History of flour milling in United States Part II

Since ancient Roman times around 6000 BC, the process of turning grains into flour has been consistently practiced. Initially, grains underwent toasting to eliminate chaff from wheat, followed by the act of crushing them between two stones. Around 100 B.C., the Romans pioneered the use of waterpower for milling flour. As the 16th century unfolded, European settlers introduced their flour milling techniques to New France.

In the late 18th century, Oliver Evans initiated a significant transformation by inventing the first automated flour mill in the United States, capable of handling the workload of seven individuals. These water-powered mills, equipped with numerous levers and pulleys, generated a noisy operational environment. Evans introduced innovative elements such as screw conveyors for the horizontal movement of flour and wheat, bucket elevators for lifting grain, and continuous systems seamlessly integrating milling, sifting, and bolting.

Continued technological progress witnessed the development of advanced roller mills. Between the Revolution and 1830, Baltimore emerged as the central hub of the flour trade in America, benefiting from abundant waterpower and convenient access to wheat lands. In 1875, American ingenuity combined the European roller mill, Oliver Evans' automated mill, and the purifier to create an improved version of the roller mill. This system efficiently removed straw, dust, stones, and debris from grains.

The "New Process" method gained popularity in the mid-19th century, initially applied in Hungary. Its widespread acceptance was fueled by the utilization of harder wheat imported from Canada. This method involved setting mill stones farther apart to crack, rather than crush, the wheat, encouraging widespread adoption and mechanization in the milling process.
History of flour milling in United States Part II

History of corn wet milling process

Wet milling, also known as wet grinding, is a process through which particles that are suspended in a liquid slurry are dispersed in that liquid by shearing or crushing.

Corn wet milling involves the process of various physical, chemical, biochemical and mechanical operations to separate the components of the corn grain (germ, steep liquor, starch and maize gluten) into valuable products that are far more worthy than the raw grain.

The invention of corn wet milling process was critical to the origin of commercially manufactured oil and starch from corn. Prior to the advent of wet milling, starch was primarily made from wheat and potatoes and corn was not used as a source for either starch or oil.

The corn wet milling industry can trace its beginnings back to 1844 when Thomas Kingsford, a British immigrant working at Wm. Colgate & Company in Jersey City, NJ, convinced his employer to try a new alkali process to extract starch from corn.

This plant became the world's first dedicated corn starch plant. Kingsford built his own corn wet milling facility a few years later in Oswego, NY. By 1860, corn starch was being produced in small plants throughout the United States. Production volume varied throughout the latter part of the 1800’s but began a steady increase post-1900.

At the initial stages, the corn industry discarded the maize fiber, corn germ and protein obtained during the processing. Over time, however, the wet milling process gradually changed so the non-starch components have found applications in animal feed, oil, polymer and pharmaceutical industries.

Wet milling process is mainly used for extraction of starch from corn but recently, its use has been extended to separation of different fraction of grains in cereals and pseudo-cereals.
History of corn wet milling process

History of M&M®

Forrest Mars Sr., son of the Mars Company founder, Frank C. Mars, copied the idea for the candy in the 1930s during the Spanish Civil War when he saw soldiers eating British-made Smarties, small chocolate beads encased with a hard colored shell, which prevented melting.

After returning to the United States in 1940, Forrest Mars used this idea and founded M&M Limited in Newark, New Jersey, to create candies in a sugar shell.

M&M® was named for the last names of Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie. Bruce, the son of Hershey executive William Murray, agreed to provide chocolate, sugar, technology and some capital. Even the first machines used to manufacture M&M came from modifying the equipment used to manufacture the Hershey’s Kiss.

The first M&M® were produced in 1914, packaged in a paper tube to prevent melting in warm weather.

In 1932, after a falling out with his father and business partner, Forrest Mars Sr. of the Mars candy company moved to England, where he began manufacturing Mars bars for troops.

In March of 1941, Mars was granted a patent for his manufacturing process and production began in Newark, New Jersey. The chocolates were initially designed to allow easy transport and consumption for the soldiers in the war. Originally sold in cardboard tubes, M&Ms were covered with a brown, red, orange, yellow, green or violet coating.

Forrest Mars, Sr. wanted to sell chocolates that could be sold year-round, especially during the summer months when sales traditionally decreased. By putting his chocolate inside the candy shell, the chocolate did not melt and M&Ms3 could be sold any time.

