as much like it's very important.
'Hamzah is being treated by Dr Jacobs 'from the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital.
' What was the state of play a year or so ago? - We've actually got a video.
- So let's have a look, then.
Wow, look at that! He's walking very bow-legged, isn't he? Yeah, it is, yeah.
That was a worrying thing for us and our family.
'Little Hamzah should make a full recovery, 'thanks to a long course of vitamin D supplements.
'But it's not an isolated case.
' I thought that rickets was a disease of yesteryear, something that the Victorians suffered from.
Surely it's not coming back? We are now seeing vitamin D deficiency, rickets, again.
'Dr Jacobs estimates thousands of people in the UK develop 'bone problems every year as a result of vitamin D deficiency.
'At least 100 are children with severe rickets, just like Hamzah.
' Lack of vitamin D affects your bones.
Children with rickets end up short and deformed.
You can see his legs are not straight.
And, particularly around the knees and the ankles, either end of these bones basically looks rotten.
One of the main functions of vitamin D is to help you absorb the calcium from your diet.
Vitamin D is naturally present in a handful of foods, including oily fish, egg yolks and mushrooms.
But it's at such low levels that our bodies need more.
So we actually produce our own vitamin D with help from the sun.
When UVB rays penetrate the skin, they cause a chemical reaction that converts fatty acids into vitamin D.
So our bodies need sunshine to make vitamin D.
And using high-factor suncream hasn't helped.
As doctors, we've campaigned to avoid sunshine to prevent skin cancer, but we should add to the message, "Take some vitamin D some other way," take a supplement or fortify your food.
We shouldn't be seeing children with rickets due to a lack of vitamin D in this day and age.
'To top the rest of us up, vitamin D is added to many foods.
'But how does it get there? 'They can't be boxing up sunshine, can they?!' Now, I've been asked by the Food Unwrapped team to visit a particular farm, because apparently, at this place, this is where the production of vitamin D begins.
'I've come to Cannon Hall Farm in Cawthorne, South Yorkshire.
' Right, here we are! 'But I can't see any fish eggs or mushrooms here.
' It's not quite what I expected, though.
'I'm meeting farmer Robert Nicholson.
' - Hi there, I'm Jim.
- I'm Robert.
I've got to say, this is a beautiful farm, but to be honest, I was thinking of lots of different varieties of vegetables, but it's just a field with some sheep in.
No vegetables here, I'm afraid, Jimmy.
No, we are sheep farming.
'Robert has 500 sheep here.
But how do they make vitamin D?' - Hi there.
I'm Jim.
- I'm Roger.
- Roger? - Yeah.
- Is this your dad? - He's my father, yeah.
Right, so the vitamin D from a sheep, where does it come from? Is it a leg of lamb, the kidneys, the liver, where does it come from? - It comes from the sheep's wool, Jimmy.
- The wool?! - Absolutely, the wool.
- That's incredible! 'To get at the wool, first, the sheep have to be sheared.
' My sound man, Jack, is an expert sheep shearer.
Come on, Jack.
- Want to have let Dad have a go? - It may be quicker, I reckon! That was rubbish! 'During the summer months, the wool becomes saturated with a grease 'called lanolin, which is excreted from the sheep's skin.
' It comes from the glands on the skin, it basically waterproofs the sheep's fleece.
Just touching it for a second or two makes your hands visibly greasy.
Right, good old girl, I think we can let her go now.
'Later, I discover how sheep's grease 'is turned into that crucial ingredient for our diet.
' - It's worth more than gold? - Sure.
- Ah No, I'm only joking! - Just put it down, please! Next, wagyu beef from Japan.
It's marbled with fat and famous for being one of the most expensive meets in the world.
Posh restaurants can charge around £150 for a wagyu steak.
But UK supermarkets have begun selling wagyu burgers for as little as £1.
89 for a pack of two.
What is the difference between wagyu beef and your standard beef? 'They massage the meat, which obviously makes it more tender.
' Really? It's slightly ridiculous.
I can't believe they actually massage cows and still sell 'em as cheap burgers.
'So, how do they taste? I know just the man to help me find out.
