Ear on Chicago; Curtiss Candy

The sound you are hearing is out of peanuts being roasted. This is the fourth floor of plant number four of the Curtis Candy Company, and this is the story of the manufacturer of the baby Ruth Candy Bar. This is Hugh Hill reporting to you along with Mr. Floyd Roses, who is General Superintendent of the Curtis Candy Company. Now as you might expect, the Candy Bar known as the baby Ruth begins its manufacture with peanuts. The peanuts are roasted on this floor, but first of all they have to get here. Now let's walk over here Mr. Roses and take a look at these hundreds and hundreds of bags of peanuts. Now these peanuts arrive here at the Curtis Candy Company from the south. Is that right? That's right, Mr. Hill. And how do they get up here to the fourth floor to carry them up by the door I'm afraid out of it? On these skids here as you call them a little while ago, that's right, moving with skids and dollies. Now these little skids are dollies, are nothing more than small carts with four wheels. One of them has just been pulled out now, a man came over with a dolly, put it underneath the skid,

and rolled it over to a bin over there on the far side of the road. About 25 or 30 feet from here is a place where the peanuts, the raw peanuts, are dumped into a hopper and the production begins. So Mr. Roses lets you and I walk over there and take a look at that. One of the employees here has just jumped a bag of raw peanuts into the bin. Now it goes through the hole down at the bottom of the hopper and into a conveyor belt. You'll probably hear a great deal about conveyor belts as we go through the story of the manufacturer of the Curtis Candy Company's Baby Roots, because that's what it is, peanuts are moved from one spot to another with a series of conveyor belts. First of all, the man dumps the large sack of peanuts into this hopper, there goes another one. Then goes through the hopper onto a belt, the belt takes it up high into another big hopper, dumps it about

six or eight feet above our head, and then down into another series of belts over here to our left. Now Mr. Roses, I've described how the hopper system works here, but that actually takes place in this hopper right here. This is our separating mechanism from which the little quake and stones are separated from the peanuts in transit to the bulk storage bin. Then the peanuts are dumped into another conveyor belt, and up they go into another bin. Let's go over and take a look at that one. Here's a much larger bin over here to all right, what's done in there? That's just a story, Mr. Hill. All right, out of the storage bin, into another conveyor belt, and up high over our head once again, once on up there. This elevating mechanism causes the peanuts from the transverse conveyor here from which the roasters are fed. Okay, then we're about ready to go into the roasters, right, Mr. Roses?

All right, let's take a look over and look at the roasters. Let's listen to those roasters. All right, let's move on down the line a little ways, and I'm going to try and get to a point where there isn't quite so much noise. It's beginning to die down now, and I'd like to describe to you what I can see inside the roaster. First of all, there are 11 of these roasters. How much peanuts does each roaster hold, Mr. Roses? It's about 400 pounds to the roaster. In other words, the capacity of this is the 11 units, it's 10 ,800 pounds an hour. Is that gas heat in there? That is right, what they call a radiant gas flame, with the power roaster. This roaster is a large, barrel -shaped object. It keeps rotating, and then the peanuts

are rotated and rotated and rotated. And as they move by those gas jets, as Mr. Roses said, they are circular jets. The gas flames are shot out over the peanuts, and in that way they are roasted. But now the obvious question, Mr. Roses, from a person that doesn't know anything about peanuts, are the candy industry, is why are they roasted? To bring out the flavor of the nut, and also to enhance eating qualities. Well, after they are roasted, what happens? They drop through these conveyor pipes, to the floor below, to the blanching department. And then where we go next? That's where we'll go next. All right, let's move on down there then, all right? Now, that's a blanching machine,

a peanut blanching machine. The word is spelled VL -A -N -C -H -E. What does that mean, Mr. Roses? This is where the brown husks or skins off of the individual nuts are taken off. Now, first of all, let's pick up where we left off. A moment ago, we were talking about the peanuts which were roasted, upstairs, and here's the shoots that they come down from. Here is one coming down right now. You can see the smoke or steam or whatever it is coming off of the peanuts, down into another storage bin, is that right? Yes, sir. Those have perforated bottoms, and they're cool air being circulated through there, to cool these peanuts prior to the being blanched. Why do you cool them? Both the skins will release readily. Then into another hopper, and slowly the peanuts are dropped down through what looks to be a little a big slit down here. That's right, into a screw conveyor. That brings them over to that elevating mechanism. Another elevator conveyor, and into another hopper it looks like. Only we can't go too much

