City in Sound; Curtiss Candy Co.

This is Jack Angel with City in Sound. These are stories out of Chicago, City of All Things, Among Them, Baby Ruth, and Butterfinger. The City of Chicago yields to no place as candy maker. The marshmallows and chocolate, the taffy, and peanuts comprise as great an industry as the steel and hard goods. The Curtis candy company is one of the largest. We'll take no offense that its company name is somewhat less known than its famous trade names, baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Coconut Grove, and so on. Candy bars, as we shall see, are made of many things, not the least of which are the ingredients of modern science. This, another in the series, Science Calling. Here is Floyd J. Rosas, General Superintendent

of Plants here at the Curtis candy company, and I 'd like to ask him how many plants he has to supervise. There are six in the Chicago area, Mr. Angel, and one at York, Pennsylvania, another one, Dallas, Texas. Chicago Hall, where is the nucleus of the Curtis operation, isn't it? That's right, sir. General officers are here. Isn't this one of the great candy operations in the country? Yes it is. Volume wise I think is one probably the greatest. Where are we now? What plant are we in? This is plant three, and I'm looking out over the Chicago River here somewhere. Whereabouts are we? We're at our north wall of borders on East Illinois Street, and our south wall borders the slip, just one block north of the Chicago River. How long have you been with Curtis? 26 years, a second time. Oh this is kind of a second hitch for you. That's right, yes sir. I started with him in 1924, it was with him in 1927, and there was an event from a five years in which I was away, and I came back in 32 and have been here since. You ought to know a lot about the company history.

Yes, I know something about it. How old is the company? The company was first formulated in 1916 by Mr. Otto Schneering, who was then a young salesman in a Chicago area, but that decided he'd ought to go in business for himself. So with a very limited capital and some second -hand machinery established the Curtis candy company, as we know it today, and up over a plumbing shop on North Chicago Ave, North Halstead Street in Chicago. I see. And of course the rest is history. Was Baby Root the first item that he manufactured? No, they started out manufacturing a confectionery type cookie, and they branched out of that particular area of the confectionery business into the manufacturer of Baby Root. And I dare say that the famous Baby Root is still a staple of a line. That is one of our greatest items being vigorously pushed by butter finger. Yes, that's our second most important item. Well, how did you get a name like,

say, Baby Root? That sounds kind of him probable. Well, Baby Root was named after the first baby girl born in the White House, the daughter of President Mrs. Cleveland. Well, it's lucky she didn't have a name like, oh, half a basket or something. Yes, we're most fortunate having had the baby's name Root. How about butter finger? Butter finger is a coined phrase, as you know, you've no doubt heard when you were young fellow going to school if you were playing any of the athletic games and you happened to fumble while you were known as a butter finger, and that just naturally followed behind. I don't know if they fell around here as a hero. You got the good guy. Well, I imagine that in the last generation there have been a lot of changes in making candy and packaging it and selling it. Could you sort of describe that heart for us? Well, Mr. Angel, when we first, when I first came with the company 1924, it was entirely a hand operation all the way through.

We had just open gas fires to cook with, which we've since supplanted with steam, pressure vessels, and a good many of the hand jobs is now mechanically done and they've really taken the curse off of candy making in the last 25 years. Well, there've been so many improvements in packaging. We usually see big boxes of bulk candy now you've put them in packages and sell them. Well, that's true. Years ago all candy was made and sold unwrapped, but due to the need and for sanitary packages, palatable looking packages, it was inevitable for wrap candy to come on the market to take the place of the unwrapped stuff. Of course, we've just completely lost touch with a penny candy counter that used to be famous, used to be an American institution, that along with I guess the Nichol Cigar is gone forever, isn't it? I think you're right, sir. You used to sell most