After the U.S. entered the war, the candies were exclusively sold to the military, enabling the heat-resistant and easy-to-transport chocolate to be included in American soldiers’ rations.

Peanut-centered M&Ms' were first introduced in 1954; almond-centered M&Ms'1988; mint chocolate M&Ms'1989; peanut butter chocolate (peanut butter creme center surrounded by chocolate surrounded by a candy shell)
History of M&M®

History of pasta in America

It is a common belief about pasta is that it was brought to Italy from China by Marco Polo during the 13th century. Early Spanish settlers were among the first to bring pasta to America.

In 1848, French immigrant Antoine Zerega opened first pasta factory in USA on the Brooklyn waterfront. The company, A. Zerega's Sons Pasta Factory, stayed in the family for over 172 years until it was recently acquired by Philadelphia Macaroni.

In 1901, Felice Maldari started F.Maldari Manufacturers of pasta dies. At that time, the dies were made by hand by immigrants from his hometown of Bari, Italy. Because of the special skills involved, pasta die manufacturing has always been a small industry.

During the late 19th century, when a large group of immigrants relocated from Italy to America (most from Naples), pasta became a common food in the states.

Early pasta machines were found in Naples in the 17th century. One pasta legend tells us that the first pasta machine was made by Spadaccinni in 1833, and commissioned by King Ferdinand. The King reportedly asked Spadaccinni to invent a pasta machine after witnessing peasants kneading pasta with their feet.

Acknowledging that there was a faster way to make pasta, the hand-crank pasta machine was patented in Cleveland by Italian immigrant Angelo Vitantonio in 1906.

In 1914 I. DeFrancisci & Son of Brooklyn, New York, built their first pasta machine. I. DeFrancisci & Son, under its current name of DEMACO remains today as the only industrial pasta machine manufacturer in America.
History of pasta in America

History of Hershey candies

Milton S. Hershey was born on September 13, 1857, in a farmhouse near the Central Pennsylvania village of Derry Church. Following a four-year apprenticeship with a Lancaster candy maker, Milton Hershey established his first candy making business in Philadelphia. In 1883, Hershey established the Lancaster Caramel Company, which quickly became an outstanding success.

After seeing German-made chocolate-processing machinery at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, Hershey decided to go into the chocolate business. He bought the equipment for his Lancaster plant and soon began producing a variety of chocolate creations.

Milton Hershey had learned, during his travels in Denver, Colorado, how to use fresh milk to make caramels—a unique strategy he later employed at his Lancaster Caramel Company. He also wanted to use this technique for his milk chocolate.

In 1894, Milton started the Hershey Chocolate Company and produced Hershey chocolate caramels, breakfast cocoa, sweet chocolate, and baking chocolate.

Hershey sold the Lancaster Caramel Co. for $1 million in 1900 in order to concentrate exclusively on his chocolate business. In 1900, the company began producing milk chocolate in bars, wafers and other shapes. With mass production, Hershey was able to lower the per-unit cost and make milk chocolate, once a luxury item for the wealthy, affordable to all.

Business was so successful that in 1903 Hershey started work on a new factory in Derry Township, Pennsylvania.

In 1907, Hershey begins manufacturing Hershey's Chocolate Kisses. In 2015, Hershey's overhauled its recipe to reduce the amount of genetically modified ingredients in its chocolate.
History of Hershey candies

Pepsi-Cola

In 1893, young pharmacist named Caleb Bradham created, “Brad’s Drink,” a mixture of water, sugar, vanilla, kola nut extract, and oils. He was trying to create a refreshing drink in the summer in order to serve his customers and despite the lack of caffeine, it immediately became a sensation in this small southern town.

Five years later in 1898, Caleb decided to rename it "Pepsi-Cola," after its two main ingredients, pepsin and the cola nut and advertised his new soft drink.

In 1902, he launched the Pepsi-Cola Company in the back room of his pharmacy, and applied to the U.S. Patent Office for a trademark.

At first, he mixed the syrup himself and sold it exclusively through soda fountains. But soon Caleb recognized that a greater opportunity existed to bottle Pepsi so that people could drink it anywhere.

The business began to grow, and on June 16, 1903, "Pepsi-Cola" was officially registered with the U.S. Patent Office. In 1904, Bradham purchases a building in New Bern known as the "Bishop Factory" for $5,000 and moves all bottling and syrup operations to this location.

