from this 100-year-old Factory producing chocolates to the small Japanese shop crafting wagashi we travel the globe to learn how our favorite sweets are made our first stop is Madagascar the world's largest producer of vanilla vanilla is the world's second most expensive [Music] spice and the East African island of Madagascar produces roughly 80% of the global Supply Here Farmers have to pollinate 40 million orchids that only bloom for one day a [Music] year only then will a vanilla bean or pod grow inside are the seeds and oils used in popular desserts but Madagascar is still one of the poorest countries in the world volatility of the vanilla prices this bust and boom creates such a toxic environment there farmers can earn more when the price of vanilla is high but rampant inflation often follows and the big bucks attract thieves Who attack farmers and steal crops today Farmers arm themselves to defend their vanilla farmers can plunge into extreme poverty when prices are low the government has tried to stabilize the price but it's backfired and and now global customers are turning to other countries for cheaper vanilla as locals fight to protect Madagascar's green gold they worry how much more they the land and this crop can take Raa Salama grew up on a vanilla farm and 7 years ago he bought this Hector of land for himself vanilla is an orchid that grows on a [Music] vine and it grows best in this rainforest environment where there's plenty of rain and sunlight but vanilla isn't native to Madagascar it's actually from 10,000 M away in Central and South America indigenous groups like The totono and later the Aztecs cultivated native vanilla for centuries thanks to this insect Orchid bees are needed to pollinate a vanilla's flower allowing a fruit or that pod to grow after ernan Cortez conquered the Aztecs he brought vanilla back to Spain in the 1520s it became popular across Europe in desserts like ice cream crem brulee and sweet meats which Queen Elizabeth the loved except the Spanish still controlled the trade so hoping to get in on the market other European countries tried cultivating vanilla on their own but they didn't have that be so their vanilla Vines wouldn't produce any fruit then in 1841 on the French controlled island of reunion a 12-year-old boy figured out an answer Edmund albius discovered that the Orchid could pollinate itself if he moved aside the membrane separating the male and female parts albius Was Born Into Slavery but even after he was freed in 1848 he never made money off his Discovery and died in poverty 32 years later France took albus's work and started growing vanilla on the French ruled Island right next door Madagascar it thrived here because the growing conditions were perfect today in towns like rfin Sal almost everyone works in the vanilla industry and they still hand poll every Orchid just like albas did nearly 200 years ago each flower blooms for just one day a [Music] year V Raza F Salama works alone and can pollinate up to 500 orchids a day it takes about 9 months for a pod to grow the price of this vanilla bean has skyrocketed in recent years due to Rising demand and the destruction of crops by Cyclones in 2018 vanilla hit a high of nearly $600 per kilo more than the value of silver it's since dropped to 250 a kilo but that's still a lot and those prices are really attractive to thieves so many farmers in the region are arming themselves and patrolling their fields at night when thieves usually strike thieves stole 20 kg of farmer Berlin Ron's Harvest leaving his vines [Music] bare in 2018 offici estimated 10% of the year's Harvest was lost to [Music] theft he often sleeps out here overnight and because farmers only get one vanilla Harvest [Music] annually some of the thieves are actually children driven to steal because of poverty they were held in overcrowded and unhygienic prisons in the northeast of the country for years without trial Farmers have started branding their vanilla beans with identifying codes making the crops easier to track if they do get stolen another protective measure some Farmers pick their beans before they're completely ripe to beat thieves to harvest and so the quality goes down a lot this year Raza Salama was able to wait until his beans were completely mature Farmers have to move quickly because the pods start fermenting immediately once they're picked they pack the vanilla pods in 40 lb bags and haul the loads for Miles along dirt roads to the [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] market traditionally middlemen called Commission bought these beans in their raw Green State and they held a lot of negotiating power over the farmers since the beans boiled quickly the middlemen are definitely making a lot more money they can kind of tell people whatever price they want so some years farmers walk away happy in other years they can barely make ends meet I have heard Farmers say things like you have to have courage to plant vanilla because it may not be worth it at the end you may not get anything nowadays Raza Salama sells his pods directly to a Cooperative called sahala sahala Representatives check the bean quality and the brand on the bean and pay the farmers directly in cash cutting out the middleman and promising a consistent price today rfin Salama earns about $17 for a kilo of raw green vanilla sahala takes the beans to one of its processing facilities employing thousands of workers across Madagascar but even these large operations still have to protect against thieves the facility has electric fences surveillance cameras and private security patrolling at [Music] night but it'll still be another 3 months of painstaking work before the vanilla is export ready [Music] first workers have to sort the beans by quality and size next they wash each Bean to remove any impurities then the beans get dunked in hot water to release the compound vanilla that's what creates the distinct vanilla flavor [Music] the beans need less than a minute depending on how ripe they [Music] [Music] [Music] are they have to run the bean baskets so they don't lose the heat from cooking workers move the cook beans to boxes where they'll sit for 48 hours when they take the beans out they'll be [Music] [Applause] Brown [Music] [Music] there the beans will stay for 15 to 30 days depending on the moisture inside [Music] for [Music] in the packaging room they massage the beans to release the oils and the vanilla fragrance careful not to damage the beans they group The pods in bunches then they check that there are no stray metals like nails hidden [Music] inside workers then weigh the boxes and package them for shipping Sahan Nala's vanilla beans end up with American based food processor Archer Daniels [Music] Midland exporters like sahala earn the biggest bucks this Cooperative has a turnover of $40 million annually that's because cured beans are worth a lot more today sahala earns $250 per kilo for its cured vanilla a 1300% increase from what farmer rapin Sal Lama made selling his raw beans the bigger problem is the the volatility of the [Music] price in those low pric years Farmers live in extreme poverty like 81% of the country many earn just $2 a day so many farmers grow other crops like vegetables and peanuts to supplement their incomes during years of high prices farmers middlemen and exporters would make more but this also drives up inflation making everything more expensive in the ideal World vanilla would consistently get a good price to balance out the everchanging price in 2020 Madagascar's government introduced a minimum based price today it set at $250 a kilo for the exporter they want to protect against this crazy up and down right but it hasn't gone to plan unfortunately it appears that most people are not going along with paying that minimum price global companies are turning to other countries that sell at cheaper prices or they're buying synthetic vanilla a lot of this depends so much on the government of of Madagascar and whether they will change tactics and go back to allowing their price to more accurately reflect the global price farmers are betting on cooperatives like sahala to alleviate the need the government can't fill sahala can guarantee that its Farmers make $17 a kilo at least $2600 a year but as they face theft an unreliable government and shifting demand farmers at the center of the industry are unsure of what's next demand for vanilla is continuously increasing and so if Madagascar could find some stability and if these Farmers could find some stability that there's no reason for the Outlook to not be really really good for vanilla in Madagascar but you know it's hard to say what the future brings Ghana is the world's second biggest producer of Coco but the country only earns about 2% of the hundred billion doll industry Coco Growers here export most of their cocoa beans to Europe and North America where they're turned into chocolate we are shipping out the cocoa in its raw State and if you look at the value chain of Coco money is made in the finished product while big chocolate companies rake in billions a year many cocoa Farmers live in poverty earning just $2 a day and Ganan entrepreneurs like Michael have struggled to open chocolate factories in their home country we are trying to decolonize chocolate at this time around we are saying that it can be done right here in Ghana now the government is funding efforts to grow a domestic chocolate industry but can Ghana's entrepreneurs get a bigger share of the profits we visit a cocoa farm and processing plant to find out Ghana together with Ivory Coast grows over 60% of the world's cocoa the country sell to all the big chocolate companies from Hershey's to Mars to Nestle which process the beans abroad in mostly Europe and North America for 18 years ago Joseph grows 11 acres of cocoa and it isn't easy Farmers battle more extreme weather due to climate change plant disease and fatigued land every October he and his family begin harvesting the yellow pods it takes Just 4 days Joseph collects the pods and takes them to the breaking ground here workers crack them open and remove the beans by hand Joseph uses the leftover pods as compost under his trees then dries the beans for another week in total he packs 75 bags of beans a year his income is about $27 a day it's a high wage for a Ganan farmer because Joseph grows organic cocoa without pesticides but many farmers in Ghana live at or below the poverty line earning less than $2 a day that's because the majority of farms are small and aren't certified organic according to Christy a Coco scholar nicknamed The Dock of chalk we are talking about really small plots and this is part of the reason why Coco farmers are so poor but that's not the only reason farmers make so little Koco's been farmed in Ghana for over 100 years there are many parts of the country where the land is really fatigued now and the trees are old in the 15th and 16th centuries Portugal and Spain monopolized Coco controlling production and trade from their colonies in Latin America and the Gulf of Guinea Europe's elite were the biggest customers the crop arrived in what's now Ghana in 1876 around the same time the British declared the southern region a colony and began invading North locals own and ran all the small farms but the raw product was exclusively exported to Europe a lot of what we know today as like contemporary chocolate really grew out of this this trading relationship between Ghana and Britain including the the flavor of chocolate itself although Ghana gained its independence in 1957 its one-way Coco trade with Europe still exists today and it's kept farmers at the beginning of the supply chain in poverty for generations to help raise farmer wages Ghana and its neighbor Ivory Coast teamed up in 2019 the two largest Coco producing countries in the world and so when they get together on something um it everyone has to pay attention they introduced the fixed price system which set a price floor for Coco in 2020 Ghana set the price floor at $2,600 a metric ton that included a $400 pre premium added to every ton of Coco and this value goes directly to the farmers the premium is called the living income differential or liid it was the first of its kind in the chocolate industry and it meant Farmers took home nearly 30% more money than the year before at first big chocolate companies agreed to pay the liid you can't really not buy Ghan and ivorian Coco so the the big buyers really had no choice the L's markup may seem like a lot but the millions it's raised to combat farmer poverty is a fraction of big chocolate maker sales but soon after it launched reports surfaced accusing Hershey's of buying cocoa without paying the premium it's sad to to note that these companies who have the resources and may not want to abide by this simple appeal in an email to Business Insider the company said Hershey supports and is fully participating in the living income differential when the corporations do pay the L has helped Farmers it's pushing Farmers to even increase their yield that's how come last year we're able to hit a record 1.2 million tons of beans after Farmers dry the beans they're bagged up about 70% of these beans will be sent overseas Ghana processes only 30% of its cocoa beans domestically but in 2020 at a press conference in Switzerland the president announced he wanted to change that we intend to process more and more of our cocoa in our country with the aim of producing more chocolate ourselves and he said it right in front of the top Commerce Ministers of Switzerland one of Ghana's biggest customers that statement in in Switzerland caused a lot of controversy I must say he clearly mentioned our intentions to put in efforts to also add value within Ghana to support Coco processing inside Ghana the government created a free zone outside Acra any Factory operating inside gets a tax break Lloyd Ashley runs Niche Coco industry in the Free Zone in the free Z Enclave you are getting 10 years free uh uh Duty on your imported part for equipment so it gives you the opportunity to also increase capacity Niche has become Ghana's second largest Coco manufacturer the company says it processes 10% of the country's cocoa and Niche processes 2 tons of it an hour the cocoa beans arrive here from farms all over rural Ghana workers stack the bags High then cut them open one by one the beans funnel into this grate on the floor and the rest of the process is controlled