candy bars and most candy items either in specialty shops or drug stores are in single lots, is that still true? No, that isn't. General marketing is throughout the country of change to such an extent with the advent of the chain stores and such that candy is almost universally sold. Whatever kind of a retail outlet you might establish, whether it will be a candy counter or a candy department in somewhere. You notice that they kind of tie them up in a big bundles of six and eight or ten of packages? Yes, they do. The unit of sale, which used to be a nickel bars no longer as popular as it was, but it's a package or a multiple pack that appeals and the buying habits of the public have changed to where it isn't the children so much that buy the candy anymore, but if the mother's. Well, I didn't know. All right, you make butter fingers here. Yes, sir. Do you have any idea how many you make

say a day? Well, we make the equivalent of about 52 tonne of butter finger a day. 52 tonne. That's an eight hour day. What are some of the ingredients that would go into that? Well, we're going to get your recipe here now, but not perfectly all right. We've got to tell you, there's sugar, corn syrup, peanuts, and our famous supreme coatings that we manufacture ourselves. That's a chalk with coating. Yes, I'd say. How much sugar would you use it? You say you make what 52 tonne a day? Just about. How many tons of sugar or pounds of sugar? Properly. About 21 ,500 pounds of sugar, 22 ,000 pounds a day. Anybody ever run over and ask for a cup? Well, we haven't had any neighbors bored already lately if that's what you mean. How about peanuts? How much? Peanuts are one of our biggest items of consumption and butter finger, and we use about 23 to 25 ,000 pounds of peanuts in eight hours a day. How many hours? I always a candy business

going into the next 10 years. Well, is that a luxury item anymore? Not anymore. I think it's become a pretty stable part of a person's diet. It's no longer looked upon as a Saturday night treat for the children or a birthday deal of some kind, but it's just bought and consumed every day. Mr. Henry Schoeman is Assistant General Superintendent who has seen this butter finger operation for many years and without many butter finger people around here either, Mr. Schoeman. That's for right. I've been around here about over 25 years now, Jack. How many men out there work on this manufacture of the butter finger? Well, we're up here now with the butter finger bar actually starts in the manufacturing. We have about 55 to 60 men up here right now. But this operation that we're looking at now starts with some kind of batter that comes in on huge belts. Yes, we have a

regular mass mix where our sugar and glucose and water are mixed up and then they are pumped up into our cooking and flashing kennels where we cook them up to a desired temperature and then we have to remove the moisture out of this piece and in that way we go through our vacuum tanks and then they're cooled down and the next step of the process would be that we put them on what we call a pulling the taffy pulling hook where this candy is aerated. And then after that, why we have our honey combing process where to a specific amount of candy where certain amount of peanuts and we go through a honey comb and process where we have a layer of candy with a layer of peanut butter which then after this batch is completed why then it goes into the spinning cycle. Those are four different operations and that we've already covered. We've seen them here

in front of us, the batter and the peanut butter going in separate layers to where it looks kind of like a two layer sandwich there, a very broad, broad stretch rolling from what the bear to be to the after all this company was built on a quality standpoint and we adhere strictly to formula and specifications throughout the whole operation and first of all in this process with jury -ferring tool as we roll this candy, this taffy out to the desired thickness and then there is the layer of peanut butter, ground peanut butter which is applied and then the whole it bounces to about 75 to 80 pound batch. It is rolled and in this way we accomplish having one layer of peanut butter with a layer of taffy at the same time. Then it goes over to another operation and becomes a big roll which is sort of inserted in small machines by hand

and there you go. This is what we call our spinning operation. We have feeding these spinning machines to the required thickness and after they go through the sizing rolls there are going down on a canvas adult through a cutting operation and this gives us our required length of whatever part we want to run of, five cent butter, finger or ten cent butter, finger whichever one there and in that way they go down to our cooling tunnel. We call our cold beds where the the bars cool prior to where we put the chocolate coating on which is done glow on another floor. How much are your production line here? Is that changed much? We have five or six years or so. Yes, we're continually looking for Jag and we have a research and development department which is continually at work and we have made improvements throughout the years and in fact this department right here