' You know how you often say that you don't get to go anywhere? I get to come over to your house and cook? - Is that what we're doing? - Yeah! Yeah, yeah! Right, I've got two wagyu beefburgers and I've got two normal beefburgers.
Well, instantly, if you look at them, you can see there's an awful lot more fat in that burger than there is in that.
Got any oil? Have you got extraction? - It's going to get smoky in here.
- No, we're going to be smoky.
Uh-oh! How do you turn that off? I don't know what to do.
Never invite Matt Tebbutt round to cook! - Call yourself a chef? - Shall we carry on? Look at me! With me, Neil! Aw! There, see, nothing to worry about! - It's shrunk! - It will, because a large part of that is fat.
So the fat shrinks away, the meat sort of comes together.
- Right, shall we eat them? - Yeah, let's do it! - Right 'First the wagyu.
' Oh, my God! Ooh! It's really fatty, but it's really soft.
- OK - It's so juicy! 'And now, for the normal burger.
' That is a very different thing.
Much firmer, less fat.
- It's much more dense.
- Mm-hm.
So, how on earth do you think that they make these wagyu burgers for a couple of quid a packet? - I'm hoping they don't fill it with other things.
- I'll find out.
'As much as I'd love to go to Japan, 'some wagyu cattle are now being reared in Abermule in Wales.
' Look, look, look! Cows! I wonder if those are wagyus! 'I'm meeting Ifor Humphries, a specialist beef supplier' Ifor! '.
.
with a herd of 30 wagyu cows.
' - Hello! - Wagyu actually means Japanese-style cow.
The reason that wagyu are different is because of the marbling in their meat.
They have more fat in the muscle than any other breed.
When you cook the meat, the fat melts and it produces a flavour that's stronger and superior to normal beef.
'The marbling takes a long time to develop.
'wagyu cattle are often reared for twice as long as normal cattle.
' It's a longer process and it therefore becomes more expensive.
'But if these cows are so expensive to rear, 'how on earth are wagyu burgers so cheap?' The bull is here in the middle.
He is a full-blooded Japanese black wagyu and his calves, they are either 50% or 75% wagyu, because some of the mothers here are half wagyu in the first place.
OK, and you can still call them wagyu? That's right, yes, anything over 50%.
'Ifor fought his 100% wagyu bull as an embryo from Australia for £460.
'He's now worth upwards of 10 grand.
'Traditionally in the UK, it's the breed of the bull 'that determines what breed his calf can be sold as.
'Therefore, these non-pedigree calves, which can have less marbling 'than purebred, are allowed to be labelled as wagyu.
' - I've heard lots of rumours about massage.
- That's right.
- It's a Japanese tradition.
- Can we have a go? I'm up for massaging one.
In Japan, it will be massaged, because they wouldn't have - much movement in their small Japanese environment.
- Really? That probably doesn't happen much these days.
And do you think this makes any difference to the meat at all? Whether it actually makes a huge amount of difference to the flavour of the meat is questionable, but it certainly calms the animal down.
Look, they're all queueing up now.
'In Japan, they may have once 'massaged cramped cows to keep them happy, 'but it doesn't affect the meat's marbling, which is due to genetics.
'Later, I find out exactly what goes into wagyu burgers.
' - And you're putting that in a burger? - Yeah.
'And now, Swiss cheese.
Why all the holes?' - Do you know why there's holes in Swiss cheese? - 'No.
' Because I suppose you're taking out valuable cheese space.
'Um' What causes the holes, by the way? Is it mice? 'Hopefully not!' 'Well, the machine for packaging has a hole punch.
' 'A hole punch?! Surely not?! 'So why do they put holes in there? What are they for? 'Later, I discover the secret in Switzerland.
' Is that what creates the holes within the cheese? Yeah, that's exactly right.
I'm on a mission to find out why there are holes in Swiss cheese.
So, I'm heading to the Emme Valley in Switzerland, birthplace of Emmenthal and home to many small traditional dairies.
Hans.
Matt.
Nice to meet you.
Right.
Lead the way.