In 1905, due to increasing demand, Bradham established Pepsi-Cola’s first bottling franchises in Charlotte and Durham.

On the trend towards innovation, in 1908, they became one of the first companies to modernize delivery. No longer was Pepsi being distributed from horse drawn carts but motor vehicles. In 1945, Pepsi has started to expand around the world and launched new bottle sizes and cans.
Pepsi-Cola

History of making bagel

The bagel has been a popular breakfast food and snack in America for over 100 years. In 1683 a Jewish baker in Vienna, Austria was making a special bread for the Polish king, Jan Sobieski, who had protected the city from Turkish invasion. He made a stirrup-shaped roll and boiled it before baking. This boiling helped keep the shape of the roll during subsequent baking.

According to other version of information, the bagel was a staple bread in the villages around Krakow and was created as a competitor to the bublik (a lean wheat flour bread designed for Lent in the early 1600’s).

Bagels were very popular with Jews in Poland. In 1610, the community of Cracow Poland, states that "beygls" will be given as gifts to women in childbirth.

During 1700’s Bagels eventually made their way to Russia, where they were called bubliki and sold on strings. As with other ring-shaped objects, they were said to bring good luck and have magical powers.

The bagel arrived in America thus as a comforting street food, reminding immigrants of their homelands. It was sold by multiple vendors in New York’s Lower East Side alongside traditional Jewish items like herring, pastrami, latkes, and challah bread.

New York City vendors used the bagel's hole-in-the-middle shape to their merchandising advantage by threading them onto dowels and selling them on street corners throughout the city.

In New York in the early 1900s, the new idea came out to replace lox for the ham and cream cheese for the sauce. Bagels were also then topped with poppy seeds, kosher salt, onion, garlic, sesame seeds, caraway seeds or a combination of all six (the “everything” bagel) for the first time in the early 1900s.

In 1907, 300 bagel bakers formed the International Beigel Bakers Union. Only boys who had father who made bagels were allowed in.

In the late 1950s, Daniel Thompson, a California math teacher turned inventor, created the “bagel machine” and quickly homogenized what had been an artisanal product. Thompson’s bagels lacked the lactic crustiness of the original, but they could be produced almost four times as cheaply, and by workers with far less bargaining power.

The invention ushered in the sale of packaged bagels in supermarkets and made bagels a staple of fast-food restaurants.

Lender’s, a bakery in New Haven, Connecticut, led the charge in mass-producing bagels, and then selling them bagged and frozen to supermarkets.

After the bagel machine was invented, the bagel makers were not needed, this union became the representative for grocery workers.
History of making bagel

History of shredded wheat

Sometime in the early 1890’s, at a Nebraska hotel, Henry Perky — who suffered from heartburn— had encountered a man similarly afflicted, who was eating boiled wheat with cream.

The idea had cooked for a while in Perky’s mind, and in 1892 he had taken his idea of a product made of boiled wheat to Watertown, NY, where his friend William H. Ford, a machinist by trade, helped Perky build the device that he had conceived.

Henry Perky introduced his newly-built machine for making shredded wheat at the 1893 World’s Fair; the shredded wheat was described as “Tasting like a shredded door mat”. Perky had developed a process for making these things, and in 1895, Mr. Perky and William Ford were issued utility patents for their “Machine for the Preparation of Cereals for Food” (U.S. Patent No. 502,378, August 1, 1893), the first of dozens of patents that Perky would eventually receive in connection with the production of shredded wheat.

Perky’s business plan was to sell the machines and not the cereal. But the biscuits proved more popular than the machines.

In 1895 in Denver, Perky founded the Cereal Machine Company. He began distributing the shredded-wheat biscuits from a horse-drawn wagon in an attempt to popularize the idea. But the biscuits proved more popular than the machines themselves. So, Perky moved East and opened his first bakery in Boston, Massachusetts, and then in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1895. He retained the name of The Cereal Machine Company, and adding the name of the Shredded Wheat Company.

Perky was a pioneer of the “cookless breakfast food”, and it was he who first mass-produced and nationally distributed ready-to-eat cereal. By 1898, Shredded Wheat was being sold all over North and South America and Europe.

By 1901, he had set up an ultra-modern plant at Niagara Falls to make shredded wheat, and the falls became the familiar logo of the cereal, which continues as a Nabisco product. Edward A. Deeds, an electrical engineer became a director of the National Food Company, the new name Perky had adopted for his enterprises that produced Shredded Wheat and related products, such as Triscuits crackers.