digitally from roasting the beans to grinding them into cocoa Mass that's then sent to get mixed with milk and sugar and from there it comes here for a different process a cooling process and then a packaging process Niche has been pretty successful but for small companies outside the free zone it hasn't been as easy to get up and running hello come on everything okay everything okay Michael runs Farah freak A Coco maker that opened in Amasi to be closer to Cocoa Farmers but since it's outside the free zone it didn't get the tax breaks Vera freak also had trouble buying cocoa beans as shocking as that may sound you know it's really hard in G to procure cocoa beans another hurdle keeping Ghana's chocolate industry from taking off well it's very hard to make chocolates in Ghana for one there's no dairy industry anybody producing chocolate in Ghana is definitely importing large volumes of milk from either Europe or other um continents chocolate makers also have to import sugar mostly from Brazil and finally it's hot in Ghana chocolate by its nature is very sensitive to temperature any rise in temperature may cause the chocolate to melt there's not the kind of cold chain that you need to distribute chocolate effectively within Ghana or you know much of West Africa and building out that cold chain has been expensive we have used insulated building materials for some sections of our building some sections of the building is completely insulated Roofing sheet also Ghana's power grid is sometimes unreliable electricity for example is another issue here although there's power it's never stable far freak's top sellers are finished chocolate bars inside temperature controlled rooms this machine pumps the chocolate into molds so our installation capacity is 10,000 bars of chocolate every hour that's a fraction of what a Hershey's or Mars Factory can do this machine wraps the chocolate bars with 68 workers the company's scaling up to produce 50 million bars a year the practice has always been that the raw materials are sent to you for processing at this time around we are saying that it can be done right here in Ghana Hospital any schools but Christie says the country still has a long way to go definitely no silver bullets for sure when you have a whole system like colonialism it doesn't shift quickly while there are five times more processing facilities in Ghana today than a decade ago most only process cocoa into intermediate products like cocoa butter cocoa Mass you know cocoa liquor Cocoa powder not to Chocolate 96% of nich's business are these intermediate products most of the finished bars are still made abroad we need to increase the export of cocoa in a sem finished and also in the finished State Lloyd wants to create demand for finished chocolate within Ghana C consumption is very very low in Africa I mean compared to Europe where you have um an average 5 kg per person consumption you have taking about 0.4 in Africa that's because historically Finnish chocolate bars had to be imported from Europe so they cost a lot to create new demand in Ghana Niche is making a chocolate drink Lloyd hopes to sell in schools he also hopes to Source ingredients from inside Africa Dairy from Egypt and sugar from South Africa to train talent in Ghana farre started this lab and hired locals to develop new flavors and for Farmers Advocates want to raise the cocoa price floor to about $3,100 a metric ton and they want big chocolate companies to fot more of the bill nearly every big chocolate producer has programs set up to lift Farmers out of poverty but by some estimates 73 to 90% of Ghana and Ivory Coast cocoa farmers are still below living income standards if you're the CEO of these big companies it's time to come down and look at these yourself as the industry is set to grow about 5% in the next 6 years Gan Coco farmers and processors are vying for a larger stake in the big business of chocolate compies can we also be allowed to add Valu it will be changing the lives of the people that play real roles in growing the bean this is the oldest chocolate house in New York City exactly 100 years ago lilac chocolates began serving this butter crunch created by its Greek immigrant founder today today it's run by another immigrant who's kept many of the original recipes before working at lilac I didn't even know what chocolate just onar coder oversees the production of over 175,000 lbs of chocolate a year and he still manages to keep it handmade and fresh New York City was a major chocolate Hub back in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries with big Brands setting up their headquarters here but many closed their doors and the the wake of the Great Depression or were sold to other companies lilac has managed to survive despite going through several different owners and even having to relocate as Ren sword its secret maintaining tradition from its vintage molds to its tools and most importantly the recipes that's why we have a very loyal customer base they know what's going on they know what's who we are we visited the Artisan chocolate here to see how this New York in stitution is still standing at 8: in the morning a sweet smell fills up lilac Brooklyn Factory in different Corners you'll see mesmerizing waterfalls of milk dark and white chocolate the company Prides itself on making its Confections largely by hand and in small batches that includes the Founder's famous butter crunch made the same way it was a century ago it starts with sugar anoir still uses a scale that's been with the factory since day one the scale itself is over 120 years old I know even the numbers are gone and faded but I you know I know where exactly you know put it ex new in it after working here for 34 years he knows most of these measurements by heart and this is what cooking is it doesn't have to be like really PR tight it's just the experience he hand Scoops tapioca syrup into the mixer this is one ingredient anoir updated over the years originally the recipe included corn syrup but anoir says he's now opting for healthier Alternatives he Heats it all up so it turns brittle then adds roughly 15 lbs of butter the cooked butter is just you know it just penetrate you you know like your it's in your head to give it a crunchy bite he adds three and a half pounds of chopped [Music] almonds this layer of butter creates a non-stick surface on the marble table the same one the founder worked with a century ago the marble tables are a part of the heritage in this company they are been here since 1923 the marble cools down the sticky mixture while keeping it soft enough to shape one of the very old tools we have we still using to score all the candy onir and his team only have about 15 minutes to spread and cut the candy before it [Music] hardens one batch can make, 1500 toffee squares they shred fresh almonds into a mountain of dust and coat the candy in milk chocolate before mixing it into the Almond powder throughout the day anoir moves around the Factory overseeing the chocolate production line CH he says he's memorized most of the company's 120 plus recipes and about 65 of them made it into a recipe book that onir keeps in a safe the recipes was passed you know through employees you basically and that's how it survived we always talk about the original recipe all of it in here it's and pieces they're not all together you know now I have them all the computer anir also added a few of his own recipes like for peanut butter cups and salted caramels but 34 years ago he didn't even imagine he would be running a chocolate factory I wasn't like a chocolate fan basically to be honest I you know of course like a little but I wasn't a chocolate fan he moved to the un States from Lebanon to study computer programming when he was just 24 years old but he had to drop out after his first year because his family back home couldn't afford the tuition fees I start looking for a job part-time job for pocket money he eventually landed one with lilac just before Christmas of 1989 I fell in love with the work it's all from day one I just loved it and uh picked it up right away on hir looked for opportunities to make things more efficient at the factory in 2 years he was promoted to master chocolate here and has been doing the job ever since I was running the company it's like my own company even though I wasn't just an employee either as technology advanced the company had to adopt to some Modern Machinery to help ease production before chocolateers would hand dip every piece but today lilac uses an enrobing machine that can coat a thousand truffles with chocolate in 1 hour if any piece requires some designs on it if the design is made right here and it goes through a cooling tunnel and it comes out the other side ready ready to f one of the Factory's rules is to never freeze its products that's when you lose your quality I mean we are very well known for freshness we make small batches these tempering machines heat cool and mix the chocolate without them the chocolate may look dull and feel crumbly employees fill up lilac specialty molds and there are about a thousand of them including one shaped like Easter Bunnies pizza and soccer [Music] balls Anor has some that are older than the factory itself these metal molds were made in the late 1800s this is actually an antique mold as you see it's a metal mold the images on it that no one makes them more I they are very rare to find and his collection just keeps growing Lamborghini a Mercedes a Porche like from the 60s maybe wor favorite I I like the Ben the old one the Ben this comes like this you see come like this even the tires is it's a lot of work you know you can do it onor never says no to a custom order no matter how challenging it may be even if I don't have the mold I would persist it so we're just adding to our existing mold this giant turkey mold is almost 30 years old anoir bought it to use as a window display on Thanksgiving week a customer saw it and ordered 15 chocolate turkeys a day before the holiday anoir said yes knowing what it would mean I didn't go home that night I spent all night making turkeys for him and got it ready by 10:00 in the [Music] morning Chocolate took off in the United States in the 19th century when it became faster to make it using machines many iconic Brands like my ards rle brothers and highers open large chocolate factories in New York City in the late 1800s lilac was established in 1923 by George Demetrius a Greek immigrant but that era of growth would come to an end as the Great Depression loomed lilac managed to survive but it hasn't been easy ever Rising rent prices have threatened the business for decades while lilac shop stayed in the city anoir moved the entire production to its first Brooklyn Factory starting Easter week of 2005 the busiest week of the year I moved the factory in 2 days finding stable leadership has been a challenge too the company has had seven different owners since Demetrius died in 1972 onr's dedication to Lilac paid off when he became part owner in 2011 today he runs the business with Anthony Cerrone and a third owner Christopher Taylor when Anthony came and he had in mind if you want to goow the company the only condition I have with him is I don't want to change the way we make chop and this is was fire he was firewood we both agreed you never touched the recipes of an old school company that's just something you don't do since they began their partnership lilac has expanded from two New York shops to six but as the company continues to grow quality and tradition remain their priorities we sell something that's 100 years old and people you know there's a whole Nostalgia to Chocolate you have to know what your Traditions are we all agreed at the same time you had to keep the packaging and the brand fresh they make their chocolate in this roughly 9,000 ft Factory in Brooklyn's industry City Pass passers by can peek through the glass window to see how chocolate is made onoir says lilac does not make extra chocolate stock use preservatives or freeze its chocolate to sell later so during its busiest occasions like Valentine's Day and Easter the team Works to fill orders and keep its shelves stocked you buy things you know one day old made 2 days ago or 3 days ago they also started selling chocolates online and shipping abroad but everything came to a halt in 2020 when the covid-19 pandemic forced lilac to close its doors right before Easter we really have a tough time during the pandemic we went home and no one world 4 came what onare wasn't expecting was that soon after online sales would actually soar and for some reason people go to Chocolate you know maybe make them feel better make them you know feel happier you know for some reason we were only a few people here and or start starts coming 3 400 500 or a day and we don't have them freeze you know to keep up with it all work long hours 7 days a week we survived that's what made Riot survive the pandemic on War's vision is to make lilac chocolates the best not just in the city but beyond I would like to see the company as with number one chocolate company in United States just to say you know what the number one chocolate company is lilac chocolate for over 400 years one family in Japan has been shaping rice flour beans and sugar into tiny edible sculptures these sweets are called wagashi and making them is a precise and delicate art confection is have to be quick and their hands have to stay at just the right temperature or the dough is ruined it's going because you know kakim mayawa is the 17th generation owner of his family's shop in Kyoto so how did this dainty art go from a delicacy only a few enjoyed to a National Dessert we went to Kyoto in Japan to find out how these traditional sweets are still standing afterwards pict kiaki learned to make wagashi from his father when he was 22 years old at 68 he trains all the workers at the family's confectionary shop Kam [Music] they specialize in Kashi a type of wagashi made only in Japan's ancient capital of Koto most recipes start with simple ingredients like rice flour sugar and beans pastry chefs heat and mix it all into a paste they strain the paste for about 5 minutes to remove any lumps wagashi comes in many shapes but there are three main varieties namagashi are soft and moist H namagashi ranges from gooey to dry and hiashi are dry and have a longer shelf life here they're making a namagashi shaped like a crysanthemum flower a