THE FOOD CHAIN

C4, 8.30pm THIS programme opens like a grown-up version of Willy Wonka, with bottles and jars clinking through the factory, cascades of peas and apples to be sorted and silvery showers of salt being processed, but there are no whimsical men in purple velvet and top hats, just hard-working people in white smocks, plastic gloves and hairnets.

This new six-part series is about Britain’s food chain and follows the country’s favourite foods and edible essentials from the farm, tree or sea to the supermarket shelf and restaurant plate. It’s an edible mystery tour and the programmemakers say we will be “hitching a ride with our best-loved ingredients from the start to the end of their epic journey”.

We start with bramley apples from a Kent orchard and the owner enthuses: “Harvesting is a buzz! I go to Planet Apple and return to Earth about October.” His bramleys make their way to a chocolatier where they are transformed into fruit puree, piped into tiny chocolate cases, and become little works of art before being sent on their way again to fancy sweetie shops.

There’s a different type of harvest in Essex’s Black Water Estuary, where sea water is pumped into the local salt works then boiled and evaporated until salt “falls to the bottom like snow”.

The series has a jaunty tone that is good because food documentaries are often bleak and preachy.

FLAVOUR: Sea salt from a family-owned works in Maldon, Essex.