INDUSTRY: PROFIT AND PROTECTION

JAMES E. REYNOLDS

So, each segment of the ruggedly competitive food industry fights to protect our food in the area in which its profit lies, to the ultimate benefit of the industry and the consumer. This, actually, has been the story and the history of the food industry. Reaching back a long way for an illustration, it was a man wanting to MAKING an honest dollar through make money who got the canning end honest effort has, historically in of the food industry underway. France these United States, been considered in the closing years of the 18th century as American as Mom's apple pie. was fighting most of Europe, by land That's what the food industry in this and by sea. She was not able to keep country does. It makes an honest dol- her soldiers and sailors adequately lar. It makes that dollar through an provisioned. So, her governing body honest effort to protect your food and of five men—The Directory—offered mine against ail hazards. a i2,ooo-franc prize to the citizen who It's a multibillion-dollar, almost un- could devise a method of preserving believably complicated operation, this food for transport on campaigns. business of protecting our food as it makes its several ways from the pro- NICOLAS APPERT, an obscure chef duction area to the shopping cart we and confectioner with no knowledge of wheel to the checkout counter in the biology, came up with the method. food store. It took him 14 years to develop and It's a successful business, as well. fully test his process, but in January Food, animal and vegetable, pre- 181 o Appert was awarded the prize by sents itself to us in many forms today. Count Montalivet, French Minister of It comes fresh, frozen, dried, concen- the Interior. trated, milled, processed in a profu- In June of the same year Appert sion of forms. It comes by truck, train, published ''The Book of All House- water, and air. It is safe to eat. holds; or the Art of Preserving Animal The principal reason our food is safe and Vegetable Substances for Many to eat is because the industry supplying Years." It set forth procedures used in it to us could not make a profit fur- nishing us unsafe food. We would not buy it. We would transfer our food dol- James E. Reynolds is Chief of the Current In- lar away from that segment of the formation Branch, Information Division, food industry that failed us. Agricultural Research Service. 247 canning more than 50 different canned storages, and transferred swiftly to the foods and was immediately widely dis- retail outlet, where trained personnel tributed and translated into many keep it in top quality condition until European languages. you purchase it. So, Appert found a way to keep food Much the same is true of the han- safely—^won 12,000 francs—and the dling of fii-esh peaches, except that whole world benefited. peaches have for a number of years now been hydrocooled—bathed in THE CANNING INDUSTRY has changed ice water before shipment. More re- since the days of Appert, and it con- cently, shippers have also been dunk- tinues to change. People like Louis ing the peaches for just a couple of Pasteur of France, H. L. Russell of minutes in hot water. This doesn't Wisconsin, and Samuel G. Prescott cook or change the taste or tempera- and W. Lyman Underwood of Massa- ture of the peaches. It simply cuts chusetts pioneered in demonstrating down the incidence of rots and extends the importance of destroying bacteria, the shelf life of the peaches. to make food keep. Other people Industry has for many years used developed the equipment that led to flood-type hydrocooling for cooling today's sanitary, high-volume output. asparagus, celery, and sweet corn. But Appert's simple theory, that Oranges, in whatever form, are food sufficiently heated while sealed similarly protected. Fresh oranges are in a container that excludes air will protected against adverse tempera- keep, is still the fundamental modern tures, against bruising. Chilled orange principle of canning as practiced today. juice frequently travels in giant tanker cars, under controlled temperature. A LOT OF OTHER theories have been Frozen concentrate goes in refrigerated developed into principle in the century trucks or railroad cars that maintain and a half since Appert made his great the concentrate's temperature at o^ F., contribution to the food industry. In or below. Appert's day, little fresh produce In some cases, as in winter shipment traveled more than one day's wagon of potatoes from northern States, in- journey to the market. sulated cars equipped with heaters Today, whole railroad cars of lettuce protect the commodity against cold. are sent through a vacuum-cooling process in California, then dispatched THE HISTORY of protecting commodi- eastward to markets 3,000 miles away. ties against heat and cold during Fresh pineapple arrives in Kansas City transit is quite a story in itself, and one from Hawaii. Florida citrus, as fresh the food industry delights in relating. as you would find it in your own super- As in many a good story, a detail or market, is