symbol of fall just a few drops of dye will color the dough to the right here of pink getting the perfect color is essential for kiaki timing is [Music] everything pastry chefs have to sculpt The Confectionary in about 2 minutes if they work too fast the design will look sloppy too slow and the suets absorb body heat and won't turn out [Music] well [Music] this simple wooden stick called the sanaka is the only tool they use to sculpt the petals if one line is out of place they have to start the process again a good up seing chrysanthemums are a Japanese national symbol and represent longevity and Rejuvenation the country's changing seasons shape the sweets pumpkins are made only in the fall and cherry blossoms in the spring the they sticky kiaki is involved in every step he mostly follows old recipes and styles but has also added newer ideas to the menu he mixes yellow and pink food dyes to create the perfect orange Hue designing each piece is all about using the right tools and techniques records show that Japanese envoys brought wushi like sweets from China around the 7th Century sugar was a rare commodity and only Aristocrats and the wealthy could afford it kar's ancestors learned how to make wagashi from a priest and opened their shop in 1617 it was one of only 2 28 shops chosen to cater to the royal family they delivered their Suites to the Palace in boxes inlaid with mother of [Music] pearl Western confectionary began arriving in Japan during the late 19th century after the country opened its ports to foreign trade wagashi literally translates to Japanese sweets and it became the term used to differentiate between the two kameha Kona offers a wide variety of confectionary every season the shop also makes Yan aashi type confection is make the base with red aduki beans brown sugar and AAR a jelling agent once everything is boiled they pour it into a mold and mix in walnuts the name of this yokan is suik which translates to Moonlight it calls for at least 2 hours before it's ready to [Music] serve to contrast the moist desserts the shop also makes higushi the dry suets workers press the D in traditional wooden molds this one translates to Good Fortune in Japanese hiashi sweets are small in size and have bright colors and detailed designs wagashi comes in numerous shapes and styles influenced by each Region's unique history and geography each piece is named after a season or a reference from Japanese classical literature but when it comes to enjoying the treat kiaki says Simplicity is key Zen Buddhist monks introduced tea ceremonies in Japan in the 12th century the practice evolved into a social gathering for friends and became a ritual that represents Harmony and resp respect rashi's sweetness made it the ultimate dessert to serve in these ceremonies to complement the bitter tea today wagashi is sold across Japan from specialy shops to department stores to Street vendors despite the competition kiaki never Cuts Corners when it comes to the materials and production methods he knows he has a long history to live up to he is working to pass this tradition on but says the hardest part is securing workers for now his best strategy is to keep sales stable one way of doing this is to appeal to the younger generation but long before social media keha kaga's place in history was documented in this 300y old book listing all businesses in Kyoto [Music] past is what motivates him to look forward to the future a main stay in pop culture and lunch boxes for more than 80 years twinky twinky twinky that's a big Twinkie the twinky is an American icon the vanilla cake stuffed with cream even made it into the national Millennium Time Capsule when you think about kind of the pantheon of food brands there aren't a ton that kind of rise to the level of of Twinkies but two bankruptcies heavy debt loads and changing tastes push Twinkies off shelves and almost to their death people were starting to sell boxes of Twinkies on eBay for $1,000 a pop I mean just crazy stuff right it was like the death of a piece of Americana but just when everyone thought that they were gone for good Twinkies rose again so what [Music] happened Twinkies were invented in Schiller Park Illinois in 1930 this guy James deir managed a bakery plant at the start of the depression he wanted to make better use of expensive Strawberry Shortcake equipment sitting unused when strawberries weren't in season so he stuck banana cream in a Shortcake deir sold the Twinkies in packs of two for 5 when bananas were rationed during World War II the simple vanilla cream we know today became the filling in the next two decades twinkies and its parent brand Hostess dominated the packaged cake Market marketed to children in everything from TV commercials to Batman comics Twinkies Rose to the status of a cultural icon you're getting ready for school here here's a swell dessert that you can take along with you a package of two big Hostess Twinkies the hostess snack cemented itself in kids lunch boxes Across America it was an affordable Indulgence for families it was just so woven into the fabric of the culture of America in 1971 the brand introduced its mascot Twinkie the kid it's Twinkie the kid Yahoo the anthropomorphic Cowboy Twinkie became popular among kids for sharing his Nam sake cakes but growing talk of twink's high sugar content would soon butt heads with the Brand's kid-friendly marketing first the Federal Trade Commission came down on Hostess for false nutritional claims the agency concluded that sugar was was the main ingredient in Twinkies and then in 79 the trial of a San Francisco man charged with murdering the mayor gave rise to the term twinky defense the defense team argued he had diminished capacity thanks to his addiction to twinkies and the murder charges were less in to manslaughter it was a trial that balked at the wholesome cake brand Hostess was trying to build fresh wholesome Hostess meets my tough standards so when I say yes it's Hostess then began a string of new owners for hostess in the 70s Telephone Company it ran Twinkie parent company in the ' 80s dog food maker Purina acquired Hostess and a decade later it landed under its final owner Interstate bakeries Corporation the sale created the largest Baking Company in the US with at its peak 58 factories over 10,000 delivery routes a boost in Twinkie sales and $3.2 billion in total sales but in the late '90s America's changing tastes would soon spell trouble for the sugar packed Twinkies with the growing popularity of low carb Atkins and later the South Beach diets some Americans were becoming more healthc conscious loaded with calories sugar and preservatives most people hadn't heard of let alone could pronounce Twinkies became a casualty of the health Revolution Sales fell and then flattened in October of '98 because of missed earnings shares dropped 25% in just one day but it wasn't just the product that was the problem pensions and raw Goods got too costly as other food companies were modernizing manufacturing Hostess ran inefficient factories operating at 54% capacity utilization that's very poor in the manufacturing world the company also relied on a tired delivery system a DSD model direct store delivery model has really high cost because you've got trucks drivers gas insurance that you have to pay for and you're going to every store in America every few days to drop off product delivery alone ate up 36% of Revenue an important way to capture this moment in time would be by filling a national time capsule in 1999 President Bill Clinton included a Twinkie in the National Millennium Time Capsule so Twinkie still had a huge fan base but by then the damage to hostess's bottom line had been done by 2004 twink's parent company Interstate filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy over the next 5 years Interstate cut 7,000 employees and shut down eight factories the company came out of bankruptcy in 2009 and rebranded itself Hostess Brands but it didn't work but unfortunately many of the Legacy problems that really hampered the company didn't get solved through that bankruptcy then the recession took a huge hit on hostess's bottom line with year-over-year sales down 20% to make matters worse a worker strike and labor dispute soon followed that fight turned into production stopping and the management team then threatened to shut the company down even pressure from its creditors and that's exactly what happened by by January 2012 with nearly a billion dollars in debt Hostess Brands filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy again the company that makes Twinkies Wonderbread and ding-dongs announced this morning that it is going out of business in November Twinkies were pulled from shelves and headlines across the country reported the death of Twinkies customers started you know honestly losing their minds over it people who would have never cared about Twinkies in fact suddenly wanted them right or thought oh my god well if they're going away forever I need to stock up the r was on to grab the last of those tasty treats people scramble to get the last Twinkies off those store shelves it was like the death of a piece of Americana in December 2012 Hostess began laying off all its employees things were looking bad for Hostess but this guy still saw value in the Nostalgia attached to the brand there was a real brand here and it's hard to kill a good brand Andy is half of the duo credited with saving the Twinkies if you P people age 20 and over there's 95% brand awareness I mean it's unbelievable it's not every day that you can buy a brand like this that's ubiquitous in consumers mind and has leading market share had a billion dollars in revenues and an 80-year Legacy after the second bankruptcy Andy approached legendary investor Dean Metropolis about joining him in rescuing Hostess Dean had turned around bumblebe tuna Chef boy Rd blassic pickles half ribbon Dean's reputation historically really fit well for this but unlike the first Hostess bankruptcy in 2012 there was no coming out of it with a simple restructure that bankruptcy process was was unique because it turned into a true liquidation and what's known as a 363 asset sale process basically what was left of Hostess was sold for parts instead of having to inherit that expensive delivery system underfunded pension plans and old Union contracts Andy could cherry pick what he and Dean actually wanted and forget the rest so the two showed up to the 363 asset sale ready to fight for Hostess now not one buyer showed up other than us anybody could have showed up and topped our bid and nobody showed up it was frankly very surprising to Andy and Dean purchased Hostess for $410 million out of the sale they got the Hostess Brands including Twinkie recipes and five factories that's it there was no employees there was no ingredients there was no inventory and I have to tell you it was very odd during diligence walking through plants where when you walk in they're empty and the person who's walking you through the plant has to turn on the lights and quickly Andy and Dean got to work fixing the company first they tackled that delivery system The Old Company did direct store delivery we were going to transform it into a distribution to Warehouse model instead of going direct to every grocery store in America you then go to Walmart's distribution centers or Kroger's distribution centers instead and then they ship it out to their various stores but in order to move Twinkies through a warehouse they first had to increase the shelf life historically Twinkies only lasted 25 days people would put Twinkies in their earthquake shelters because everybody had this perception that Twinkies would last forever that really wasn't the case Andy and Dean invested Millions to develop a Twinkie that tasted the same but lasted longer at first able to get the shelf life for 45 days and then ultimately the 65 days of shelf life and so that really helped get the retailers comfortable that they could take it into their warehouses and that the product quality would not be compromised the new recipe and Warehouse delivery model helped cut delivery costs by 20% it also meant Hostess could affordably deliver Twinkies to drug stores and dollar stores markets they'd never reached before Dollar General became one of our top five customers next up Andy turned to factory efficiency Andy and Dean wanted to be able to make a billion dollars worth of cake yearly but with a ninth of the labor and a fifth of the factories we ended up doing getting to 85% capacity utilization Plus finally the duo worked on innovating the product line with smaller pack sizes and mini Twinkies those products really didn't get the residents in the marketplace and so then we just jumped wholeheartedly to embrace the brand Embrace what you are which is Indulgence the team had to make all these changes in a matter of months in July 2013 the once- dead Twinkies returned to shelves to tons of fanfare the world is a better place tonight because Twinkies are back the tagline was the sweetest comeback in the history of ever it all went viral it was really kind of unbelievable a lot of that frankly that excitement and Buzz ironically could have never come about if toies never came off the shelf the trit saying is what you don't know what you got until it's gone Twinkies quickly sold out in stores Across America during our first year we had 555 million in revenues from nothing with profit margins of 27% in a company that lost money and had to go bankrupt twice by 2015 Hostess was making a million Twinkies a day 400 million a year and $180 million in profit at the time Twinkies made up 80% of the company's product output and the success just kept rising in 2016 Apollo and Metropolis took Hostess public the IPO valued the company at 2.3 billion doll nearly five times what Andy and Dean had paid for it Apollo and metropolises gamble that Americans still love Twinkies had paid off but was the BL snack revived for good the stock price has been relatively flat to a little down but overall the health of the company is very strong the coron virus pandemic has helped Hostess that's because a lot of Americans are buying more food especially more processed foods but the key question going forward is to what degree will that continue do they continue eating Twinkies Alex says adding more limited time offer flavorings like peppermint and s'mores Twinkies could help or diversifying into new product lines like