'We were like escaped kids in a sweet shop' - Hairy Biker Si on filming at Nestle

Why do you think it's so important that the product ends up on the shelves?

You wouldn’t ever normally get that opportunity, so it’s a prize that money can't buy. What a lovely thing to do, to go through that creative process, the competition, and then have something that you have designed, that you’ve worked towards, and that you've gone through a huge learning curve to get to, and for it to be produced by Nestle for the mass market. What an amazing thing to do! It'll be nice to walk into a shop and be able to go “I made that”. That's class.

What was it like being let loose behind the scenes of the factory?

It was honestly hilarious; Dave and I were like escaped kids in a sweet shop. We were on the line where they make Quality Street and we were both going ‘I wonder what would happen if you nicked one just like off the line?’ The representatives of Nestle kept going ‘Will you two stop it!’ What was really interesting, was all the incredible engineering and mechanics. Even though it was state of the art, some of the machines are 60, 70 years old. They're still absolutely amazing and do the job incredibly well, coping with the upscale or downscale of the product, it was remarkable. And there were still engineers with spanners fixing stuff, which, in a weird way, blew me away a bit, I was like wow. It was like there was Oompa Loompas running about with spanners, it was great.

Why do you think as a nation we love chocolate so much?

I think partly it's due to the climate, because in the UK it's bloody miserable and chocolate’s one of the most accessible and affordable luxuries that everyday people can afford. When you eat chocolate it release endorphins so it can make you happier and look, we've always had a great relationship with chocolate, even back to the early days when chocolate was incredibly expensive and there was drinking hot chocolate was only for the elite.

What was your favourite bar growing up?

There was one called the Texan bar, ah man it was great. It had a strapline that was ‘All you can do is chew.’ I loved that. I loved Fry's Turkish Delight, and it wasn't chocolate, of course, but you'd always get the Sherbet Dib- Dab or something of that ilk. I'm also a big fan of Black Jack's and Fruit Salads as well, which Nestle do, so lots of different sweets.

Tell us a bit about the show?

It's the Hairy Bikers first show for Channel 5, and it's a chocolate challenge show about chocoholics. The contestants are just amateurs, but have a great interest in chocolate. Over the series, we put them through their paces with the UK’s leading master of chocolate - Ruth Hinks- and they have to design, brand and make their own chocolate bars. The show is based on Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, albeit a competitive show. It's full of warmth and fun to watch and it was really good fun to make too.

What was your relationship like with the contestants?

They were fantastic, honestly, the casting was superb. Right from the very beginning you were invested in the contestants and wanting them to do well. There's not many shows you get like this, because it was fun, and it was warm, and a good giggle, even though they were all under enormous amount of pressure to achieve what they needed to do to get through the rounds. They were such a lovely bunch of people; very diverse characters and very diverse personalities but they were just brilliant. It was like one big chocolate family.

Did you ever worry that being surrounded by chocolate, might make you sick of it?

I think Dave and I were pretty good around it because we knew that we'd have to taste the chocolate that the contestants made as part of the judging process. We never get sick of it because it's a lovely thing to have, you just have to be careful about how much you eat! There were days when there were some big pieces of chocolate to eat over though, so you did crave a bag of crisps or something savoury at the end of it.

Between you and Dave, who would you say was the bigger chocoholic, who's got the sweeter tooth?

Dave, definitely! Inevitably when you ride a motorbike the length of hours that we do, you need a little bit of a sugar rush. I'd always go into the garage and pile a load of chocolate into the panniers so it was always there for him to pick up and eat if he wanted to. He'll eat chocolate in whatever way it comes. When it’s in the pany normally it'll get a bit melty, but that doesn't matter to Dave: if he wants a bar of chocolate he'll eat it.

Unfortunately, you guys aren't competing, but if you could put a new chocolate bar out on the shelves, or change an existing one, what sort of thing would you want out there?

I remember a chocolate bar they used to make called a Mint Crackle. It was big dark chocolate, with strands of minty fibre in it, like spun sugar. You used to be able to get an orange one, and you used to be able to get a mint one, so that's what I would bring back - I loved that, it was epic. In terms of a new bar, they've got all bases covered really, maybe some marshmallows on top of a mars bar? Or a chocolate covered marshmallow. Maybe a piece of a Turkish Delight at the centre of a marshmallow and then cover it all in chocolate, that would be epic.

You could call it a Turkish Pillow.

Meanwhile, Dave Myers was clearly impressed by the skyscrapers of Quality Streets at Nestle!