on sale in Switzerland. two is lacking, but the story is there The average retail food store in the nonetheless. United States has some 46 various The name of the shipper seems to fresh vegetables on display at one time have vanished into the mists of time, or another throughout the year. When but generally accepted as fact is that you include fresh fruit, the number of on July I, 1851, a freight train pulled fresh produce items is about 75. out of Ogdensburg, N.Y., on the These day-to-day happenings are Ogdensburg & Lake Champlain Rail- possible because the food industry road (now the Rutland). The train protects these foods. trundled across the northern part of Lettuce, for instance, is field wrapped New York State, close to the Canadian in film, packed 24 heads per box, border, then all the way down the east vacuum-cooled, shipped to terminal side of Lake Champlain and south- markets in rail cars or trucks in which eastward to a connection with what is temperature and humidity are con- now the Boston & Maine at Bellows trolled, placed in similarly controlled Falls, in Vermont. 248 This was an ordinary freight train of Ships were designed and built spe- the period, hauling the usual number cifically for carrying bananas as early of cars. But one boxcar carried an un- as 1904, and shippers learned that the usual load, an experimental shipment, process of protecting them was more bound for Boston. The 30-foot wooden properly one of air conditioning than boxcar, constructed upon the same simply of refrigeration. principle as the home icebox of the They learned that the safest carry- period, was insulated and iced, for it ing temperature is about 55° P., and was carrying 8 tons of butter—the that the carbon dioxide content in the earliest known successful use of re- holds should be no greater than %Q of i frigeration on a long haul by railroad. percent. The car was twice replenished with Today shippers recognize that fresh ice during the journey and the butter fruits and vegetables are living orga- reached Boston as fresh as when it left nisms and both in storage and shipment Ogdensburg, far up on the St. Law- are heedful of their total environment. rence River, hundreds of miles away. Day-to-day application of this prin- ciple is what helps us in this country, OTHER SHIPMENTS followed as Bos- in city or in village, in the producing tonians developed a taste for New area or 3,000 miles distant from the York State butter. The operation be- producing area, to have the variety came so successful that more cars had and quality of the fresh fruits and the to be built to handle the traffic in vegetables we enjoy. butter which developed all the way across northern New York. And ac- SAFE TRANSPORTATION has been a cording to press reports of the day, the major factor in protecting our grain "Butter Train" that ran every week shipments, as it has been in protecting "brought immeasurable financial ben- the more perishable commodities. efits to the towns along the line, as well Behind every slice of bread we eat as to people everywhere." is an interesting story of transporta- The first successful refrigerator car tion. That slice of bread may have was patented in 1868 by William started in the wheatfields of Kansas, Davis of Detroit, and the Davis cars Montana, the Dakotas, or any one of were used with some success for the the many States in the grain belt. shipment of fruits and dressed beef. It may have run through several But as early as 1857 ^* W- Chandler States, traveling as grain or flour had added an inside lining to each of from country elevator to the terminal, 30 ordinary boxcars for the Pennsyl- from terminal to mill, from mill to vania Railroad, filled the airspaces the grocery or bakery. with sawdust, and installed iceboxes in The farmer's immediate market for the boxcar doorways. his wheat ordinarily is the country It was really in the late i88o's, when elevator. From the country elevator the ammonia compression machine for the wheat may be shipped to one of making artificial ice emerged from the the big terminal elevators. Terminal experimental stage, that railway re- elevators are usually equipped for frigeration became truly practical cleaning, clipping, drying, grading, throughout the United States. And it and mixing the grain, as well as was in June of 1889 that California storing or sacking it. shipped its first car of deciduous fruits The grain may travel from the all the way to New York City. terminal elevator to a mill for grinding into flour, or to a feed mill. Again, it CONTRIBUTING GREATLY to protection may go as grain, flour, meal, or break- by industry of fresh fruits and vegeta- fast cereal to foreign countries. bles in transit is the early knowledge An average carload of wheat is just which had been gained in the ocean under 1,900 bushels, or about 57 tons. shipment of bananas. But in 1961 the Southern Railway 249 Freshly harvested potatoes arrive by truck for storage at a processing plant in Presque Isle, Maine, while others leave in a train especially built to carry potatoes.