Twinkie cereal Twinkie is a big brand but at the end of the day Hostess probably realizes that they need to diverse ify and while diversifying certainly might be part of it hosa's greatest success has come from leaning into twink's Nostalgia it'll always have a special place in in in my heart and my stomach scooped up across 38 countries and up to 75 flavors Ben and& Jerry's is no pint-sized operation its Tu Vermont factories run 24/7 operated by hundreds of flavor makers together they pump out nearly a million p a day from classic flavors like Cherry Garcia and Half Baked to Flavors on a mission for Criminal Justice Reform and Refugee Rights and all those flavors have to be delicious our minimum run size once we get the flavor to the factory is 80,000 pints so not only do we have to love it but 880,000 fans have to love it too we visited the St Albin plant in Northern Vermont to see all these famous pints flip their way to our freezers Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield started Ben and Jerry's homemade ice cream in 1978 from a renovated gas station in Burlington Vermont they launched a brand based on sustainable ice cream making and advocating for causes they believed in and it worked today Ben and& Jerry's is the best selling single brand ice cream label in the US to pump out its iconic flavors first it starts with ingredients Ben and Jerry's partners with 250 Farms globally to Source everything from vanilla bean to milk milk com comes from the St Albin Cooperative Creamery just a mile and a half from the factory once the milk's at the plant it heads to one of these massive 6,000g silos but before it can be made into ice cream everyone involved has to suit up including us gowns hairnets caps and boots to make the ice cream base the milk heads to the blend tank cream milk and lots of sugar are churn together the factory goes through 6,700 gallons of cream every single day every ice cream flavor starts with either a sweet cream base or a chocolate base next the mix master will pour in eggs stabilizers and cocoa powder if it's a chocolate base then it's piped into the pasteurizer you can't see it happening but hot steel plates are heating up the mix to kill any harmful bacteria the newly pasteurized milk is stored in a tank for 4 to 8 hours so the ingredients can really get to know each other after making the two bases they'll head to one of the 20 flavor Vats to get a Flavor Boost we're always coming up with new flavors hundreds of flavors a year and we usually narrow it down to about three or four we really love to bring our social Mission values into our naming process for example empowerment to talk about voting rights before Ben and Jerry's Famous chunks can be added the mix has to get to below freezing temperatures it's pumped through this giant freezing barrel and when it gets to the front it's finally ice cream along the way it's quality tested meaning lucky Factory floor workers get to taste the ice creams then it goes into the first of two freezer visits when it comes out it's 22° and somewhere between the consistency of a milkshake and soft serve now for the best part the chunks founder Ben actually didn't have a great sense of smell which meant he couldn't taste much either so his big thing was texture that's why Ben and& Jerry's has some of the biggest chunks in the ice cream industry these chunks end up in flavors like half-baked Chubby Hubby or the one we're making chocolate therapy workers dump in add-ins through the chunk feeder from brownie bites and cookie dough Globs to chocolate chunks fruits and nuts they let us give it a try but it's not as easy as it looks then it's finally time to pack those pints workers stack the empty containers into the automatic filler the machine drops the pints into position and perfectly pumps in ice cream it can fill up 270 pints a minute the pints are pushed towards the litter and sealed tight at this point six pints every hour are pulled off the line for quality testing quality assurance Personnel first cut pintes open they're making sure the ingredients are symmetrical and there aren't any big air bubbles there is a small Gap but that's called what we call a functional void if we saw large voids it would be concerning is actually quite the workout as you can tell they also measure the weight and volume of pints to ensure that the right amount of ice cream makes it into each container so we know the weight of the ice cream and anything below 460 is not passable now back to the factory line it's now time for the pints to take a second spin in the freezer the ice cream has to get even colder down to - 10° the pints travel along the spiral hardener a cork screw shaped conveyor belt inside a freezer with the wind chill it can get up to -60° in there after 3 hours the pints are finally Frozen and ready to be packaged they're flipped over and Shrink wrapped into groups of eight together they make a gallon but you'll never actually see a gallon tub of Ben and Jerry's ice cream because the company never wants its ice cream going bad sitting in the back of your fridge once the pintes are packaged they're ready to be shipped across the globe every cheesecake squirted out of this machine costs twice as much to make than it did a few years ago Junior's pumps out bakes and packages 5 million cheesecakes a year and the compan has used the same recipe since the 1950s but it's gotten a lot harder first there was a cream cheese shortage you can't make cheesecake without cream cheese it's impossible and now inflation has caused the prices of other ingredients to soar I've been doing this for 33 years and I've never seen a time like this ever and I can venture to say if my father father was alive he never saw a time like this either now that he's taken over Allan expects a tough work ethic out of all of his employees this sandwich is not great M Am I Wrong third generation owner Alan Rosen takes us behind the scenes it's like watching a baby being born to me to see how Juniors keeps rolling out its famous cheesecakes in the face of shrinking margins here in newor New York City Junior is an institution but its cheesecakes aren't actually made in the city anymore in 2015 the company moved to this New Jersey plant when we took took over this building cuz we didn't have the space to do it out of Queens 240 workers whip up millions of cheesecakes and layer cakes here every year not surprisingly every batch starts with the most important ingredient this year we'll probably go through about 7 million lbs of cream cheese Juniors partners with with craft Hines the maker of Philadelphia Cream Cheese workers unwrap each of those giant blocks of cream cheese and tip them into the mixing bowl so far we have cream cheese we have sugar we have eggs still to come we have some heavy cream some vanilla and I think that's just about it it's kind of simple workers roll these giant mixing bowls over to the assembly line to speed up production Allan added automatic depositors it gets pumped up here into here this is going to meter out exactly the right amount first workers drop a slice of vanilla cake not graham cracker crust into each pan we use cake on the bottom cuz this is a recipe that my grandfather created in 1950 it's a lot of work just to make the bottoms slowly the pump works its way through the entire batch of batter plopping perfect dollops into each pan then this guy knock out any excess air on this line they're making strawberry swirl cheesecake the swirl used to be piped by hand but this robot took over the gig in 2017 next the cakes head to baking but this step also has a unique twist a lot of bakeries use rack ovens where you just slide the whole Rack in you slide the whole rack out it doesn't work for our cheesecake his team bakes the dense cakes in a water bath spreads the heat evenly the bottoms of the cakes don't burn they rise up like a sule you can see how the cakes are literally above the pan when they're golden brown workers pull out the trays and pour out leftover water then they test the internal temperature they take temperatures for food safety but I can see with my eyes after they've rested the cakes aren't jiggly anymore we don't do jiggly we do juniors using this repurposed pizza oven Bakers can heat the pans just enough to release the settled cakes after the cheesecakes get de paned we bring them into our blast freezer Allan keeps it at a balmy 0° inside but it's not just plain or swirl cheesecakes in this freezer the company whips up dozens of different flavors of cheesecakes layer cakes and desserts the chocolate mousse cheesecake is hit with a heaping pile of mous doused in a waterfall of chocolate and covered in mini chocolate chips there's also the pumpkin layer cake cheesecake robots and Bakers work together to ice it leftover cake tops are ground up to make the crumb that goes around the edges all the finished and chilled cakes Converge on the packaging line from the pumpkin cheesecake to the 24 mini cheesecake variety pack Bound for Costco workers Place each cake in a box slap on a label and put it in an even bigger box that all heads to the freezer a second time this will all be gone within 30 days right now it's enough space but I can see maybe next year us needing even more space this is going around the whole country most of the 6-in cheesecakes end up in one of the 12,000 supermarkets supplied by Juniors from Wegman's to Kroger public Stop and Shop Sho right Allen's grandfather Harry Rosen opened up the first Junior's location on Election Day in 1950 he said if we're going to be a great restaurant in New York we have to great cheesecake some people venture to Guess that my grandfather named it after his two sons Walter and Marvin my father my uncle but you know Jews don't really do the junior thing so that's a little out the window over the next few decades Junior's popularity soared it wasn't long before celebrities and politicians were digging into these iconic slices we started a ma order business uh late 80s okay before food by mail was a thing and people were calling from Florida and California then 1995 we met QVC they were doing a search for America's best product state by state we went on and we I think we sold 2400 cheesecakes in like six or 7 minutes today Juniors has four restaurants in the New York area a quick service at LaGuardia Airport a direct to Consumer business and a booming retail presence oh we're definitely the biggest cheesecake company in New York so the top seller in our restaurants is either strawberry cheesecake or New York style cheesecake visitors from all over the world stop in for a slice yeah my name is Marvin I'm from Germany brownie explosion cheesecake um I think it's it's like a full meal but keeping up with all this demand for cheesecake hasn't been easy even for a giant like juniors in 2020 the pandemic shut down all of the restaurants I I sort of joked with my mom that thankfully my dad was pred you know was deceased before Co cuz Co would have killed him not the disease but the fact that his restaurants his babies were were not doing what they were supposed to do for in some cases 14 or 19 months at the time the company's directed consumer sales actually doubled but then came the great cream cheese shortage of 2021 last year we started to like we heard about it and then all of a sudden Jason calls me and says there's no cream cheese I'm like what do you mean there's no cream cheese you can't make you can't make cheesecake without cream cheese a Cyber attack hit a cream cheese factory in Wisconsin it it wasn't Philadelphia's facility but craft faced spiking demand and supply chain issues of its own the company struggled to get a hold of starch thickeners and packaging materials without any cream cheese Allen had to shut down the factory and the team missed a couple of big orders and a couple of orders for us or trailers full about 70 I think 70,000 lb so it's a big deal I was I was sweating it up pretty good by early 2022 craft had restored cream cheese supplies to juniors we are one of the biggest users of cream cheese in the country just in time for inflation to hit every ingredient is up right now from eggs to Sugar heavy cream but cream cheese is definitely the the highest priced ingredient that we use right now Allan says the price Juniors pays for cream cheese more than doubled from $150 a pound to over $3 it's the demand um you know it's based off of the butter markets and dairy prices are just very high right now and that's why it's affecting the price of cream everything is up labor obviously is up junior sales have bounced back to pre-pandemic levels with 110 million in expected sales this year but costs have escalated so dramatically that profits in the restaurant business and the wholesale business are weigh down Allan said profit margins dropped by 6% oh it's brutal no there's no doubt it is the hardest time in my I mean I've been doing this for 33 years and I've never seen a time like this ever so Allan made the decision to raise prices our product cost has literally doubled for cheesecake doubled we can't double our prices that's impossible but Allan says higher retail prices haven't stopped customers no not at all I've had their cheesecake hundreds of times over over many years believe it or not from when I was a kid restaurant's kind of around where we're from ordered this cheesecake um to be shipped to Oklahoma City but even if food costs continue to rise Allan says he'll never touch the recipe you know we had to move people around and reschedule but we're not changing any recipes here that's never happening we'd sooner not make cake listen we have a 72-year history of making cheesecake the exact way we're doing it exactly the same way forever we're not changing that so how does he plan to stay afloat one with those robots and then with new products from Cheesecake shakes to updated cake flavors like this strawberry Christmas cheesecake oh my God that is so good and finally Allan says diversifying helped him weather the storms of recent years of course Juniors has the restaurants but what it makes from Supermarket sales is quickly catching up I I would say it's about 5050 the restaurants Drive about half the volume of the company and this drives about half the volume of the company I think the fact that we are Diversified is what saved us but is this business sustainable if food prices keep increasing you know what it it's the tell will be in the next 3 months