further. We ran out of cord here. Yes, they go into that screw conveyor that's transversely placed across the top of these blanchors, and then they feed the individual hoppers that supply the blanchors with the nuts. Now, how does the blanchor work? There's rotating brushes in there through friction. The peanuts pass between these two brushes and the skins are released, and then the skins are stuck off with these fans and into those cycles. Through a matter of air pressure, or a vacuum, or whatever you call it, and the skins are just taken away from the peanut. The peanut is left nice and white and clean. That's right, sir. What happens to the skins? They progress down to the first floor where they're bagged and sold for cattle seeds. And of course, what we're interested in is the peanut itself. Where does it go? Well, the peanuts go down to a floor below here where we have grills of picking them over. Incidentally, Mr. Hill,

the this operation doesn't only take skins off, but it also extracts the heart, which is the germ of the peanut or the part that becomes likely to become infected. You don't want that in your candy box, right? That's why they're all taken out here. All right, let's go downstairs in and take a look at that next operation. All right. We've come to a department which still has to do with peanuts, but it's much more quiet than the previous two that we visited. This is where the grills are picking out foreign parts from the peanuts. Now, this again is a conveyor belt. The peanuts are coming down from the blanchors into a large chute and again into another hopper. Of course, there are about, well, let's count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten hoppers here, and they are dropped onto this conveyor belt, and these girls sitting

here are doing something with the peanuts. Suppose you tell us what exactly they are doing, Mr. Roses. Well, Mr. Hill, we have 20 girls visually inspecting these peanuts as they pass by in this slow -moving belt. They're looking for little particles of peanut root or stones or little pieces of string or lint from the bags, and any foreign material that may come into a sealed harvest and crop. I suppose you find some rather strange objects in the peanuts once in a while, don't you? We have glass and some twigs and stones. You know, one time we did a story like this before on the processing of food, and they had an operation similar to this in which they took out all foreign matter from the food that was being processed, and we had one listener wonder if the food was something wrong with it because of these foreign pieces of material inside of the food. And we explained to her that the reason they take this foreign matter out such as string, glass, and so on is not so much for the

standpoint that it would get into the food, because obviously it couldn't possibly get into the food. It's from the standpoint that it would jam machines at a later time. Is that true here? That's entirely possible. We also have an attic protection in the way of magnets once in a while, you'll find a nail or something in here. But obviously nothing but the peanut itself could ever get into the baby root. Not only do you have a series of inspections, but just as they all learn later on in the program, the process through which the candy bar goes, this eliminates any possibility of anything like that happening, right? They're quite right, Mr. Hill. All right, let's move on then. What would be our next step? The next step, gentlemen, is the loading of our hoppers that we serve the baby root department with. Now that's done on the floor below. Again, we're working with peanuts. We're still working with peanuts. Takes a long time to get these peanuts ready, doesn't it? All right, let's move on down there. We've come down now to where the peanuts will be dropped into a large hopper in just a moment and way

to the exact weight of 1 ,000 pounds. The peanuts are stored after they are cleaned as you saw a minute ago. They're going to be coming out here in a minute. Stored in large hoppers over there and then brought over here into this other hopper through a series of conveyor belts once again. Here they come. Well, now the hopper is beginning to be filled up. As I said, exactly 1 ,000 pounds of peanuts will be put in here and then from here a dolly will be placed under this hopper and it will be pulled away to another location. Once again, the conveyor belts are going to work and above us there is a sort of a shaking mechanism which is shaking the peanuts down into that conveyor belt and finally into this hopper. You can hear that.