System came out with what has been in the United States what it is today: known ever since as its "Big John" A high quality product from the pro- covered hopper car. This aluminum ducer; a well protected product car carries about 118 tons of wheat through the channels of marketing. and can be loaded and unloaded as easily as you fill and empty a bathtub. THE TRUCKING INDUSTRY, which came The car is watertight and self-clean- on the American scene some time after ing. One receiver, in the Southeast, the railroads, has carved out for itself says the feed grains he orders from the a healthy share of the food transport- Midwest come to him in cars that are ing market. The truckers say that in "kitchen pan clean." 1965, by conservative estimates, there were at least 25,000 U.S. communities CARS CARRYING grain haven't always served by no other form of transport, been "kitchen pan clean," but the communities that depended on the railroads have made continuing efforts motor truck for all they consumed and through the years to maintain and for all they marketed. improve the cars that haul grain. Progress in the development of And, in the case of wheat, the grain equipment and techniques used by got cleaner in every separate move- truckers to transport food during the ment toward the ultimate consumer. post World War II years was truly Standards of cleanliness in today's remarkable. This was particularly so flour mills would seem fantastic to during the 1950's and 1960's. the miller of Civil War days. So would Perhaps the greatest catalyst in the the standards of the bakery supplying development of trucks as food carriers the needs of the food store, and those has been the surging growth of the of the breakfast food and "mix" American broiler industry. manufacturer in their giant plants. In 1941, total broiler production in But these two basic laws of the trade the United States was only 560 million are what have made our food supply pounds, with about 50 percent of it 250 coming out of the Delmarva peninsula as it developed its equipment. Much of of Delaware, Mairyland, and Virginia. this equipment is now so sophisticated By 1964, U.S. broiler production had it can carry two different types of jumped more than 13 times to just commodities at two different tempera- over 7.5 billion pounds. Georgia, ac- tures. For example, it can transport counting for only about 10 percent in half a load at o^ F. and the other half 19415 had by 1964 skyrocketed into at 35° to 40° F. by use of a portable first place with 1.3 billion pounds. seal-type divider. Nine Southern States—North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, TRAILER DESIGN is constantly being Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Ar- changed. Like the railroads, the truck- kansas, and Texas—^accounted for just ing industry has cut gross weight by under 5 billion pounds or 66 percent using lighter metals such as aluminum. of total broiler production. And it has solved the problem of heat transfer in transit by using a foamed- THE DELMARVA production was first in-place insulating technique. This in- marketed, and still largely is marketed, volves injecting a polyurethane resin in the heavy population centers of the between the walls of a trailer, then East, with Cleveland perhaps its ex- expanding it by adding a catalyst and treme western limit of distribution. so filling all voids. The technique in- The broilers moved to market by creases the efficiency of refrigeration truck, as did those shipped from while at the same time it decreases the Maine to Boston and New York. The weight and the thickness required for trucking industry improved its refrig- trailer walls. erated equipment to meet the develop- Another significant technological de- ing demands of the broiler producers. velopment in protecting food in transit These demands became steadily more has been the use of liquid nitrogen as a pressing as broiler production surged substitute for mechanical refrigeration upward in the South during the years systems. With liquid freezing equip- following World War IL ment, the trucker loads cargo immedi- Birds from Arkansas and Mississippi ately upon receipt, freezes it down to a now commonly ship to the West Coast temperature determined by the length and those from Georgia and North of the trip, and is assured of arrival Carolina ship to the Great Lakes temperatures that will meet shippers' region and even on as far as the West requirements. Coast. They move today from process- ing plant to retailer in trucks that can THE RAILROADS and the trucks protect their quality and wholesome- compete aggressively for the business ness on the short haul from Delaware of bringing food in all forms to us who to New York, or the long haul from drop into our shopping carts the head Georgia to California. of lettuce from California, the