I think it's sustainable because I'm a big believer in our business and how good we are at it and that people are always going to want a cheesecake these little marshmallow blobs are being blasted with sugar to become peeps just borne can produce 5.5 million edible chicks and bunnies a day in this facility I think they're so versatile and there's really nothing like peeps they're really Irreplaceable at Easter but also at the other Seasons from their Easter bunnies to Halloween ghosts peeps our household name sugar corn syrup and gelatin how can something so simple be so delicious every year people compete Nationwide to make the best diaramas they've stuffed themselves in the hundred peeps Challenge and even po them in the microwave to see if they'll explode peeps make up 70% of just born's annual revenue we visited just born's Pennsylvania Factory to see how these iconic treats come to life samorn started the company in 1923 in Brooklyn New York borne was a candy maker by trade and earned a name for himself through his confectionary Innovations he created the technology to make sprinkles and invented a machine that inserted the sticks into lollipops which actually earned him the keys to the city of San Francisco in 1916 after introducing popular candies like Mike andik and hot tamali he bought the Roa candy company but it wasn't because of the marshmallow chicks just borne was actually looking for Jelly Bean technology the peeps fell into their laps sort of by accident we found that they were making peeps by hand in the back room by pastry tubes they took 27 hours to make just Bourne decided to ramp up production of these treats our founder son Bob Bourne he actually mechanized the process and thankfully because of him we are all able to enjoy a lot more peace automating meant building a top secret machine called the depositor which could spit out rows of marshmallow chicks at once so the way the machine works and this is actually proprietary so nobody can actually see the chicks being formed now the process of making peeps takes just 6 minutes from start to finish so what's inside a peep there are four basic ingredients sugar corn syrup gelatin and air they all combined to make the marshmallow base but making that marshmallow isn't easy cooking and setting it takes hours it's very important cuz peeps have to be specific density when they're deposited onto the belt to make sure that the marshmallow is stable the six minutes began when the marshmallows hit the production belt for the chicks those are just deposited for our 2D shapes it's basically like a cookie cutter there's already a thin layer of colored sugar on the Belt Jess makes 19 colors of sugar but yellow is our most popular color for chicks and bunnies followed by Pink and then blue the sugar is colored in these giant drums the peeps move on a canar about they go into an enclosed area that's covered so that when the sugar blows around it's contained it's very quick any sugar that doesn't stick get recycled for the next batch on the belt and peeps aren't exactly known for their nutritional value each chick has 6.8 G of carbs and six of those come from sugar then it's on to the most important part peeps become peeps when they get their decorations so when they're chicks and they get their eyes added when they're bunnies and they get their nose added that's when I would say they officially become peeps the decorations are made with edible wax then squirted onto the peeps with Precision we have an entire QA team that checks everything frequently throughout the entire production process we also have Associates who check for decoration and making sure that their eyes are in the right spot we manufacture peeps all year long we produce the most peeps for Easter season but because they're on shelves starting really in January we are producing them in the summer and fall but there's a reason Easter is the Brand's time to shine Peeps are an Easter tradition families have passed them down through the generations so if you grew up with them in your Easter basket you're likely going to put them in your child's Easter basket but in order to keep up with Easter demand the company had to make a hard Choice part of the reason why we made the difficult decision to not produce our Halloween Christmas and Valentine's Day peeps this past year was to ensure that we had the supply that people want for Easter production a pack of 10 marshmallows can cost less than $2 and they're sold everywhere in the United States and Canada at grocery stores Andes though the pandemic shifted what consumers bought in 2020 Jess borne says peep sales didn't drop all Easter peeps had been in stores for a couple weeks at that point and in fact a lot of our customers still went out to to buy Easter peeps because it was that sense of normal C people were seeking during the pandemic but this year the company has been adapting to changing Trends it's launched initiatives like peeps anality live on Instagram welcome to the first ever peep anality live I am a peeps Mega fan where it's hoping people make this peeps Play-Doh I just used all the peeps that I had to make this but I will open a pack right now and snack while I craft peeps have been around for more than 60 years years but just borne thinks there will always be new ways to use them Peeps are a big part of American culture in fact we see the characters as icons because you can do so much with them whether you're crafting crowns or just eating them plain peeps have staying power and don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon tucked away in the city of Glendora California is a small donut shop that's always busy locals come in for their daily coffee and dut but there's one thing that brings people from near and far to the doughnut man the famous strawberry Donuts yum this is delicious we really love it it's really good it's really delicious I the best I got it everywhere but really good this is my first time having this donut the fresh strawberries are really really good in the GL it's definitely wor getting messy for Jim Nano opened the dut man in the spring of 1972 but it wasn't until 2 years later that one fruit changed his business well uh the reason we got into it my wife says uh let's go for the American dream in about 1974 um a friend of ours uh who grew strawberry cuz this area was all strawberries on the other side of the hill and all that was all strawberries but in 74 he came to me and said Jim you got to come up with the strawberry donut he said I got so much he said I'll Supply you whatever you you want so we said okay and I had another friend that uh said I'll help you uh make the glaze and everything cuz he had a bakery and all that soon as we try that we realized that we had a good product cuz you could use it for the morning breakfast it's a good snack lunch or dinner dessert the shop makes hot donuts 247 they use potato flour and live yeast when prepping batches of dough how long the dough proofs and fries for depends on the temperature and humidity inside the shop each [Music] day [Music] the team mixes fresh strawberries with homemade strawberry jelly filling before stuffing a generous amount into the dut the strawberry Donuts are only served from February to September so we had to see what all the hype was about we're going to get some donuts we're going to get some donuts they have the classic chocolate swirls they have their Peach Donuts but I'm here for this bad boy the strawberry Donuts so a lot of people drive here from all over California to try these Donuts there's been a line out the door since we came so let's dig in I'm just going to go for this one they're all going to make a mess whatever ooh yes it is glazy it's this is going to be a mess look at that it's like a burger full of strawberries but it is good the Donut's nice and crispy on the outside which is pretty good I love how it has kind of this like good texture on the bottom that makes sense but it's not too sweet it's not like an overwhelmingly sweet donut my biggest piece of advice is use a fork don't do what I [Music] did not only is The Donut Man famous among locals but we met people from all over the state who came down to try it for themselves well it was bookmarked on my yel for 3 years so I was like one day I'm going to go came to Torance and then from Torrance we came to Glendora and we're like where's Glendora definitely going to get the fresh peach and the fresh strawberries and then I'll see what else is on the menu here for years yeah yeah and we are on our road trip to San Diego so yeah little road we like C Donuts when's the first time you had one honest when I moved here probably 22 years ago oh my gosh if you eat it with a fork you don't blend all the flavors that's true never thought this is a True Blend of all the flavor I remember coming here in high school after like the pepper rys and stuff people would come and hang out in that parking lot back there and so it's definitely like the go-to area uh in glor I would say we're very lucky cuz when I started this store I told my wife we won't be that big of a store because we're such a small community and all that I would say 60 to 70% of our customers come from more than 7 m away and that's unusual pastry dough mixed until soft patted down and rolled an e/ in thick cut into perfect 2in squares that fly through the air into piping hot oil fried until puffy and golden brown finished off with a sweet blanket of powdered sugar it's the expert way that these pastries are cut and fried that makes Cafe duman's beet a legend in New Orleans people compare beignet to Donuts funnel cake and other sugar topped fried pastries but those who've been to Cafe Dand know them as a thing all their own it's our like decadence it's it's who we are I mean it's everything about it you come here it I can't describe it I'm just looking at it because it's like heaven in a bag beignet start out as a simple pastry dough at Cafe deont where the Bakers are meticulous in the way they mix each batch mixing to get all the lumps out took get smooth it's about 10 minutes the most as for what's inside that mixture I I can't tell you that's a secret based on the ingredient list from Cafe Jon's own beignet mix the dough is made with wheat and barley flowers buttermilk salt and sugar once it's fully combined only touch can tell whether it's ready I check to make sure it's the right feeling for it to throw I don't want too soft I want it just right I don't want it too hard you have to feel it I make it too stiff be to start to shrink up then Curtis puts the dough through a rolling machine I'm rolling it down so I can run it through the cutter R the SS fly off get it ready to go into the grease you ever burn yourself during that uh plenty of times still had the marks on my arm Cafe Duman fries beet in cotton seed oil because it's like a peanut oil the grease doesn't burn that fast you know you cook it at a high temperature you'll see Curtis shake the squares continuously as the pastries cook I'm I'm separating them so they won't stick together so all of them come about done in 5 minutes or less the Beet are puffy and golden brown this point wait for the waiters to come in and bag them up and take them out to the window the serve shovels of powdered sugar empty into the bags immediately after the Beet leave the fryer that's when the sugar easily clings to the surface and when the pastries taste their [Music] best you have to get them hot like extremely hot because it's like you see that like it's so Airy and light I got to take another bite got we so good better than a donut way better than a donut it's just soft and chewy and excellent and we always wear black so that we can have powdered sugar all over us and everybody knows where we've been it's most custom like a lot of sugar they they like a lot do they come back asking for more yes they do all the time oh the Time Cafe Duman has been open in the French Quarter for almost 160 years all the while serving the same two items on the menu with some black coffee it's just like the perfect combination yeah it's a perfect mixture of tart and and sweetness that it kind of just it totally combines with each other and for decades food Publications famous figures and customers from all over the world have praised the sweet fried dough there are a few things that you think of New Orleans immediately the river the cathedral a padle Bryan's hurricane maybe a cafe deont beer this is what you come to New Orleans for first stop when we get to New Orleans this is on the list of where we got to go even if you don't like beignet you kind of have to try it because it's just part of the the New Orleans tradition and history and [Music] culture harvesting assai is a d dangerous job in Brazil workers climb thin palm trees deep in the Amazon [Music] rainforest these berries have become one of the most popular so-called superfoods in the US and they aren't cheap One Bowl can cost up to $15 and while the berry has exploded in popularity in recent decades small farms like this haven't really been able to cash in to this day most asai in Brazil is harvested by families on small scale Farms but big plantations are on the rise putting pressure on families like Lucas nogas and a way of life that goes back Generations so how did this Amazonian fruit become so trendy and what is the true cost for the people who have been harvesting it for [Music] Generations we met Lucas at the end of the 2021 Harvest but there were still some berries left on a few trees his family's Farm is roughly 70 M from blang the capital of the state of pah which grows more than 90% of the assai produced in Brazil the only tool they used to climb is a single piece of rope called a ponia they used to be made of leaves today Lucas's son Luis Fernando will go up the trunks are so thin that climbers have to be lightweight at the top they swing from the tree to reach multiple [Music] bunches going down can be dangerous too especially while carrying a large knife and holding an armful of branches dropping them could damage the fragile fruit and the risks don't end at The Climb Lucas and his family harvested 53 baskets like these in 2021 earning them an income of about $950 that's as little as 20 cents per pound meanwhile a pound of processed assai sorbet can sell for $7 or more in the US part of the issue is that Lucas has to sell his assai as soon as possible because the fruit goes bad fast F that leaves farmers