1The waffle started out in the Middle Ages as a flat wafer made not from wheat flour, but from oats or barley.
2As its popularity spread, many variations of shape and recipe developed.
3The introduction of leavening ingredients gave rise to the waffle as we know it today.
4It's enjoyed across Europe as a type of cake,
5but in America they have them for breakfast.
6The introduction of frozen waffles in the 1950s
7marked the dawn of a new era for those that liked eating them, but not cooking them.
8Knocking up a plate of waffles was suddenly a snap.
9All the main preparation work takes place at the factory.
10They add flavourings like berries to a flour-based waffle mix
11and then turn to liquid ingredients.
12Water, canola oil and liquid cane sugar.
13They pour them into a big tank and mix thoroughly.
14They're then ready to thicken it into a batter with the flour-based waffle pre-mix.
15It also includes baking powder,
16which reacts with water to cause pockets of carbon dioxide to form
17for a leavening effect that will continue during baking.
18After adding more berries, this batter is complete
19and there's enough in this one tank to produce 3,600 waffles.
20Hot waffle irons are sprayed with a mist of non-stick coating.
21Down the line, an automated pump deposits measured amounts of batter onto each grid plate.
22The top grid plates encase the batter.
23This production line is computerized,
24which ensures the plates are filled quickly and without any spills.
25As they move towards the oven, the waffle irons rotate,
26allowing the batter to reach all the crevices inside.
27They now move through a long gas oven.
28It takes about two minutes for them to cook.
29They emerge from the oven piping hot,
30where a machine called a picking drum removes them from the irons.
31As the picking drum revolves, needles grab the waffles and pull them off the hot grid plates.
32The picking drum transports the waffles up to another level.
33The needles retract, transferring them to a series of conveyors.
34At the other side of the factory, the waffles enter a blast freezer.
35The temperature inside is -7 degrees Celsius.
36Fans blow frigid air onto the waffles as they spiral through the freezer.
37It takes just 20 minutes to freeze and preserve these freshly baked waffles.
38The frozen waffles now merge into lanes to be sorted for stacking.
39A trapdoor system releases them, three at a time,
40to grippers that move them onto a conveyor.
41The conveyor lane narrows, which forces the waffle stacks into a single row.
42A sensor-activated gate releases the stacks, two at a time, to the packing station.
43It takes just a second for the two stacks of frozen waffles to be wrapped and sealed in a tight cellophane packet.
44Then it's into a metal detector.
45To demonstrate how it works, a coin was placed on one of the packages.
46The system senses it immediately and a blower blasts the package off the conveyor.
47Suctioning fingers now pick up the outer box
48and open it as they place it on the conveyor.
49A ram shoves the waffles into the box.
50And that merits a toast. Or indeed a toaster.