baking potato from Idaho, the grapefruit from To PROTECT broilers in transit from Texas, and the lobster from Maine. processor to retail food store, the Now and again their differences turn trucking industry drew on its early, up in print as each bemoans alleged struggling experience with red meat concessions granted the other. and with frozen concentrated orange But ordinarily this is a silent struggle juice. This involved trial-and-error ex- of technologists, engineers, cost manag- perimentation with various types of ers, and others pitted in a continuing mechanical refrigeration processes and contest to determine which of these with different types and degrees of transportation channels—or sometimes insulation. Progress, if sometimes seem- which combination of them—can, at ingly slow, was nonetheless steady. a profit, bring to us a high quality Frozen foods, truly a growth indus- food product. try, also spurred the trucking industry It would not be proper to discuss 251 either the railroads or the truckers element—a high quality product— without noting the innovation of has remained constant. It has re- "piggyback," which brings together mained constant because the customer rail car and truck, and of "fishyback," has demanded it. The frozen food which adds water transportation into industry, constantly growing, is an the transit equation. outstanding example of industry meet- ing this customer challenge. BOTH "PIGGYBACK" AND "FISHYBAGK" First the processors had to learn how have become possible through the in- to handle the raw products coming creasing standardization within the into their plants. Then they had to trucking industry, which allows for the determine the best method of retaining interchange of trailers between carriers. raw product quality during processing. Use of the "piggyback" technique And they had to learn how to protect lets shippers load a trailer, refrigerated the processed product during storage or otherwise, at the processing plant, and transportation. haul the trailer to a railway, and there put the trailer on a flatcar. The rail- NEXT GAME protection at the retail road then hauls the trailer to the city food store level ; how long and at what of destination, where the trailer is off- temperatures retailers could hold the loaded, coupled to a tractor, and driv- product, what type of cold boxes would en over the road to its final destination. protect the product and afford the customer free access to it. And then "FISHYBAGK" transportation is when the industry had to take one step the trailer is loaded at a shipping point, beyond the retail sales level and tell goes then directly over the road to a the customer how to handle the port—or goes from the loading point product in the home, from refrigerator to a railroad where it is loaded on a or freezer storage on through prepar- flatcar and hauled to the port. In ing it for a family meal. either case, it is offloaded at the port The processors started out with a and put aboard a freighter that car- scattered assortment of fruits and ries it across the ocean. At the port of vegetables. Now they can supply you a entry the trailer is offloaded from the complete meal in one package, or if freighter and driven over the road to you like, in a number of packages. the ultimate consignee. In some instances, as in the shipment THE FROZEN FOOD INDUSTRY, along of fresh citrus from Florida to Switz- with many other segments of the food erland, the trailer may have to be sent industry, comes into the ken of most of "piggyback" from the port of entry, its customers at the retail food store because bridges or highway timnels will level. And the retail food store today not permit over-the-road movement. plays an integral part in protecting your food and mine. USE OF THIS "fishyback" technique of The cat no longer suns herself on the overseas containerized shipment is on carrots in the storefront window. the increase. It reduces handling costs, That's because the mice no longer reduces pilferage, and keeps the food scamper from behind the flour barrel. in top quality condition. And the flour barrel, too, has de- While developed primarily to pro- parted. Flour is packaged in sizes to tect our food products for export, this meet consumer requirements, the car- technique is also expected to protect rots are in refrigerated trays, and— Hawaii's pineapple and Alaska's king generally—those refrigerated trays are crab as well as other products coming in an air-conditioned store that not into our 48 contiguous States. only contributes to customer comfort, Through the kaleidoscopic pattern but helps establish an environment in of America's evolving process of food which it is less difficult to maintain production and food marketing one food product quality. 252 Shoppers at a refrigerated meat display case in a Washington, D.C., supermarket.