who don't have processing machines with little leverage to negotiate Merchants bring the assai to bang by boat it's a race against the clock to sell the fruit before it spoils so markets run overnight the price of the baskets varies every day depending on the demand most of the assai produced in the state stays in Brazil but exports have skyrocketed growing about 14,000 per between 2011 and 2020 [Music] some asai gets transported to processing facilities like North assai every day 22 tons of fruit are turned into frozen pulp the assai that most people outside of pah are familiar with this is the stage where we see the biggest jump in price about [Music] 177% today more than 70 % of Brazil's assai exports end up in the states the global market for assai is expected to reach nearly $2.1 billion by the end of 2025 aai's popularity took off in other Brazilian states in the 1980s when it became part of workout culture in Rio and sa Paulo the bowls made Regular appearances in this popular '90s soap opera that took place at a gym its high calorie content made it a perfect pre- or post exercise food and its antioxidants made it easy to Brand a superfood that came with claims that it can solve all sorts of health issues like obesity type 2 diabetes coronary heart disease Strokes hypertension high risk for covid-19 cognitive difficulties sexual difficulties but nutritionists say this narrative has been blown out of proportion wait a minute one food can't do that can it no of course not nonetheless Americans were hooked and made all kinds of assai mixing in Fruit granola honey and more but it's a far cry from the culture of the people who have eaten it for for much longer indigenous people living in the Amazon have harvested and consumed asai for centuries maybe even Millenia and it's still a staple food in the daily diet of people in pah who eat it fresh with Savory meals Lucas was 12 when he started climbing oai trees and he still does 36 years later in recent years asai has also made headlines in American and Brazilian media for reports of children working in the industry but Farmers like Lucas say it's always been this way and that it's normal for everyone in the family to help out and learn the trade nowadays Lucas owns this land along with 55 other families these kinds of settlements are called kilos or a kumola community and many go back centuries they were established by enslaved Africans and afrodescendants who ran away into the jungle and started communities like this to survive many learned from indigenous people how to harvest and process Native Foods including asai the Brazilian government estimates there are nearly 6,000 kilom Bola communities in the country in a 2013 study found roughly 75% still lived in extreme poverty Lucas's assai trees grow alongside different native trees and plants but larger monoculture plantations that produce more fruit are on the rise the amount of land used for these plantations has more than tripled since 2006 these plantations are often located far away from flood Plaines where assai trees naturally Thrive that means big producers have to irrigate their asai trees while Farmers like Lucas rely on natural seasonal flooding from the nearby River some small producers have also been favoring assai trees over others which could become an issue in the long run an experts worry that as aai's popularity continues to grow the cultural traditions of pah and the Amazon could be lost [Music] is something Lucas and many people here take pride [Music] in [Music] foree foreign [Music] spee I say but good this isn't just any old honey it's Manuka honey and in its purest form it can cost up to $99 per 100 G that's more than 100 times the price of normal honey so why is it so expensive Manuka Honey is known for being earthier richer and more viscous than many other Honeys it comes from the nectar of the flower leptos sperm parium also known as Manuka which is only native to New Zealand and Manuka in fact is a marry word the fact that it comes from New Zealand that gives it a premium just to start with because the bee travels up to about 6 km to collect this honey and so this honey is representative of the environment and that environment is of New Zealand the plant itself and the Honey is very very rare out of all the Honeys in the world it probably represents 1% of all the world Honeys it's difficult to harvest it's only a 2 to 6 week harvesting period and the flower is only open for any for 12 days and in New Zealand we have wind and we have rain and all the rest of it so there's a lot of luck involved and getting the bee or a lot of effort from The Beekeeper and for some years there are no uh there's no honey production for some beekeepers and we have to go to the big extent also of using helicopters to collect this honey although Manuka bush is can also be found in Australia New Zealand accounts for almost all of the world's production with exports worth $24 million and expected to quadruple to 800 Million by 2028 New Zealand's honey is protected by a quality standard that safeguards Manuka special properties this honey is an expensive honey and anything that is expensive people will try and copy people will try and mimic or people will try and cheat so a lot of the cost here here isn't actually in the protection of it all the research so we know it's Unique we know it's from New Zealand we can identify it we've put labs around the world to be able to do this identification the New Zealand government has set up a standard to say what is manuka honey so how does the grading system work and what exactly are you looking for in Manuka honey we spoke to Dr Adrien Charlton from Far of science a lab in the north of England where Manuka Honey is tested to identify its unique compounds a standard we we will test for um three compounds um dihydroxy acetone which is known as DHA methy gloal known as MGO and hydroxymethyl ferol HMF these are the basic tests that we we would undertake to make sure that um Manuka Honey contains the antimicrobial characteristics that um the consumer would expect we could detect them but we can also measure the concentration of them um and that's done using UV light um to detect at a particular wavelength individual compounds each compound has slightly different properties but because of the issues um in the past with potential fraud there's a suite of other tests including tests for compounds such as leptosperin which is a marker that's unique to the nectar of leptosperin scoparium we can trace then the honey back to its its Botanical origin the plant that it came from when you pick up a jar of Manuka Honey the markers can be confusing so how do you know that it's the real deal so in some cases they labeling for the concentration of a compound so MGO 300 would indicate 300 mg of methy glyoxal in that particular pot of honey per kilogram NPA which is non peroxide activity now that's that's related to the mythal gloal concentration but it's a more direct um measure of the antimicrobial activity of the py um other other marks such as umf a quality Mark that if you can see a particular stamp on a product that has been tested and assured to a certain standard so that's different to actually labeling it with the concentration of a particular compound another Factor that's driving up the price is the use of Manuka honey in health and beauty products it's antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties are said to soothe and nourish the skin and it's also said to help with blemishes and acne but is that really the case there there's been a number of studies that have tried to um determine the benefits of Manuka honey and there are some very positive results and certainly in terms of ant antimicrobial activity we can show that that um that Manuka Honey has antimicrobial activity in the laboratory that those clinical trials over a long period of time have not have not been undertaken as of yet but um there there are lots of reports that indicate um that that Manuka Honey has benefits but um as yet unproven so the jury still out on Manuka medicinal properties but that hasn't stopped its popularity and Manuka Honey is Serious Business the prices and demand for the honey is so high that the New Zealand Police have received hundreds of reports of beehives or honey being stolen and even reports of bees being poisoned so if you do manage to get your hands on the jar does it actually taste different from normal honey oh my God that is delicious the flavor is really strong it's very like very thick compared to normal honey it's got a kind of chest nutty flavor it's not as sweet as usual honey it's really smooth and The Taste is pretty similar to what I'm used to the texture is really interesting it's very very thick almost like creamy is manuka honey really worth a 100 times more than other honey that's for you to judge but what's for certain is that no other honey in the world is so rare and unique that it needs to pass by a lab before being sold every day lotterie makes tens of thousands of macaron in pastry Labs just like this one the company sells its colorful cookies across 30 countries but it all started here in Paris with a macaron recipe that hasn't changed for over 130 years today we dive into how lotterie went from inventing the double-decker macaron to becoming a part of an estimated billion dooll cookie Empire today there are over 110 Lottery locations and more than 50 cities worldwide the shops serve quason and a myriad of other French pastries but caring the brand is the macaron rainbow in its shade and Parisian Chic in its ethos so Chic it costs about $3 per macaron a steep price driven by expensive ingredients and a notoriously tricky baking process it all starts with California almonds we make the shells so the M shells out of Almonds whole almonds that we use that we grind up ourselves uh with icing sugar and then an Italian merang egg whites and sugar syrup if you're getting a macaron from one of L's International locations it was made in Switzerland lter says the macarones aren't Frozen instead they're cooled to what lotterie calls a hibernation State before being shipped globally but if you're in a shop in Paris or another French city those macaron are made every day here at the lab outside of Paris and this this is then baked for about 20 minutes apart from that we make the filling uh which can be a jam uh chocolate ganache or a caramel and then we fill the macaron with that filling then they rest for about 8 hours to 24 hours uh to get that nice soft texture and then we ship them to the stores the perfect macaron has a crunchy outer layer a soft inside and just the right amount of filling if it's not perfect it's tossed two essential steps that we have here at L is to get the right texture in the batter that is not too runny not too stiff so the ma gets that perfectly round shape not too big so then you can't put it in in the boxes and all that and then the second stage was talking about is that maturation process where it all comes together with the filling the shell that gets that nice texture at the moral G pastry lab chefs make 3200 macaron a day using a recipe that hasn't changed since the cookies invention in the late 1800s you can't write that down you you can't just explain it with with math it's it's literally just a skill that they've developed and they can tell they can look at it they can tell if it's good or not they can they can taste it and tell you that in 2 days this Mac will be ready what has changed are the flavors there are at least 20 Mainstay flavors including Rose pistachio and vanilla Lotter pastry chefs like Yom are are constantly developing new ones sometimes based on Seasons like rose and cardan for Mother's Day in Paris and other times based on location like the hemp macaron and a vegan line sold in Los Angeles Louie eres lter founded his namesake Bakery off Ru Royale in Paris back in 1862 but it was actually his cousin Pierre de fontine who created the version of the macaron we know today when he sandwiched two almond mering around chocolate ganache in the 1890s Pierre's idea was a hit and was soon copied by patis across the city but it would take 135 years from the original macaron company to Branch out into another location on the Sham this expansion began after the lottery family sold the brand to the holder group owners of the bakery chain Paul in the 1990s the holder group reposition lter as a high-end cookie house imitating luxury fashion houses in the late 90s lter introduced new macaron flavors set to seasonal releases of fashion lines then the colorful cookies showed up beside Hulk Couture in French L and Vogue and the rebranding worked suddenly a symbol of luxury lter went from selling 3,000 macaron a day to 10,000 by 2002 soon food and travel bloggers began writing about the macaron cementing L as a travel destination liken to the Eiffel Tower AS lud's Global influence spread with Travelers and fashionistas so did its macaron in 2005 lter opened its first International location in London then 3 years later another in Japan in the US the macon's appearance in the film Maran tonette and the TV show Gossip Girl popularized the cookie and in 2011 lter opened its first Us location off Madison Avenue in New York City today lter is the world's foremost provider of the famous French macaron helping its parent conglomerate reach a billion dollars in Revenue in 2018 cuz we we make it for them you know for customers you go to Japan and people tell you oh you know it's so good that thing I tried whatever and and you come back to Paris they tell you the same thing and that's really touching breakfast lunch and dinner this is what I would [Music] want it's not as busy as the place up the road which is a lot more famous and not as good that's all I'm going to say in a previous video Bas was our pick for the best canoli in Boston 3 2 1 oh my goodness without a doubt we got an inside look at how boas Bakery puts the heart into its canoli we're in a a unique location we're not on on Hanover Street we're on Salem Street where a lot of people that have been in the area for a while still come back to it's not the exact tourist location Bas Bakery was founded in 19 26 by Italian immigrant Antonio Bova the shop is covered wall to--all with Italian food and sweets but the canoli is by far the top seller my name's Dominic I'm a great grandson of uh Antonio Bova I'm John CL great grandson of Antonio bber as well you know