you wouldn't recognize it now as it was 25 years ago when this is exactly the department that I started and when I started to work here you wouldn't recognize it right now. Not more hand labor than I thought. That's true and certainly having the thing about it's automated as we could have it. That's what well we feel there's still there's room and we have our research development department and even right now we feel there's still improvement that can be made. You got science in the candy business too, haven't you? Oh, absolutely. Mr. Schill, with this very obviously the wrapping room down on the second floor we've seen the baby or rather the butter finger take shape and it's been enrolled. Would you say with chocolate? Is that the expression? That's the right expression Mr. Angel. Yes, we're in one of the of the three wrapping rooms of the butter finger department right now. This room is completely air conditioned. We hold a temperature here about 68 degrees the year round.

The bars as you see them coming through on the belts have just come through a tunnel a whole tunnel where our temperature would be running up to say between 40 and 45 degrees and then the bars that going on to the girls that be wrapped as you see these girls wrapping these bars these wrappers are all our own construction we've manufactured our own wrappers and after the girl has inserted the bars and the wrappers they're automatically sealed and glued to maintain their freshness as much as possible. Then they go to the big cartons where they're packed for shipping and that's true and on from there they go on into the shipping room. So to make thousands of butter fingers it takes just a few moments from the time the the tappy is processed until the time they like finish the bar is wrapped. That's true Mr. Angel and I'd say it was in a space of about 18 minutes you've got to complete it and good hold some fresh butter finger bar. I'm Mr. Schumann this system of packing here I understand was developed here at Curtis. That's true by your own engineers

and it's a quite an interesting one wherein the individual wrappers are joined together and then by compressed air they're blown out at least at the top like a paper sack and then the candy bar they're dropped in there by hand that's true Mr. Angel this wrapper of ours prior to the war why all of these you'd probably see about all when you were between 12 to 16 girls sitting on one of these lines wrapping them by hand and it constantly during the war with help as it was the research and development development department went to work and devised this particular wrapper and it certainly has been a boon to our packaging that goes in like it looks like a sheet of stamps or something yes it is it goes into what we call a strip a strip of we can pacify these wrappers into a strip of six or eight or 12 whichever is the way best methods for packing and then as the girl inserts a strip of

wrappers there is an automatic blast of air coming out of a manifold directly above the wrapper which blows the wrapper open and it makes it very simple for her to insert the bars into the wrappers just like putting the groceries in the sack no right very good when you'd find the chief chemist in a candy factory obviously in the chemistry laboratory which is where we are now with Mr. Harry Schumann and Mr. Schumann this is quite an operation in a candy plant isn't it yes it is it sure is a tremendous laboratory looks as if maybe we're an argon lab or something heard as candy well this is the main laboratory and we have one in Dallas that we have a one man chief chemist or chemist at Dallas and we have you're a chemist of course by profession obviously and if you've been in the candy business all your professional life I sure have

20 years 20 years well now you speak of quality control that obviously is one of the fundamental purposes for a laboratory is that the only one no actually this laboratory the function of this laboratory divided into three phases we have the quality control of the raw material and goods and process we have the quality control of the finish goods and then we have a development and research section well now in quality control you've got what 52 tons of butter fingers a day coming off the line how do you dip into that line to make a quality check well to make a quality check on butter finger we'll take samples from the kettles say for instance out of the vacuum kettles before the candy is made in the finished goods and we'll check that particular phase of the operation to see that the moisture is down to a minimum level at the proper concentration of sugars in there

at times if batches cook too long why there's more inversion of the sugars and you don't have a proper sugar level so that can indicates a quality operation and if we find things like that why it's corrected right there at the spot sure well I see a lot of candy bars that you've apparently taken off the line wrapped and ready are you check those we check finished goods yes sir about every two hours we have a shipment coming into this plant this is the more or less a warehousing plant and sent to our quality control section for finished goods and these boys on and that section check go over the complete bar the packaging from the carton box the wrappers down to the candy itself and they all have to be up to a prescribed specification well mr. Schumann how recently of these scientific attachments taken hold of this industry