In 1908, the company again took the name of The Shredded Wheat Company, and another factory was built in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
History of shredded wheat

The first donut machine

When World War I ended in 1918, many soldiers returned home to the United States— bringing their hunger for donuts. Adolph Levitt, an immigrant from Russia, spotted a business opportunity. He became the first to produce machine made donuts.

Adolph Levitt emigrated from Russian with his family to America in 1892. His father died within a year, forcing Adolph to leave school at the age of 10.

As a teenager, he began a mercantile business with his brother, John. They opened several stores using their plan to put merchandise in the windows to attract customers. The stored prospered for a while but, it didn’t last.

At 37, Adolph moved to New York and bought into a bakery chain. He soon realized that there was a strong consumer demand for doughnuts, sparked by soldiers returning from WWI clamoured for the donuts they eaten in France.

Adolph heard about this and he began frying up doughnuts. He started out cooking the doughnuts in small batches in a kettle at the window. As he turned each doughnut over with a stick, people would stop to watch.

People lined up to watch the donuts fry and to purchase them fresh. Soon, he was unable to keep up with the customers' demands. He needed a machine to make the process more efficient.

Levitt had an idea for a donut machine that could fry and automatically turn donuts while pushing the fumes to the roof with a fan. The first machine didn’t work, but they tried again, and again. Finally, in 1920, the twelfth model was successful. With a such machine, he would be able to produce in a greater numbers and meet the demand.

The total cost was $15,000. Levitt called his machine The Wonderful Almost Human Automatic Donut Machine.

He chose Mayflower Donuts for his brand name. He put the machine in the bakery window and produced large quantities of donuts. A circle of dough, shaped like a ring dropped from the hopper and into vat of boiling oil and then, once cooked, ascended a moving ramp before falling into a basket.

People stood watching the dough go in and donuts come out, Bakers came from across the country, they immediately appreciated its benefits, since even this first model could turn out 1,000 identical donuts in an hour.

In 1950, Vernon Rudolph invented the Krispy Automatic Ring King Junior Doughnut machine. Designed for cake doughnut production and taking up only seven square feet, the Ring King Junior was a compact machine that handled the whole process: mixing the ingredients, creating the dough, moulding it into the ring shape, deep-frying, cooling and packing the cooked doughnuts into boxes.

Donut machines grew to be more refined and many other companies produced their own version of Levitt’s machine.

The first donut machine

History of apple cider

Drawings from the Paleolithic age dates from between 35,000 and 8,000 BC depict apples, and the people of this era probably discovered that wild yeast would quickly act upon the fruits to ferment it. Prehistoric peoples would have tasted this kind of natural cider.

The Aryans, nomadic tribes appeared in history around 2500 BC developed a taste for “soured apple wine,” the forerunner of apple juice.

The name cider is rooted in the Phoenician “shekar” meaning wine or strong drink. In classical Greece apples were boiled and fermented to make “sikera”.

The cider-making technology was spread throughout the northern coast of Europe by Celts as they traveled from Spain to England and Ireland.

In 55 B.C.E., Romans invaded what is now Britain and noticed native Celts fermenting native crab apples to make cider. The apple was a sacred fruit to the Celtics according to their mythology.

The Muslim Moors are probably responsible for developing the bitter high tannin apples that make the richest ciders. In France, the Normans developed a love for cider and apple brandy. During Charlemagne era, era, he enforced laws to promote and control the manufacture and production of cider.

In North America the term for this alcoholic beverage is hard cider. Hard cider is believed to have roots from the winemaking technology in the Basque country of northern Spain. Hard cider came to the U.S. with the first English settlers, who brought apple seeds with them to plant in their new home.

In 1623, William Blackstone of Plymouth planted the first cultivated tree. Other American followed suit and planted trees wherever they would grow. Pressing and fermenting apple juice served as the easiest way for farmers to preserve the apple harvest and farmers typically used cider as the basis for many other products, including cider vinegar, applejack.

Historical records reveal that cider was an integral part of every life of rural folk in 19th century New England, Cider presses were part of the New England landscape.

In England, Lord Scudamore is credited with having bottled cider as early as the 1640s at Home Lacy, at a time when almost all cider was stored in wooden barrels and drawn off “on draft” as needed.