You hear that shaking mechanism. You can hear it shaking the peanuts. Now, how long do you keep those peanuts up in this storage bin before you fill up this hopper over here, Mr. Roses? Well, that's going on all day long, Mr. Hill. I say that the time cycle in which those peanuts would be in there and that storage hopper wouldn't be more than 45 or 50 minutes. What happens next after this hopper is filled? This hopper is portable, as you see. It's transported by dolly over to the elevator and brought up to the floor floor and it's suspended over a hole in that floor floor. That goes down to the baby roof rolling machines on the third floor. And this is the hopper from which the peanuts are supplied in the regular application of peanuts. Well, our next stop is on the same floor then. No, our next stop will be the fourth floor again. We'll follow right straight through now and I'll show you where these peanuts go. All right, let's move up there. Here comes the dolly is going to be placed under

this hopper. It will be pulled out in just a moment and we'll follow it up to the fourth floor. Now the noise of the machines has changed somewhat because we have moved to a different operation. A moment ago you heard us say we were going up to the fourth floor where that large hopper of peanuts would be delivered. We went past that and saw the peanuts being dropped down out of the hopper and down to the floors below. Now we have shifted our operations to find out about how the fudge is manufactured. We have come into a room which contains a large number of huge hopper kettles and inside those kettles is the fudge, fudge is being manufactured in there. Now this is kettle number one right in front of us, Mr. Roses. So suppose you tell us what's going on inside. This Mr. Hill is what we call our battery of primary mixes. Each one of these kettles sold 1 ,000 pounds of the

mixed ingredients such as sugar, corn syrup, flavoring agents and fat and so forth. The batch has come founded here and pumped over to that battery of cooking kettles over there in which it's finished. Looked to a pretty common cooking point and other flavoring agents added and then it's pumped through lines over to our mobiles or our casting machines. Let's take a walk over there where it's being heated. From here the preliminary mix operation, all about 15 or 20 feet away is another batch of kettles in which the fudge is being heated as he told you. Hear the change here in the sound. Walk down a long roll of huge copper kettles and reach the final one. We started with the first kettle and saw the mix over there and now we're here at the end of the production line

and once again well we can call this the final kettle. I don't suppose you do it actually but anyway this is the final operation right at the final operation and the cooking of the fudge. From here it goes up through that valve and through this pump and this pipeline over into our mobiles. Our mobiles are machine Mr. Hillet. We have multiple pumps over there in which we pump this fudge into starch impressions on boards or trays. You can see that right over here. You think this fudge could be made at home by the housewife? It could be. I was just going to while I was wondering whether she could manufacture a baby roof. It'd be pretty difficult wouldn't it? I think it'd be quite a task. A very complicated job. Well I've seen this kind of fudge being made at home but I've never seen it made in this quantity. Can you tell us something about quantity here? How much of this is involved? How much is this kettle for example? There's one kettle alone hold. This kettle holds about 800 pounds. A large number

of kettles. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven kettles. That's right. Okay let's move on to the next operation then. This machine is known as a bugle. Inside of this machine is a large tray. A large tray filled with starch and inside that starch are a number of indentations in which caramel or not caramel but fudge is going to be delivered. Now it's about three inches long and about a half an inch wide and it comes out in a small round form and then eventually will be the center of the baby roof candy bar. That's right. That's right sure. Now this is sort of a frontwards backwards operation here Mr. Ozen but let's start with this middle of the machine and here come these trays one after another with the starch in them.

Now what happens is they move along here and what does that sound? That's the printer. There's a dime or a mold boy in there as we call it and that printer comes down mechanically into this tray of starch and that sort of a grinding noise or vibratory noise that you hear there is a vibrator to release the mold on its upstroke or when it's coming up a starch or it doesn't break the bridges in between. How many of those little chops are contained in each one of those trays you have any idea? 144. You do have an idea or exactly 144. All right now the tray is with as I said 144 small chops out of half an inch wide and about three inches long. Move through the machine and over here the bumper pumps the fudge into those little chops. Now what happens to the tray then? That's gone to the stacking mechanism there and these trays are stacked 32