Refrigerated walk-in cold rooms and bruised and accumulated more bruises refrigerated showcases preserve the in transit. They were loaded out of Mr. quality and appearance of meats, of Davis' primitively refrigerated railroad dairy products, and of frozen foods. car into a horse-drawn wagon. And all of the cold rooms and the The carcasses were delivered to a showcases, along with the storage butchershop where the retailer cut rooms the customer never sees, are as them up under unsanitary conditions, clean and sanitary as the shelves that and the meat was not refrigerated display the product to the customer's when displayed to the customer. Those critical appraisal. were the days when the meatmen said "Sell it or smell it." TODAY WTE TAKE for granted good sani- Today's meat supply is slaughtered tary conditions in the food industry. humanely, under rigidly enforced rules Yet those conditions which are ele- of sanitation. It moves from'slaughter- mentary in the protection of our food house to the retail customer's shopping result only from continuing efforts of basket through channels that protect industry to improve what is already it from all danger of quality deteriora- good. We might cast our thoughts tion. And meat comes to the ultimate back for just a moment to the meat for consumer clean, unbruised, still pos- which William Davis designed the sessing its bloom, and—importantly— early refrigerator railroad cars, during safe to eat. In general terms, that the year of 1868. process of protecting our meat supply The animals from which that meat can be called quality control. came were slaughtered under dread- Quality control, of course, is broader fully unsanitary conditions. The car- than this. Take the American hotdog casses that went into those cars were as an everyday example. Your favorite 253 brand of wieners doesn't just happen liness came the notion of forming farm to taste the same every time you buy it. cooperatives. Most were informally The processor samples the ingredients conceived and not much more formally going into your wiener before, during, initiated. Some were made up of and after processing and runs these farmers who pooled their fertilizer samples through a battery of tests to orders to get the advantage of carlot maintain a proper balance of nutrients prices. Others were the cattlemen of and flavors. Automatic thermometers the Southwest who pooled their cattle check and record room temperatures. into the great herds which they drove Both humidity and air circulation are up the Ghisholm Trail. carefully supervised. All of them were formed, initially, to profit the individual producer. AIR IS CHECKED not only for its circu- That's still the basis for existence lation, but for its cleanliness as well. of the highly organized, extremely Trained personnel perform bacterio- efficient, very businesslike cooperatives logical tests on the air, walls, ceilings, that start your food and mine from the and the equipment to assure sanitary farm or ranch to market today. But, conditions. over time, these cooperatives have had Plastic-coated light bulbs, special considerable to do with the quality of formula paints and cleaning com- that food. And they have had a lot to pounds, and regulations on build- do with the Nation's marketing system. ing materials and construction are other safeguards against contamination. MOST CONSUMERS would recognize Electronic detectors remove any pos- these names among the ones pioneered sible metal from the product, and and developed over many years by electronic devices detect possible non- cooperatives: Sunkist citrus of Sunkist magnetic foreign substances. Compli- Growers, Welch grape products of cated high-speed scales weigh the National Grape Cooperative Associa- product and automatically discard im- tion, Land O'Lakes dairy products of properly filled containers. Land O'Lakes Creameries, Rocking- And, before the product leaves the ham Poultry Marketing Cooperative, plant, the processor reverts from ma- Sun Maid Raisins, and the Arkansas chine to human. He has a taste panel Rice Growers Association. determine that the product tastes good. The farm cooperatives, large and Then the wiener, tested by machine small, run clear through the country. and man, starts on its refrigerated way On the marketing side, they have to complement the sauerkraut, to ac- helped the farmer get better prices for quire a charcoal smoke patina over his product. They have done this by your backyard grill, or to help the setting standards of quality a member hungry fan through a baseball game. must meet before the cooperative will accept his product for marketing. IT HAS LONG BEEN traditional to refer They have met the demands of the to the American farmer as a rugged in- quantity buyer by assembling products dividualist and, in recent years, to re- of like quality in large enough lots fer to him as "the last of the truly so he can count on continuing supplies independent individualists." This well of the quality and quantity he requires. may be so, but the American farmer has also historically been a man who THIS HAS MEANT the people concerned knew how to work with his neighbors for with supplying food to the market have the common good of the community. been able to make efficient use of their Farmers helped each other build processing and distributing equipment cabins, raise barns, clear land. They and channels. shared pasture and range land, traded In the process, the farmer has use of equipment and labor. profited. So have the processor and the Out of their