Hans has a herd of 20 cows and favours the old-fashioned way of milking.
Really? OK, that's quite cool.
Pretty traditional, isn't it? It's certainly a traditional environment, not a fancy hi-tech dairy by any means.
I mean it is very, very basic.
I mean, you've just got an open bucket here and you've got lots of straw lying around, there's flies, there's cows, there's all kinds of things going on down there.
I'm surprised it's not a more clinical process in this day and age, but Hans clearly believes this environment is key to the quality of the end product.
I've come across the valley to Affoltern Dairy to meet cheese scientist Walter.
- Hello.
- Hello, Walter.
Matt.
Walter, I've come to find out what exactly is going on within - the cheesemaking process.
- Let's go in here and look.
Walter has spent the last three years studying how the holes form.
There's a lot of cheese going on in this room.
Yes, it's a maturing, fermenting room.
So, what are you looking for in a really good cheese? How can you tell that this is full of bubbles? I mean, the height, the height of the cheese, how it's - Slightly domed.
- .
.
domed.
That's important and also we tap on the cheese and then we can hear if there are enough holes, or not enough yet, or if they are too small.
- And this is ready to eat? - This is ready to eat.
- That's a big knife.
- It's seven months old.
- And that's a good, kind of, number of bubbles? Yeah, it's a good number, a good size.
That's delicious.
Very nutty.
It's the bits missing that make the cheese.
It tastes great, but how do the holes get there? Water is showing me the start of the process.
So, what's happening here then? He's inoculating now the milk with lactic acid bacteria.
All cheese is made using a combination of bacteria that gives it a distinct flavour, texture and appearance.
So, is it the combination of these three bacteria that you add here, is that what creates the holes so typical of Swiss cheese? They work altogether, these three types of bacteria, together with what you have seen in the cow shed on the farm.
Some of these hay particles, straw particles, come into the milk naturally and they are also important to start the holes.
Traditionally, the farmer uses straw and hay on the floor and there's dust particles in the air and the open bucket, that has a bearing on the size and the development of the holes within the cheese.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
So it turns out the holes occur naturally as part of the age-old cheesemaking process.
Bacteria eats lactic acid in the milk and burps out billions of carbon dioxide molecules.
Tiny hay particles that have found their way into the milk at the traditional dairy then provide a surface for the CO2 molecules to gather around, so they slowly join together and form a bubble.
In our experiment, we added defined amounts of microparticles of hay and we could see, according to the amount we added, - the more holes we had.
- Really? Yeah, that was really impressive for us, quite surprising.
So, it's a combination of traditional milking methods and special bacteria that creates the holes, not a hole punch, and thanks to Walter's research, the Swiss have more control over the size and number of their holes than ever before.
Earlier, I met three-year-old Hamza Khan, one of over 100 children in the UK diagnosed with rickets every year due to a lack of vitamin D.
- Wow! Look at that.
He's walking very bow-legged, isn't he? - Yeah.
Many supermarket foods are fortified with vitamin D and I learned it can be sourced from the grease in sheep's wool.
It comes from the glands on the skin.
I'm in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, to see how a family firm extracts the crucial component of vitamin D supplements.
Mark Andrews is the general manager.
- Nice to see you.
- Nice to see you.
I'm here to find out what you do with your wool and how you wash out all that grease.
- Walk in and we'll show you.
- Let's do it.
- OK.
Wow! Look at all this wool.
Mark and his team process 25,000 tonnes of sheep fleeces every year.
The wool is used in carpets and clothing.
It's just a vat of water and detergent in there and some agitation.
Generally moving the wool Yep, it's a triple mechanism that's generally opening the wool up as it moves down the scourer.
- What a difference that is.
It's dry - Yeah.
- .
.
clean Right, well, I've seen the pretty side of the wool.
- Show me your grease.
- OK.
I'm glad you tidied it up! We're running the water through one of these centrifuges here and separating the oil from water.
So, all the water that you've used to wash all the oil has come in here.
It's spinning.
Spinning very fast and it's separating oil from water.
- So, that's it? - That's it, that's the final product.
