A WORLD famous business saw a spike in sales after being featured on a popular BBC programme.
The Wilkin and Sons Tiptree factory was featured in the latest episode of the BBC documentary Inside the Factory.
The show is hosted by Gregg Wallace and Cherry Healey, getting an exclusive look inside British businesses factories.
During the episode, which aired on Tuesday evening, the business reportedly saw a spike in online sales.
In the latest episode, the presenters take a deep dive into the world of rice puddings.
Towards the end of the programme Cherry is shown making a visit to the Tiptree Jam Factory in Factory Hill, looking for her “favourite flavour” of jam to accompany the pudding.
She said: “To find out the secret to a perfect pot of jam I have come to a company in the village of Tiptree in Essex which makes more than a million jars of strawberry jam every year.”
Cherry was shown around the site by farm manager Andrey Ivanov, who said they grow more than 100 million berries each year.
The strawberries are grown from May to October in Tiptree.
Cherry said: “In peak picking season, a team of up to 300 can harvest more than 1,000 strawberries each per day.”
The pair picked lots of strawberries before heading to the factory where manager Mark Smith showed her how the strawberries are made into jam.
They are washed, de-stemmed by hand and then frozen and stored for freshness.
Mr Smith said Cherry was fascinated by the jam making process.
He said: “We went to the boiling platform to see the sugar and strawberries going into the boiling pans before the jam was bottled and labelled, she was fascinated by the whole process.”
The factory can produce enough jam to fill around 400,000 mini and full-sized jars every day.
A spokesman for Wilkin and Sons said: “We really enjoyed showing Cherry and the film crew around the farm and the factory.
“They started early and were amazed to see so many rows of delicious strawberries ready for picking and they liked the taste too.”
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