early spirit of neighbor- distributor. And so have you and I. 254 THE CHEMICAL MANUFACTURERS whose This phase of their operations, of activities range throughout all the in- course, concerns our food supply only dustry of the Nation make a tremen- from the point of harvest on to its ulti- dous contribution toward protecting mate consumption. our food industry, from the wiener on through shredded coconut. THEN THERE'S THE STORY of how the Wieners, like other sausages, require chemical manufacturers protect our flavoring agents. Canned shredded continuing food supply in the produc- coconut requires a humectant, to keep tion phase of crops, vegetable and it moist. Table salt, powdered sugar, animal. It ranges from the fertilizer and malted milk powder all require going into the soil on through insec- anticaking agents. ticides, fungicides, herbicides, rodenti- cides, nematocides, molluscicides that WITHOUT ADDED antioxidants, frozen kill snails and other injurious mollusks, peaches would be brown and unattrac- desiccants and defoliators, and a long tive. Some cake mixes could not be list of plant growth regulators. It in- used unless antioxidants were em- cludes the systemic insecticides, given ployed to keep the shortening in them internally to destroy the insects which as fresh as possible. attack animals. The systemics range Pectin added to fruits naturally low from those that successfully kill cattle in this thickening agent makes possible grubs without harming the animal, its the production of jams and jellies of meat, or its hide, to those which kill consistent and desirable thickness. the fleas that plague the family dog. Emulsifiers prevent the oil and vinegar in today's prepared salad dressings WITHOUT CHEMICALS it would be an from separating. almost impossible task to support the Salt and sugar, along with some broiler industry of this country. Chem- spices, were the original food preserva- icals are used in keeping clean the tives. Still used, these are now sup- floors, the walls, and the other parts of plemented both as flavoring and the broiler plant. A safe chemical preservative agents by a long list of cleanses the plant equipment. And chemicals. Food additives enhance the other chemicals clean the trucks that flavor of certain foods, maintain the transport the broilers. appearance, palatability, and whole- This is true also of the dairy indus- someness of many others. Use of all is try, an industry which early went to rigidly controlled, in order to protect steam-cleaning its equipment and has the Nation's health. taken advantage of further protection afforded by modern-day chemicals as THE CHEMICAL MANUFACTURERS have it has developed. contributed also to the growth of Human beings being human, little America's packaging industry that heed is paid by the average person to has put cuts of meat in transparent the day-to-day benefits which he de- plastic film and cottage cheese and rives from the chemicals that help countless other foods into the conven- make the modern food marvel possible. ient-size containers that have signifi- Junior probably wouldn't stand still cantly lessened the problems, sanitary long enough for you to explain to him and otherwise, of the bulk handling of that without an added stabilizer he food products. couldn't enjoy chocolate milk as he And, all along the line, the chemical knows it. manufacturers have contributed to the Nor would many of the young mar- wholesomeness of our food supply by rieds of the mid-1960's pause long to furnishing the materials with which listen while you explained that the ad- equipment is cleaned, floors are swept, dition of potassium iodide to table salt and the food industry generally kept has practically eradicated simple tidy and sanitary. goiter in this country. 255 So far as Junior and the young mar- screens with different mesh sizes, or rieds are concerned, milk is milk and by passage over differently spaced salt is salt. It's nice to live in a time and rollers. Hand sorters separate them a country where we can all take this into groups, according to the degree for granted, and take for granted that of ripeness or the perfection of shape. the products are safe to eat and drink. Peas and lima beans often are machine- separated into more and less mature BUT THE HARD TRUTH is we would be portions by flotation in a salt solution. in a sad situation if the people who Operators trained in locating and furnish us our food took very much for removing blemishes do by hand any granted. necessary trimming, sometimes the Violently allergic to criticism, the only cutting necessary to prepare the strictly regulated—by law—^American foods in the desired style of pack. food industry polices its own opera- When the foods are to be canned other tions rigidly. It wants to keep its $57 than whole, machines especially de- billion (in 1965) industry a profitable, signed for each product cut, slice, growing enterprise. It can keep its dice, halve, or peel them. business profitable just so long as Junior and the yoimg marrieds and IN EACH OF these steps the raw the rest of us have no complaints. food is continuously under inspection. How it works at insuring itself Further, experienced persons make a against any complaints might be illus- final inspection, to pick out mashed trated by a look in some depth at the or broken pieces that are off-color, canning segment of the food industry. and any foreign matter that may elude the cleaning, washing, and trimming INVENTIVE GENIUS has made food can- operations. ning one of the most highly