The factory that makes 500m packs of Quavers a year

The city of Lincoln is world-renowned for its magnificent cathedral, cobbled streets and medieval architecture. It is also where 500 million packs of Quavers cheese curls are produced every year.

In the latest episode of Inside the Factory, Paddy McGuinness finds out exactly what is involved in turning potato starch into one of the UK's best-known snacks.

After learning that 1.8 million curls cascade out of the fryer every hour, McGuinness says: "This is what I've been waiting for my whole life."

During the episode, manufacturing director Layla Whiting also reveals that, despite popular belief, cheese curls are not officially classed as crisps.

The Lincoln factory, which Ms Whiting described as being at the "heart of the community", has been the home of Quavers for more than 50 years.

During the episode, which airs on BBC One at 20:00 GMT, McGuinness learns how the curls achieve their distinctive shape and the process of adding the cheese flavouring.

After following the process, McGuinness witnesses 93,600 packets of curls being loaded on to each waiting lorry, ready to be transported to shops and supermarkets across the country.

Ms Whiting told BBC Radio Lincolnshire it had been a great experience.

"Firstly, the opportunity to showcase our great people, who perfect the Quaver on a daily basis, but just having him here was amazing," she said.

She added that McGuinness, who worked in factories cleaning machines as a teenager for a Saturday job, also knew the environment and "integrated with our people really well".

McGuinness, who replaced Greg Wallace as the show's host, is joined by Cherry Healey, who learns how Bombay Mix is made, while historian Ruth Goodman reveals the wartime story behind our love of cheese flavouring.

Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.