How they make your lunchtime sarnie: It's very hands-on at Britain's biggest sandwich factory, where migrant workers help churn out THREE MILLION a week .

As you sit down to eat your lunchtime sandwich today, these pictures might give you pause for thought.

As you sit down to eat your lunchtime sandwich today, these pictures might give you pause for thought.

Spreading ingredients onto countless slices of bread, the rows of workers at a Midlands industrial plant are part of an operation that makes a staggering three million sandwiches a week, selling them at chain stores ranging from Waitrose, M&S and the Co-op to Sainsbury’s, Asda and Boots.

The fact that the workers use bare hands at Britain’s biggest sandwich-making factory might at first glance put people off their food.

But Greencore, the company that owns it, insists that this makes it easier for the 2,000 employees to detect any potential ‘contamination’ on their skin — a rogue scrap of chicken breast, for example, when the production line has switched to cheese sandwiches.

Feeding our insatiable appetite: Some of the 2,000 employees on the production line at the huge Greencore plant in Nottinghamshire

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Millions of sandwiches are made every day at the 24-hour factory where half the workers - including many Poles - are from outside the UK

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Pressing issue: Prawns are pushed on to lines of mayonnaise dispensed on to slices of white bread by a machine as part of the process

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Use your loaf: A factory worker spreads a filling on to slices and, in this case, the worker's blue sleeve - and their bare hands

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The slice is right: A sandwich-maker grabs some bacon strips to place on to the bread - which will later be sold at supermarkets

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Fingertip control: The company says employees - who work without gloves - often leave the hall to 're-scrub' their hands for hygiene reasons

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Bread and butter: A worker puts together a chicken and bacon sandwich which is later sold at supermarkets and stores such as Boots

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Spreading ingredients onto countless slices of bread, the workers at the industrial plant are part of an operation that makes a staggering three million sandwiches a week

The sheer scale of the operation is extraordinary. The factory on the edge of Worksop in Nottinghamshire uses 300,000 loaves of bread every week and is one of four owned by Greencore, which corners 44 per cent of Britain’s supermarket sandwich market, and makes 600 million sandwiches every year.

Last November, Greencore was embroiled in controversy when it employed hundreds Eastern Europeans for its Northampton plant because no local Britons were prepared do the job.

SOURCE: DAILYMAIL