mech- Some foods are blanched. This means anized of all American industries. they are immersed in hot water or Scientific developments and their ap- exposed to live steam. The operation plication have provided means of expels air and gases, inactivates en- evaluating and controlling various zymes and so arrests changes in flavor, steps in the procedure that today cans and wilts products—such as spinach— more than 1,200 different foods and so that more can be filled into the food combinations. container. Certain basic operations are common Proper blanching reduces strain on to practically all canned food products. the seams of cans during processing, One of the first and most important particularly where exhausting is not steps in commercial canning is the employed. thorough cleaning of the raw food ma- terial immediately upon its receipt at MACHINES DO the filling whenever the cannery. the nature of the product permits, as Methods of cleaning vary with the with peas, corn, juices, and soups. nature of the food, but all the foods Foods canned in larger pieces, like are freed of foreign or undesirable peaches, pears, and salmon, are usu- material which may be attached, and" ally filled into containers by hand. In they are carefully inspected and trim- some cases, mechanical filling pro- med free of any imperfections. ceeds at speeds up to 1,200 containers a minute. Closing machines keep pace. AFTER THE raw foods have been as Because internal pressure following expertly and thoroughly cleaned as the process and cooling needs to be you could clean them in your kitchen, less than atmospheric, a vacuum is they are prepared for canning. obtained in the containers. The degree Many fruits and vegetables are first of vacuum in the processed, cooled sorted for size and maturity. They are container varies with the size and style sorted for size by a series of moving of the container and product. 256 The vacuum helps keep can ends DEVELOPMENT of equipment that re- drawn in—indicating a sound pack- moves much of the hand labor from age. It reduces strain on containers canning has contributed to the protec- during processing, minimizes discolor- tion of wholesomeness in the final food ation or flavor effects of remaining product itself. oxygen, prolongs shelf life of some Machines cut out the pits of peaches products, prevents bulging at high and apricots, peel and core apples altitudes or in high temperatures, and and pears. Others husk ears of sweet is necessary to keep some styles of lids corn, trim and wash them, and cut on glass containers. the kernels from the cobs. Green peas go through the canning WHEN NICOLAS APPERT was carrying operations from the field to the can on his work, glass jars were the only without ever being touched by hand. available containers. They were blown In canning, as in other phases of the to shape individually on the end of a food industry, the first line of continu- pipe. Today's glass containers—their ing defense in protecting your food and use greatly expanded during World mine is strict, unwavering obedience War II when tin was hard to come to the laws of sanitation. How success- by—are manufactured by automatic ful are the canners and the rest of the machinery. Their large-scale use was food industry in this effort? made possible by the development in the 1930's of machinery for vacuum WE MIGHT DRAW as good an illustra- packing products. tive answer to this question as any from Plastics also have made great strides the dairy industry. and help provide the vital competition Blessed with abundant supplies, the for other methods of packaging which American dairy industry thought to keeps industry dynamic. In another convert some of its product into ghee, way the plastics, as resin linings in tin for export purposes. cans, are a further factor in increased Ghee is a butter oil type commodity safety in the use of that particular type widely used in Asia. The first step in its of container. manufacture is to let milk just stand for a sufiicient period of time, then THE "PROCESS" is the heat treatment when enough natural change has to which foods are subjected after taken place, put the material through hermetic^—airtight—sealing in con- the final stages necessary to develop tainers. During the process, heat de- the product known as ghee. stroys micro-organisms which would The American dairy industry was otherwise cause food spoilage. unable to come up with ghee, despite The degree of heat and length of quite a prolonged effort. The obstacle exposure to heat to which the product it could not overcome was that the is subjected vary with the product American dairy environment was sim- being processed and with the size of ply too sanitary for the expected na- container. tural changes—^which were necessary Appropriate times and temperatures before the milk could be converted have been determined through years into ghee—to take place. of continuing research. Few people casually opening a can So, THE AMERICAN dairy folk had to of soup ever give a thought to whether go back to their sanitary laboratories, that canned product is completely safe and try to develop a culture that to open and use in any climate. Even could be introduced into our sanitary fewer are aware of the lucid, step-by- American milk, which then in turn step instructions—distilled from re- could be converted into ghee, that search findings—that the canner has Asian product which through 1965 had followed in making his product safe for proved sturdily resistant to a sanitary use in all climates. environment. 257