It's hard to imagine this revolting stuff in my cornflakes.
- Look how thick that is.
- Yeah.
- That smells like wax.
- It is.
People call it wool grease but, actually, it's a wax.
We'll vial that up and sell that on to the refiners.
And Mark sells his wax to a company in Veenendaal, in the Netherlands.
I've come to Dishman Laboratory to meet chemist Cor Veldhuizen.
- Hi, I'm Jim.
Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- You're going to show me the next process? - Yes.
Come on.
- Thanks.
When the sheep's grease arrives, it isn't edible.
It's purified, refined, refined some more and then crystallised before finally arriving in Cor's lab.
It looks just like sugar.
Next comes the most important part of the process.
It seems to me you're big on red lights here in Holland.
'This lamp is specially designed to replicate the sun's rays.
' I thought it was going to be bright white.
It's actually red.
If that glass wasn't there, what would happen to us, then? Tiny light particles called photons bombard the crystal compound, causing a chemical reaction that creates vitamin D.
After four hours of light blasting, the solution is filtered and then refrigerated to allow crystals to form.
- This is it.
- That's it.
So, the foods that you see in the supermarkets - that says, "added vitamin D", it's created like this? - Sure.
Yeah.
It seems like a lot of work and a lot of effort for a tiny amount.
- How much is in here? - About half a gram.
But just one vial contains twice the amount of vitamin D that little Hamza will need in his whole lifetime.
What would this be worth? - A small house? - Sure.
So, would you say, like, £250,000, more? It's worth more than gold? That is incredible.
Imagine that - No, no, no.
- Only joking.
From sheep's grease to a precious powder that will transform young Hamza's life.
Purebred wagyu beef is one of the most expensive meats in the world, with prices as high as £900 a kilo.
Yet discount supermarkets are selling wagyu burgers for £1.
89 for two.
How on earth do you think that they make these wagyu burgers for a couple of quid a packet? I'm hoping they don't fill it with other things.
What are they putting in them? I've come to the Scottish Borders to meet Walter Murray, who runs a factory making wagyu burgers for UK supermarkets.
- Hello, Walter.
- Hi, Kate.
How are you? So, you're knocking out wagyu burgers.
We do wagyu burgers, yes.
- Can we see? - Yes.
Come on, let's go.
This way.
Walter wants to show me the trick to producing a cheap wagyu burger.
It's so cold.
Look, can you see that, right? It is that cold, the camera can't even cope with it.
It's freezing! So, what we bring in is the offcuts of steaks from different countries, in blocks and that's what we make the burgers out of.
So, it's not prime cuts, it's offcuts of steaks.
So, you wouldn't use the prime cuts in your burgers? No, it'd be far too expensive, it'd make it prohibitively expensive.
You have to use the offcuts to make the burgers.
So, Walter is reducing cost by buying in frozen wagyu offcuts in bulk from abroad.
That doesn't sound very appetising.
So, this is the trim that we use.
I tell you what, they don't really look like trimmings to me.
I mean, that's a good cut of beef.
- And you're putting that in a burger? - Yeah.
So, this will now get minced.
At this stage, you can see there is a lot of fat in that.
But it's not gristle in there.
Now it goes into the next mixer and then we'll add our seasonings in here.
The season is a mixture of gluten-free pea flour and salt and pepper, and together with water, this helps bind the mince together.
Any other type of beef going in at this stage? No, it's just wagyu, that's it.
- And you still manage to do it this cheap? - Yeah.
Just.
Walter doesn't use purebred wagyu meat.
His mixed breed beef with less marbling is way cheaper.
Look at that.
And that's how you can make cheap burgers out of one of the world's most expensive meats.
- That's it? - Yep, that's it ready to go now into supermarkets.
Next time, I'm in Spain investigating why canned tuna looks nothing like tuna steaks.
- That's a steamer? - Yeah.
- I thought it was the subway.
I thought I was going to get a train to Madrid.
I discover the lengths ice cream makers go to to keep their products as smooth as possible.
That is smoother than Barry White, isn't it? And I'm in for a bumpy ride as I find out why some frozen peas cost so much more than others.