Dominic and I being fourth generation we know how important a family business is still having our our hands in the business a lot of businesses may have name recognition and May sell out and very few people have actual family members here on a daily basis the bakery offers eight canoli flavors ranging from traditional to New Age so what makes our canoli the best is it comes from the hot we put passion into our canoli and we're constantly filling our canoli so no matter when you come our canoli are always fresh this is key because Bova Bakery is open 24 hours at night lines go out the door oh canoli oh wow this is so good the traditional filling starts with a base made with whole milk ricotta to ensure a smooth consistency Dominic makes sure the sugar is mixed thoroughly before he adds the whole milk [Music] I've just had the filling and I already know it's going to be a great canoli the ricotta filling is separated to make different canoli fillings like Nutella and pistachio we're getting we're getting another taste test pistachio that flavor is so nice I'm in trouble I don't think I don't think I'll be able to pick a favorite when I try these three later on cuz the feelings are all so good other new canoli flavors include creme brulee cream caramel mixes with the ricotta filling topped with Heath bars so I think we get a lot of our canoli flavor um ideas I think a lot of it comes from our help right if they go to the store they're picking out flavors that they like so a lot of our help will make recommendations and customers will make recommendations on flavors that they like well a definitely unique canoli would be the Florentine we make our Florentine with almonds butter sugar and honey other places will just use a mix before they make their Florentine shells ours is 100% from scratch in hand rolled you're not going to find that anywhere else other than B's Bakery now you're going to P in love I know that for sure our three most popular canoli are the Florentine chocolate chip and tret now it was our turn to try all [Music] three this is a working [Music] Hazard oh my God it's good right oh it's so good everything that I said that I wanted to look for it in the perfect canoli like everything is checked the shell is super crunchy ricotta filling is like super smooth and light and fluffy not too sweet not too [Music] grainy they know what they're doing here oh yeah yeah this is it this tastes like a legendary dessert she does not mess around this thing has some weight to it I don't know what a Florentine shell is I assume that it's from Florence maybe French it's French it's from France I'm going do it okay I do it okay I'm going do it this whole time I've been taking on a journey because I've been eating filling for the past few hours I thought every time I ate a different flavor I'd be like oh this is great and then I'll have the next one I'll be like oh this is my favorite and now I had the third one and I'm going to definitively tell you that this is my favorite um the reason being the shells on the canoli the regular canoli shells they're more of like a vessel to hold the filling and like don't really give any additional flavor profile other than the the the crunchy Factor texturally this crust it's sweet it's nutty Boston really knows how to make their canoli I can tell you that much this is Rainbow Dongo bite-sized orbs of colorful tender Mochi in a process similar to Taffy it's made every day by hand along with a selection of other wagashi or Japanese treats I've never had Mochi this good in my life thank you thank you that's Moi oh this has been here forever right and it's the best LA's Little Tokyo is the heart of the largest Japanese American population in North America one gift that Japanese immigrants brought over with them is this cute little snack Mochi now we're visiting the oldest Japanese business in the country from the owner who actually still makes moochi the way Grandpa did it let's go after all these years fageto has earned many fans who adore their mochi's texture and taste hi hi Crystal tell me a little bit about feto and how long you've been around well feto is the oldest store here in L Tokyo uh we started in 1903 I am the third generation today we're making sakuramochi it's our season um February and March we make Sak muchi for girls day what do you use to make it weuse sweet rice and red bean auki beans and uh we also are making a number of other items some more decorative traditional moochi each one has a certain taste or a certain texture so if you'd like to see we're we're busy working right now so come on back in the fageto kitchen Brian Kito is more than a baker he is a shokunin or Master Craftsman a title earned after at least 10 years of training he's known for his traditional Japanese desserts including yokan a sweet bean jelly served over white bean filled Mochi decorated and covered with gelatin there's also ogura an inverted Mochi with the beans on the outside topped off with a flower also sealed with gelatin to keep it soft and shiny first of all I am just impressed by how much manual work there is every single stage there is someone pouring cutting manipulating mixing stirring moving something from one table to another I mean it's all done by human hands and human labor fageto is known for their rainbow Dango it starts with a base dough that's steamed and mixed with sugar the Mochi is edible at the stage but it's not rainbow Dango yet food coloring is folded in by hand and shaped into long pieces that wrap the white Mochi now it's ready to be rolled out out section by section each tube is finally laid in a wooden mold but before that getting them to be just right take some effort it's a workout okay my arm is tired my shoulder's tired I have truly never eaten Mochi until today like real Mochi yeah so good this is just it's it's a joy to eat because the texture is just something that you don't find in nature you got to make it I've been in the business for 44 years uh full-time now given that you've been doing this for a long time and it's a family business have you had any tools or special equipment that's been passed down uh yeah we do we have some molds uh that have been passed down even from my grandfather's days but uh because the interment during World War II A lot of the stuff from my grandfather doesn't exist anymore they lost after internment Brian's mom and dad struggled to rebuild from nothing but they soon got back to producing their Legendary Mochi with a little bit of help Cory my son he's shown interest in taking it over and so we're preparing for him to be the fourth generation he's been here for now a year and a half at prining while he's in college uh you have five yeah three more three more it doesn't matter it doesn't matter she is he the young man that looks like you walking around he's the one that almost looks as good-looking as Dad no just and it's so fragrant oh it smells so good even not to eat it is a treat you just can't find this anywhere else and it's fresh it's not like dry the Mochi itself has a taste which complement whatever's inside of it I'm in my third bite this texture is unbeatable it'si it is the place and it's really good yay no dessert is more classic than a deliciously gooey chocolate chip cookie and that's why people love bang cookies in New Jersey the best way to describe it is like those cookies that you used to have in the cafeteria that are really ooy and gooey but like it's cooked more they're better than those 3 years ago bang cookies was was selling a few hundred cookies a day at farmers markets we sold out in the first hour and we didn't expect that ever since then we sold out first day and then we KCK them selling out every single day at the farmers market now George's team bakes more than 20,000 cookies a month with a recipe he spent 15 years fine-tuning George and his team Source ingredients from all over the world whether it's grass-fed butter from New Zealand chocolate chunks from Europe or macadamia nuts from Hawaii each one affects the way these cookies bake and taste the shop best seller is its most classic rendition the sea salt chocolate chunk cookie this recipe uses a mix of white and brown sugar locally milled organic flour grass-fed butter and both milk and semi dark chocolate different chocolates gives it different nuance and flavors so it gives it more complexity so it kind of counterbalances the difference between the sweetness of the actual milk chocolate versus the semi bitterness of semi- sweet chocolate chump each cookie is topped with a Sprinkle of sea salt because when it hits your mouth it hits it in a way that you're biting into the cookie and then you're tasting the sweetness and the saltiness in combination another popular pick off the menu we love the S'mores S'mores I really love that one I know they do a s'mores cookie really well it's like nice and gooey but with the crunchy outside this one's notably more timec consuming to make than the rest every single s'mores cookie that we do has to be pieced together with broken gram prors that we break by hand and then manually put it in finally each cookie is individually packaged in plastic so customers can see exactly what's put on the inside it also keeps them fresh and soft like it's gooey it's like it's big it's I can taste that it's organic like it's like good ingredients bang cookies didn't initially attract customers for cookies but rather the name of the shop itself we wanted a name that would be able to draw attention because we didn't have like the marketing funds at all we wanted something that's outlandish cuz we're the new players in the Farmers Market so we de to call ourselves bang me Bakery in the very beginning a lot of customers would look over like is that a real name like yeah it is try the cookies now they did the name changed to be a bit more kid-friendly but the customers kept coming it's 5:26 what time did you get a l 410 cuz Jessica at the pizza shop said we have to try them that they are so awesome and for us to please get her t-shirt and with so much demand bang cookies has already opened two locations in Jersey City and they've got plans for more to come that means more cookies for customers across the country who've already had them shipped to States like California Alaska and [Music] Hawaii we're here in Milwaukee Wisconsin home to the world's largest concentration of Frozen Custard shops now Frozen Custard is not the same thing as ice cream and by law it has to have at least 10% butter fat and a lot more egg yolk and because Wisconsin is home to Dairy lots of dairy it is the perfect fit for Frozen Custard shops now what are we waiting for let's go see how Frozen Custard is made custard is more dense ice cream is a lot of air in it this does this has less amount of air so when you're eating it cust goes on your pallet and it's going to stay there longer where ice cream it's going to melt quicker but before before you even taste that rich Frozen Custard it starts as this liquid Dairy mix cops' mix is top secret but we do know that it is at least 10% butterfat and more than 1.4% egg yolk and these aren't just arbitrary measurements to officially be considered Frozen Custard the US Food and Drug Administration actually mandates these percentages while your premium ice creams may have that same amount of butter fat your average ice cream probably isn't going to and it's even more unlikely for ice cream to have that much egg yolk instead consisting of more air like Scott said cops gets its secret mix from Galloway a dairy processor that actually introduced Frozen Custard to the Midwest during the 1933 Chicago World's Fair the dessert found a home in Wisconsin it's more than 100,000 dairy farms meant easy access to Fresh Cream and butterfat milk we pour it up in the hopper and then they'll start the machine up these machines are running at about 16° ice cream is about temperatures obviously you got to be under 32 but not much under 32 they're so custard is running at a colder temperature this machine is what really does the work of turning the mix into custard as the machine freezes the custard it adds in as little air as possible while regular soft serve ice cream might be about 40% air Frozen Custard can range anywhere from 15 18 to 30% air giving it a thicker texture than ice cream as it thickens the machine slowly pushes the custard forward once the custard gets to the right consistency it pushes its way through the front of the [Music] machine how old are they these two machines were made probably in the mid to late 40s okay cops has a pretty unique way of keeping such old machines running if something goes wrong they actually call up Leons a competing Frozen customer stand that also works on maintaining old custard machines cuz he El has a business a machine shop he builds all the parts for us for all the Custer stands so if we need something we call them and they make parts that we need for our machines to keep them going 138 is it plain or is it vanilla we call it a plain most people say it's vanilla vanilla is a plane until we add the vanilla extract to us it's not vanilla custard that vanilla extract is what makes it the vanilla custard right now we're probably spending close to $500 a gallon oh wow uh it's the premier vanilla extract it's like uh comparing it to a Volkswagen to a Mercedes we're using a Mercedes you can taste that expensive vanilla in this custard this vanilla tastes so good it has a very creamy consistency there's there's so much more of the treat in one bite or one lick I should say this is definitely better than ice cream from Sicily to the streets of Queens Italian ice has been a staple for cooling off during the summer heat for centuries and one shop credited with bringing this Frozen fruity treat to New York is the Lemon Ice King of Corona lemon Ice King has been a staple of this neighborhood for so long I think the night Corona it's Corona that creaming it's got a lot of flavor and is delicious it is so good you have to come to Corona and get some the lemon I king of Corona began in 1944 when NOA Ben Faro began churning and selling ice out of his garage in a largely Italian neighborhood Nia's son Peter partnered up with his father to open up a storefront in 1964 just in time for the New York World's Fair in Flushing Med is corono Park which attracted more than 51 million people around the globe everyone is coming to the New York World's Fair the real lemon Ice King started here