The slight fermentations that took place in the bottles released carbon dioxide gas, which produced a sparkling drink and helped preserve the cider better. Around the 18th century about two thousand varieties of apples were grown. Many scientific methods had been developed to improve and speed up the production of cider.
History of apple cider

Early history of oats mills in United States

Oats were first planted in the United States in 1602 by Scottish settlers on an island off the Massachusetts coast.

Pennsylvania Dutch farmers found oats useful as a livestock feed, fitting well into their general farming operation.

By 1869, the center of production had moved to the upper Mississippi Valley. Illinois became the leading State followed by Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

In 1850, Ferdinand Schumacher founded German Mills American Cereal Company in Akron, Ohio. During the same period, John Stuart established the North Star Mills Company in Canada.

In 1856, Schumacher purchased a mill along the canal in Akron. He organized his German Mills American Oatmeal Factory in Akron, Ohio. His mission was to introduce steel-cut oats to the American table at a time when oats were considered an inappropriate food for anything but horses. German and Irish immigrants were his initial customers, since they were accustomed to eating oats and unused to the high cost of American meat. Oat milling was a low-cost operation, and competitors quickly appeared as oats gained acceptance as a food.

He installed machinery that permitted his workers to produce twenty barrels of ground oats per day. Demand for his product skyrocketed during the American Civil War, as the federal government purchased the oats to feed Union soldiers.

In 1863, due to the demand for the oats, Schumacher moved his operation to Mill Street in Akron, where he established the Empire Barley Mill.

While Schumacher was taking the oatmeal market by storm, several smaller, but prosperous, oatmeal operations cropped up throughout Ohio and the Midwest. Among these were Robert Stuart in Chicago and Iowa, and Henry Parsons Crowell in Ravenna, Ohio.

Crowell managed a milling company called Quaker Oats, which was the first oatmeal manufacturer to oversee the production process from raw crop to retail distribution. Crowell was holding the key positions between the general manager, president and chairman of the company from 1888 until late 1943. He was called the cereal tycoon.
Early history of oats mills in United States

Baking of cupcake

In the beginning, cupcakes were sometimes called "number" cakes, because they were easy to remember by the measurements of ingredients it took to create them: One cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, four eggs, one cup of milk, and one spoonful of soda.

The first recipe for “a light cake to bake in small cups” appears in American Cookery, the first cookbook written by an American, Amelia Simmons in 1796.

In 1828, the term cupcake is used for the first time in Eliza Leslie's cookbook, Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats. Clearly, cupcakes today have expanded to a wide variety of ingredients, measurements, shapes, and decorations - but this was one of the first recipes for making what known today as cupcakes.

The cupcake evolved in the United States in the 19th century, and it was revolutionary because of the amount of time it saved in the kitchen. There was a shift from weighing out ingredients when baking to measuring out ingredients.

During the early 20th century, cupcakes became associated with children, particularly their birthdays. Commercial companies began producing cupcakes in 1919, when the Taggart Bakery began producing Chocolate Cup Cakes in the Indianapolis Bakery. These cupcakes were folded into the Hostess Brand. The character Captain Cupcake was used by Hostess to promote this product on television.
Baking of cupcake

History of butter production

The evolution of the butter-making process has progressed from the use of skins and gourds for churning, through to the use of wooden-barreled butter churns, which have since been exchanged for stainless steel churns.

As late as 1860 farmers in the United States made butter and marketed it locally. It was not until the last half of the nineteenth century that buttermaking in the United States became a factory operation. Factory production of butter rose from 29 million pounds in 879 to 627 million in 1909 to over 1 billion in 1921. With this rise, dominant brands appeared.

The development of the continuous process in the 1950s led to the replacement of the batch process in most industrial plants. In the nineteenth century, butter was marketed mainly in tubs and portioned put by the grocer to individual buyers.

In 1898, the firsts packaged butter was marketed by Beatrice Creamery Company, the predecessor of Beatrice Foods. Aside from Beatrice company is the early leaders in packaged butter were meatpacking companies, such as Swift and Amour, who entered the business through their production of margarine.

There were few differences in the packaging of butter and margarine, so these companies attempted to control sales of both products. However, margarine production surpassed that of butter in 1958 and nearly doubled butter production in 1969.
History of butter production

Peach processing

This fruit originated in China as early as 550 BC it was depicted in art and literature as a symbol of immortality. Later it was introduced into Persia and was spread by the Romans throughout Europe.