well in the industry as a whole in the larger plants material it's been at least 25 years however at the beginning there were rather sketchy and new developments have come along to establish standards government standards and also standards in the industry to help improve and specify definite standards for the raw materials yield and I imagine competition plays a part there too doesn't competition does you have to stay ahead of them you know we have to make them to sell them you have to look them over carefully sure do well if Curtis comes out with a new product chances are it'll be born right here in the research and development department that presided over by Joe Bocker who's the assistant chief chemist Joe are these samples laid out here materials that you're testing or they represent new products or what this is experimental work we're doing on coatings to try and prove the flavor the mouthfeel in other words try to make it more like

chocolate the best we can by coatings you mean chocolate coatings yes I see you've got Amazon Dutch and those are very similar to cocoa powders and vegetable hard butters you make those here make with the cocoa powders no no I mean the chocolate itself the coatings the coatings the samples we make here in small batches and you figure that if you can come up with a new coating that makes the the butter finger taste a little better or why there's no reason why you shouldn't change to it that's right absolutely first we make a small five pound batch and if it shows promise why we make a larger batch of hundred pounds and run it right over here on our laboratory and rover and if it still shows good promise why we'll order in all the materials we need and run a thousand pound batch in the plant so then you change these products from time to time yes we do even though it may not be generally perceptible you do change it we do we have to why do you say that well competition is

pardon me very keen in this field as in most fields and any jump we can get on our competitors is a diamond arpocket well how about the the savoury taste of these articles who determines which chocolate tastes better who determines if this is better or not you can't do that on a machine no we have picked personnel it'll go through all the personnel here in the laboratory we ask everybody's opinion and it'll go up to the office and of course the powers to be will eventually decide which is best you have a regular candy taste test panel or something like no we have a market research division up in the office it'll handle things like that for us their taste is usually pretty good uh yes i would say so they test the public actually is what they do they have three or five thousand families

oh they get the actual consumers opinion oh i see well and they send it out to the assuming public there that's correct that's right well you certainly have enough to keep you busy here absolutely we never get caught up we never get ahead either how about packaging do you develop and research new packaging items here too no we just test them uh they've come out with a new package they want to see all of all up under certain conditions that we'll take care of that but as far as designing and such like that we'll be left to the designers there aren't very many new products in the candy industry either no there are and we're looking you're always looking we're always looking what's the latest thing you came on with well i imagine i would be a uh a composition of marshmallow and jelly which we call malo gel it's a new bar for us it's being more or less tested to see how it's accepted how's it going from while i can gather it's going pretty fair well now your freezing candy aren't you Joe these days not not just to put on the the shelf and

the retailers but your your freezing candy here and the plant to keep it and distribute it at certain times of the season uh we don't do that directly here in the plant we work in conjunction with a cold storage warehouse where they can uh we'll put a very large room under ideal conditions uh down the zero or below zero if you so desire and uh there we can store perhaps 20 ,000 cartons where we wouldn't have the room to do that here we're not quite that well equipped well i see what's the advantage of that well uh it's twofold one it helps us study out our production instead of uh jumping around from three shifts a day down the one and maybe only three days a week while we can study that out over a period of months where they can run one or two shifts as they feel is needed and second uh i'm enabled a candy to reach the consumer in a much fresher state

all this and you see how much the candy business has grown from the penny licorice counter and the open display boxes of cherry jaw breakers the production lines have come along and candy is made and marketed in all the quantity of any other manufactured good and with the growth of production has come the expansion of public taste to where candy is more than an optional part of dessert in fact a part of the nation's menu this is Jack Angel with George Wilson an engineer whose recordings here have imprinted city in sound