Sandwich factory

On grey morning last month, I was invited to see sandwich assembly lines at Adelie – £300m food-to-go manufacturer – at Wembley, in north-west London. Like many wholesalers, Adelie is reluctant to name its clients, for fear of ending illusion that most supermarkets and high-street brands still make their own. factory manager was Azzeddine “Abdul” Chahar, 48-year-old former police detective from Algiers, who fled country’s civil war in 1993. Chahar has been making sandwiches ever since, although he sometimes gets funny looks when he tells friends back home what he does. Algerians, like many people around world, regard sandwich as inferior fast food, because it is cold. “Even today,” he shrugged. He tries to persuade his teenage daughter to have decent meal at school, but most mornings she makes him buy her sandwich on way. “It’s quick lunch. Pick up and go,” Chahar said. “There is no time in UK. You know that.”

We put on wellington boots, white coats and hairnets, and washed our hands three or four times. Dressing to enter sandwich factory is bit like preparing to perform surgery on horse. Chahar showed me corridors stacked high with specialised brown bread (which must be perfectly square), cold storage with six days’ supply of cheese, and room with 22 different mayonnaises. In 2010, Raynor Foods, small family-owned factory in Chelmsford, introduced  Intense tomato, plum tomato with thicker cell walls that help retain moisture. It has become industry standard. tomato was originally designed by subsidiary of Bayer, German pharmaceuticals corporation, for use in pizza toppings, and has dramatically reduced incidence of soggy sandwiches. But it is sometimes hard to come by. Chahar spotted crate. “ suppliers were struggling to find them last week,” he groused.

In main production hall, which had red floor and thrumming air supply – keeping temperature steady 10C – couple of hundred workers lined seven conveyor belts. Chahar took me to middle of room, where around dozen women were making one of Adelie’s newest lines, chicken tikka and onion bhaji sandwich, which is popular among students. belt was going at about 33 sandwiches minute, so woman at each stage – arranging 40g of chicken, dolloping and spreading out bhaji paste, sprinkling on 3g of coriander – got less than two seconds before they went past.

person known as “stacker” then put two sandwiches on top of each other and fed them into Grote AC60 ultrasonic cutting machine. Chahar and I drew close. tiny whine emanated from titanium blade, which was vibrating 20,000 times second and making perfect triangles. Its ultrasonic cutters were designed to slice faultlessly through chocolate and cheese.

Over years, Chahar has tried to get unemployed British people to join his sandwich lines. “They come here. They do half a day. They never come back,” he told me. work is too cold, and too repetitive. Pay at Wembley factory starts at £7.50 hour. As result, most sandwich factories have relied on immigrant labour for at least decade; in 2014, news that Greencore was recruiting in Hungary prompted  infamous Daily Mail headline, which asked: “IS THERE NO ONE LEFT IN BRITAIN WHO CAN MAKE SANDWICH?” According to British Sandwich Association, about 75% of people in sandwich and cafe sector in capital are from overseas; in rest of country, it’s 40%.

Back on factory floor, Chahar showed me new high-tech filling depositor – shiny metallic cone – that company was trying out. “ idea is to move to automation as much as we can,” he said. blobs of egg mayonnaise dropped precisely on to slices of white bread from about foot above conveyor belt. lone woman spread sandwich mix with spatula in each hand. I looked up and down line. There were only four people on it, compared to eight or nine on all rest. completed sandwiches seemed to travel for long time on belt without any human intervention. At far end, stacker readied them for slicer. She caught my eye and smiled.