The first peaches were brought to Florida by Columbus and the Spaniards on their second or third expedition, and in the early 1800s the Russians reportedly brought peach seeds or trees by ship to San Francisco and planted them near Fort Ross.

It has been a commercial crop since the 1800s with Georgia even being known as the Peach State.

Until 1964 all peaches used for canning were dual-purpose (for eating fresh or preserving in cans) and they were always yellow-fleshed freestone varieties. Today clingstone peaches of the variety called Pavie, with a firm yellow flesh, are used.
Peach processing

Food irradiation process in history

Radioactivity was discovered in 1895 by Henry Becquerel. At the same year, there was a suggestion to use ionizing to destroy microorganisms in food was published in a German medical journal.

In 1905 a British patent was issued for use of ionizing radiation to kill bacteria in foods through food irradiation. B. Schwartz of the US department of Agriculture suggested the use of X-rays for inactivating trichinae in pork in 1921.

 In depth food radiation studies in the United States began in the early 1950s, when both radiation sources and processing requirement were developed to practical point.

Most of the studies have been government sponsored at least partly because the 1958 Food Additive Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act required advance proposal from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before any particular irradiated food could be publicly sold.

In the United Kingdom investigations on the effects of ionizing radiation on food began in 1950 at the Low Temperature Research Station at Cambridge an somewhat later at the Wantage Research Laboratories of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment.

Earlier work (1947-1952) was carried out by at least three private companies in the United States. In 1953 President D, Eisenhower made his landmark ‘Atoms for Peace’ address at the United Nations General Assembly. Many nations joined the research on peaceful uses of atomic energy including applications in food preservation.

A similar circumstance prevailed in other countries, resulting, worldwide, in predominantly government sponsored food irradiation research programs.

Because of the lack of research facilities in many third world countries, specialized agencies of the United States also became actively involved in international food irradiation research programs.

In 1976 The Joint FAO/IAEA/WHO Expert Committee on the Wholesomeness of Irradiated Food gave a clean bill of health to several irradiated foods and recommended that food irradiated to be classified as a physical process.
Food irradiation process in history

The history of pineapple canning in United States

Pineapple was considered a rare and exotic food before the advent of canning. The first pineapple canned in the US was processed in Baltimore, Maryland, in the mid-1860s.

The presence of pineapple in Baltimore was due to the expansion of the fresh fruit trade from Caribbean to the US in the mid-nineteenth century.

In 1906, the collaboration of the American Can Company with Oahu Rail and Land Company railroad and the development of a peeling and coring device by Honolulu Iron Works expedited the processing of canned pineapple rings, a popular item in home recipes and on buffets.

In 1907 there was little demand for pineapple. An economic depression discouraged consumers from buying the canned fruit still considered a novelty food item.

As industry expanded, research into the growing and canning of pineapple was stepped up. By 1921, Dole’s Hawaiian Pineapple Company was the wealthiest company and largest landowner in the Hawaiian Islands.
The history of pineapple canning in United States

History of cheese industry in United States

Cheese and butter factories were born in the United States a country with no cheese-making tradition, just 70 years after revolution.

When the Pilgrims voyaged to America in 1620, they made sure that the Mayflower was stocked with cheese. It came together with its cargo of goats.

Cheese making in North America and specifically in the United States, remained a farmhouse process throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

In 1841, Anne Pickett established Wisconsin’s first cheese factory. In 1851 an entrepreneur Jesse William had built the New York’s first cheese factory near Rome, Oneida County, New York and introduced production in a grand scale. He revolutionized commercial cheese making. The ‘factory’ was simply his farm. He had a reputation for making exceptional cheese, so his neighbors would send him their milk so that he could make cheese for them.

Williams regulated the timing as well as the temperature for converting milk to curds, regardless of volume. By combining the milk and producing large cheeses, he could achieve a uniform taste and texture.

During the early part of the year 1860, Samuel Perry, of New York City, a native of Herkimer, and one of the earliest operators in the cheese trade, endeavored to control the market, purchasing the great bulk of cheese manufactured in the country. In 1867, Robert McAdam introduced the English Cheddar system in a factory near Herkimer, New York. This introduction made Herkimer County famous for its cheese.

For many years during this period, the largest cheese market in world as at Little Falls, New York. By 1875 there were more than 500 cheese factories in New York State alone.

The industry moved westward, centering on the rich farmlands of Wisconsin, where the American cheese industry really took off.

