Page:This Journey through the Pure Food Factories (1906).djvu/18

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had been, and the two together have made “The White City” today the largest pure food factory plant in the world.

Although the cereals which compose Postum and Grape-Nuts are handled by heavy, modern, labor-saving machinery, nearly 600 people, all told, are employed. The factories run day and night. The capacity of the plant as it now stands is between six and seven million packages every month. That means food and drink for a great many people.

Mixing Room.

Showing the dough mixers. The steel tubs contain the dough all ready to go into the machine for molding the loaves.

To prepare this enormous quantity of food, the most advanced types of machinery are required. A car-load of grain placed on the Company's siding is in a few minutes elevated into steel storage tanks and elevators having a capacity of 135,000 bushels. As it is needed, the grain is carried by an endless belt conveyor through a runway nearly 450 feet long and about 50 feet in the air, to the milling rooms, at the rate of 2,000 bushels an hour. From this point the wheat and barley pass through successive stages, and 48 hours later, as Grape-Nuts and Postum, they leave the factory, boxed and crated and ready for the table.

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