through Peter Ben Vero you know even though we got to acknowledge his father obviously yeah he took it to the next level That's Mike Zino and Vinnie barbacha the current owners of the Queens institution Pete to me was like my second father probably one of my best friends as well an immigrant from Italy Nia made his eyes the traditional way using natural ingredients in actual pieces of fruit like in Sicilian granita a semi- frozen dessert with a sugar and water base but what made the Beno ICE stand out was its creamy texture which was unlike the coarse and crystalline versions of early Italian ice and which they achieved without using any dairy no Dairy at all and any other the flavors you assume like it's a cream ice you know it's got milk in it's got what Dairy in it no dairy in in it it's just our recipes that make the product turn out the way it does can't say nothing but the best always been eating it and as you can see still eating it we get a lot of input from like the neighborhood where used to be more like theal lemon orange that's more traditional Italian flavor and that was what the neighborhood was now as the neighborhood changes we see we're selling more mango P colada more the tropical fruits I'm here all the way from oh I to taste this this is great overwhelmed by the praise I couldn't wait to get my share of the iconic Beno Italian ice out of the 36 flavors I decided to try their called classic peanut butter which contains chunks of peanuts throughout but first their most popular flavor the namesake lemon ice lemon Ice King lemon lemon is lemon it comes in the form of a rose all right so here it go this is truly amazing on a humid day like this in New York City this is exactly what I wanted to taste right now this tastes like fresh lemons but also it's sweet too so if you're sweet tooth like me you would love this but if you're having Italian ice for the first time you are going to feel like kind of like prickles on your tongue but they're refreshing prickles because it's just like the coldness of the ice that's really H so refreshing do you guys want to try some you're going to have to come to Lemon Ice King this is lemon Ice King of Corona's newer flavor it is the peanut butter ice it's become a hit amongst the community and a lot of people around New York so I'm really excited to try this out this is the one that I saw on social media that people are raving about so here we go oh my God I really cannot believe that Dairy is not in this because this tastes so smooth and just like any peanut butter ice cream that I've had in the past yeah whatever flavor you're you're aiming at you're going to find that it's the best you've had the 75-year-old recipe and larger window operation remain loyal to its owner and neighborhood as Vinnie and Mike continue to hire local kids to scoop out Italian ice the queen of afternoon tea served with cones and strawberry jam clotted cream is sometimes confused with butter for its thick rich texture while it contains some butter fat a lot of it actually clotted cream isn't ched as butter would be instead its butter fat is separated slowly following a precise lengthy process that here in Coral has been passed down over Generations we're in run minor Cornwell and today we're going to find out how clotted cream is made I can't wait to taste it let's go see how it's made just by looking at it it has the consistency of ice cream it looks a bit like ice cream it does the texture of butter and the taste of cream of like milk cream yeah so it's really like these three things together and all come from milk very clever product milk yeah it is and how did that clever milk turn into such a product well clotted cream starts with fresh milk that is pasteurized at 63° Celsius for 30 minutes this temperature is ideal to preserve its creamy flavor without burning it it is then cooled down to no more than 36° to force the milk to separate into fat and liquid the next step is to pour it into the separator which skims the cream from the milk so how much uh milk are you putting here in the separator this that would be 35 L of whole milk gone in it's usually 1 lit of cream to 12 L of milk oh all right that's that's really small but you still want to make something out of it yeah it is the cream of the crop if you know what I mean literally literally the best part of it it's not easy to get it right yeah why is that well it's I think it's the temperature you know of the when you process the milk as well to make sure you you actually start separating it at the right temperature the right consistency of cream my uncle um used to sell his own cream and he taught me that if the cream will stick to your thumb that's the right consistency if it falls off it's not going to be any good it's not good CU it means there still a little bit of milk that's right you don't want any any you'll be you'll be working with me in a minute oh this is your test oh it looks like nail polish that's good the separation is done twice to get the richest green possible once the separator is off Claire takes it apart to explain to me how it works here you can see a series of discs when the machine is on they spin and push the skin milk through the SS while the cream which is heavier flows to the bottom as each partt of milk goes through these spin at such a rate each one of them they all the cream yeah there's loads all see they all separated come off like that we obviously SE take them off every every time we use them but there's a lot of fat as well that's kept in here oh it's probably really good for your skin like a moisturizer the Fresh Cream is then poured into little pots by skimming the milk twice what we've got is double cream to become clotted cream it will need to be left to set for 12 hours in the fridge during this time the thickest part of the cream Rises to the surface creating clots which will make it clotted cream oh I see so that's C the clots yeah they cook the clots and the cream underneath should be runny compared to the top so you have that lovely crust oh I see so this is the way to go and it is a very very lengthy process it is yes definitely it's it's well worth waiting for look nice and bubbly they do yeah after spending the night in the fridge the pots are ready to be cooked Claire tells me she's found the perfect temperature and baking time to be 85° C for 1 hour and 30 minutes this allows her to give the cream a nice crust without overcooking it oh and what you want is that lovely crust yeah it has CR you see it cracking there and then it's running it's just about right to put on that lovely scone oh make sure you have the the crust on top this is a good consistency because you've got the the underneath isn't too runny it won't run off your scone yeah teeth will sink right into it okay it's my turn now I'm not going to get a spoon as big as yours keep the cross make sure there you go Cheers Cheers M that was felt it yeah you do feel it yeah you definitely need a scone to be with it e you're not really going to eat it on its own unfortunately Claire had to run to bottle the rest of the fresh milk of the day so I sat down with Margaret the owner of the farm to enjoy clotted cream the most traditional way possible in an afternoon tea or cream tea as it's called here in corn or no the clotted cream is paired with strawberry jam and Cones that Margaret herself made with some leftover buttermilk while spreading cream and jam on your scone may look like the most natural thing the order in which you do it has long been the subject of one of the biggest culinary debates in the UK which way should I start cuz I know here there are a lot of rules on how to approach this and I could be persecuted if I put one thing before the other your scone and then in Cornwall you always put the some jam on it first okay so first the jam all right yes why would you put the Jam first and the cream last well it's what we've all always done here but I think um if you put the jam in and you put as much cream on as you like can't you it is it is nice have a nice big one that's enough the whole yes at least that much at least oh gosh it's quite a lot huh very good this cream nice M all right I can see why you put this for last cuz it's really what stays there in your mouth M you know when you when you have it and you just have it on the top of your lips very very good I like the scones as well homemade by you yeah I really like them nice and soft and crumbly in the core good everything together is so nice yeah it's true we are in ruo diula Italy and today I'm going to meet with Vincenzo and Juliana who makees some of the most Exquisite gelat in the country their story is as rich as the one of their Hometown Ruvo that is Renown for its architecture and Rich craftsmanship for the two siblings it's all about keeping the craft of gelato making alive and the best way to do that is to take your family recipe from 1840 and never changing it let's go find out [Music] more this is a story of how one family took gelato to a small Southern Italian Town 180 years ago and gave it a home the family recipe calls for only three ingredients for J Mambo has been made this way since well since 1840 it's all thanks to Uncle Luigi who brought the art of gerat making from the Royal courts of Naples to his hometown ruo which has been synonymous with Jato ever since the original 1840 recipe which is called the king's cream has been joined by seven other flavors pistachio almond chocolate kins nuga jandya and aen nut all ingredients are seasonal and that is why your go-to winter flavor here will never be say strawberry but almond this flavor in particular is made with a homemade almond butter which is actually grinding before our eyes as we speak GR [Music] [Laughter] we're now finally adding the third and final ingredient milk [Music] for but we are not finished yet first we need to cook it and if you think that you could just skip the step please keep watching Juliana feels pretty strongly about [Laughter] it it's now time to pour our cooked mixture in the gelato machine which will freeze the cream and transform it into G e [Laughter] you may have been watching this for only a few minutes but it actually took us 5 hours to make only one flavor and while I feel for Juliana having to do this eight times every day for each flavor I can't wait to taste the one I work for today so let's get to it will I be transported to 1840 with this you know what I just said about making one flavor taking 5 hours well this tasting part was no joke either Julian and Vino are very serious about letting me taste every single flavor Juliana keeps scooping so more gelato for me and a special mention goes [Music] to I really thought we ended with a bang with pistachio which I loved but I may have a new favorite after all the king scepter this one takes 3 days to make and is made from Iranian suffron Juliana serves it in a cone filled with cream and pach P paste she then covers the gelato with some more cream and gold leaves this team of Bakers makes around 1,200 trays of baklava every week and Master Chef mhmed ainu has to pay careful attention to every step of the process [Music] dous we visited ainu baklava to see how it makes its baklava in such big batches the day begins at 5:00 a.m. making the daily dough hard wheat flour water eggs and salt are added into a mechanical mixer and combined for 20 to 25 minutes once soft the dough is taken out cut weighed and kneaded into small discs that are left to rest for another 20 to 25 minutes the discs are loaded into the do sheater and run back and forth to flatten and elongate themee foreign speech fore fore here chefs roll 10 to 15 sheets of dough at a time and generously coat them in starch so they don't stick together for every sheet of D is rolled until this paper thin foreign spee foree speech foreign speech foreign forign speech speech forch the Finly roll dough is then brought to a table to fill each pan foreign foreign foreign speech forch for speech foreign foreign foree speech for speech for speech speech fore speech foreign fore foreign for speech speech fore spe fore next a mountain of special B pistachos is added into the forign speech forign speech foreign spech fore speech forign speech fore for all of the pistachos mahamat uses are harvested locally and picked within 10 to 15 days of sprouting the pistachios are topped with another 15 to 20 layers of dough before they are taken to the slicing section here mahed and his team add the finer layers of dough to the top of the baklava and laminate each layer with melted butter as with the pistachos mahmmed carefully selects his butter from sheep that have been grazing on Mountain plants to retain its flavor the butter is melted with steam for speech forch foreign speech forch [Music] spech foreign speech foreign for speech speech check your for foree foreign speech foreign [Music] speech once the last layer of dough is applied Bakers cut the excess and slice strips across the tray then they coat the tray in another layer of butter and cut it again into its famous diamond shape The Baklava is now ready to bake mamed uses a traditional Stone oven filled with oak wood to cook the baklava foree spee foree speee each tray bakes for 25 to 35 minutes depending on the style of The Baklava and how fake it is once cooked The Baklava rest for up to 40 minutes the baked baklava is placed on a burner to get the bottom crispy when it achieves the right color and consistency it's time to sweeten the dish but if there's not enough sugar The Baklava will be too soft and dry and if there is too much it will lack the right crispness and flavor foreign speech foreign speech fore foreign foreign speech speech [Music] [Music] speech for after 3 hours of prep and cooking The Baklava is ready to [Music] eat it's believed that baklava was adapted from a Savory layered pastry known as borak which was popular across Central Asia in the 11th century over time it's believed that it was combined with the Arab practice of soaking pastries and donuts in Honey or sugar syrup some of the earliest mentions of Bava turkey come from the 1400s it was enjoyed by Sultans during the Ottoman Empire and remains a popular dish among locals today for Fore fore foreign spee foreign speech for speech forch forign forign speech foreign speech for speech foree for spee speech forign spe foreign speech fore for speech foreign speech fore foreign speech foreign fore foreign [Music] speech [Music]