In 1878, a German immigrant named Julius Wettstein started a cheese factory in Monroe, New York, where he produced a fine line of German, French and Swiss types that were traded over the entire length of the Erie Canal.
History of cheese industry in United States

Expeller pressure

The oldest method of oil extraction was the application of pressure to batches of oil-bearing material confined in bags, cloths, cages, etc.

There are several methods of expressing liquid from solid-liquid matrix. The available designs may be placed in two groups:
*Batch process
*Continuous process

The continuous types of presses are screw presses or expellers. Now-a-days mostly continuous screw presses or expellers are being used. These presses were first invented in 1903 by Anderson in USA. This is the first continuously operating mechanical expeller.

The expeller was used to express oil from flaxseeds and whole cottonseed. In 1910 Krupp licensed these machines in Germany where they were used primarily as a forepress unit ahead of hydraulic presses.

The expeller has undergone various types of changes in quantity, quality and efficiency and has become the modern day expeller over the years.

In 1933, a new United States competitor, the French Oil Mill Machinery Company, introduced the ‘screw press’.
Expeller pressure

History of flour milling in United States Part I

One of the early mill, gristmills, such as the one at Jamestown in 1621, ground corn and wheat for meal and flour help to feed the colonist while making the millers key local figures.

The vast majority of mills up to about 1800, operated as custom mills that ground the farmer’s grain for a toll in flour paid to the miller.

In the late eighteenth century Oliver Evans invented labor-saving machinery which greatly increased the productivity of flour mills.

Eastern mills that had relied on soft wheat felt competition from larger western millers based in Minneapolis and other Midwestern cities that used new machinery to grind the hard wheat that predominated in the Midwest.

As the population moved westward and grain production increased, four milling became an important industry.

As early as 1850, flour milling accounted for almost 10 percent of all industrial establishments an over 13 percent of the value of all industrial products. The milling industry became increasingly centralized.

In themed 1800s there were an estimated 25,000 mills in America; by 1900 there were only 13,000 mills, by 2000 there were a mere 1oo flour milling companies.

With an expanding rail system, flour milling could be concentrated and product shipped to markets throughout the country. By the end of the nineteenth century, American and Canadian flour exports to Britain had grown steadily.

Baltimore was the early leader in flour milling, developing a flour trade with the South, Latin America, and Europe, while Rochester and Buffalo growing in stature after completion of the Erie Canal.

The most important western milling town was St. Luis. This city with its fine river and rail transportation facilities captured markets for flour in the South and the East.
History of flour milling in United States

Ice manufacturing

In 1748, William Cullen of the University of Glasgow in Scotland made the earliest demonstration of the man-made production of cold when he evaporated ether in a partial vacuum.

In 1805, Oliver Evans of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, proposed a closed cycle of compression refrigeration. And in 1844, an American physician, John Gorrie, of Apalachicola, Florida built a refrigerator based on Oliver Evans' design to make ice to cool the air for his yellow fever patients.

He made ice without any natural form of cooling by vaporizing water at low pressure. In 1853, Alexander Twining was awarded US Patent 10221 for an icemaker. In 1855, James Harrison received a similar patent for an icemaker in Australia.

Most of the early ice plants were built in southern states. Following the Civil War, the South wanted to remain as independent as possible from the north.

The earliest machine method of producing ice in the southern Untied States was by the Ferdinand Carre aqua-ammonia absorption process as improved by Daniel L Holden of San Antonio, Frances V. DeCoppet of New Orleans, Harrison D, Stratton of Philadelphia and Thomas Rankin of Dallas.

The first cold storage warehouse in New York was built in 1865 which used brine for cooling.

In 1867, Andrew Muhl built an ice-making machine in San Antonio, Texas, to help service the expanding beef industry before moving it to Waco in 1871. In 1868 a ship’s cold air machine was used on board the Anchor line’s Circassion and Strathlkevan ships that transported meat from New York to Glasgow.

In 1880 ammonia was first used as a refrigerant and in 1882 the first plate freezer was developed.

By 1900, the United States has 766 ice plants. Still, the ice machine astounded many people. The huge blocks of mice made by ice companies in the early 1900s helped fuel the US seafood industry along the East Coats and the Gulf of Mexico.

Ice production is a large business. In 2002, there were 426 commercial ice-making companies in the United States, with a combined value of shipments of $595,487,000.
Ice manufacturing