high or 33 high and a trucker comes and fix those up with a portable truck and stores them over in the storage room for 24 hours. Over there to our right by about 50 yards. That's right. All right now I said this is somewhat of a frontwards backwards operation. Now we started at the middle of the machine and went to one end of it. Now we're going to go to the other end of the machine and show you exactly what I'm in by saying it's a sort of a frontwards backwards operation. The trays as we told you were stored over there and now they're brought back here. Now this is the same machine except it's at the other end. That's right. This fudge was made yesterday Mr. Hill. It's aged in starch 24 hours which it's it's grain structure is just about perfect for running through the equipment. Still it's tender too. Make a good eating piece. All right now into the machine again this muggle go these trays of fudge which have been stored and of course they're hardened and stored in the cornstarch 24 hours. Now what happens? Those trays are progressed into that machine where they're kept completely over

and all the fudge in the starch falls out onto a screen and at the vibratory screen the starch sifts through and the fudge progresses along the other end of the machine where it goes out and goes down through a conveyor the baby roothrolling machine below. That's where we're going next. That's where we're going next. All right let's move on. Now into another floor now and where the caramel is being prepared. Again we have some large copper kettles inside the kettles caramel. Inside the caramel as I can see at least here are some peanuts. Is this where the peanuts is mixed with the caramel? No not in its entirety we do have a few peanuts in the caramel but the most the peanuts are put on right over the machine. All right now can you tell us anything about the caramel itself? I'm not sure that it's a secret operation but I just put my finger on this kettle and got a little bit burned. The kettle is hot so obviously the caramel is hot is that right? That's right. Well the caramel is made out of

corn syrup, sugar, creamy butter, vegetable fat, flavoring agents. All right then it's mixed up and heated and then it's pumped somewhere is that right? It's pumped right over these machines gentlemen on which the caramel is applied to the baby root fudge center. All right let's go take a look at that. We have now reached a stage in the operation when the caramel the fudge and the peanut is brought together. Now this is the first time we have come to a point where we can actually see the formation of a candy bar. We have been describing to you how the peanuts are brought down a series of conveyor belts into this department. How the fudge is made and pumped over here and how the caramel is prepared in those kettles and pumped to this machine. We also told you how the small cylindrical shaped fudge particles are brought down to this department and we can see them now moving down the conveyor belt to a hopper and onto this white conveyor

belt and then over into where the fudge or rather the caramel is mixed. The fudge is mixed with caramel there is moved over another conveyor belt. It's completely coated with the caramel and then drops into another hopper over here. Now here's the flow of peanuts and I've never seen so many peanuts moving so quickly at one time in my life Mr. Rogers. You're quite a patty here Mr. Hill. Ingle the candy bars into this large flow of peanuts and as the caramel coated fudge bar is dropped down into the peanuts of course the peanuts stick to the caramel and then it goes on to another conveyor belt and at finally we have a candy bar formed. I hope I've described it properly. You have done very well. From this point let's move in and see what happens to these bars after they all the colors have been put together as far as shaping them is concerned. By the way about how much does one of these candy bars weigh at this point here? Do you have any idea? Just a little over and out at this point Mr. Hill. And then

of course we'll add the coating a little while later but up to this point it's an ounce of fudge caramel and peanuts. That's right sir. All right let's move on to the next department. We are now in a much cooler area. This is where the candy bars are formed. Now in this spot I'm going to let Mr. Roses take over and describe what happens. After the candy bars come out of the operation we just saw in which the peanuts are brought together with the caramel and the fudge and up above us is a wire mesh conveyor carrying the very candy bars that we saw. Now they're in rather crude or rough form. Now what happens here? Well this is our rolling mechanism Mr. Hill. All these so -called crude or misshapen bars that they appear to be on this first belt are rolled back and forth to give them a semblance of well what should I say? That's a better form than it was in the first place that's for sure. The real con to a

hollow. In other words the bars will come out looking run like the other. That's all the rough spots off of them. Yes. You can probably hear as they're rolled back and forth by a series of wire bar or steel bars. Let's listen. There's a sort of a rhythm there as they're rolled back and forth when they finally get down to the end while they look more like a candy bar than they did in the first place. Obviously a candy bar has to look pretty good when it is put out on the market so that they'll buy it. Now finally you're down here at the end getting to look like a baby route without chocolate. That's just exactly what it is Mr. Hill and it'll make three or four passes back the entire link to this machine to give it further cooling so we get some rigidity built into that caramel prior to what's going down to the enrolbers to be coated with the coating. I did say it was colder in here but it certainly isn't as cold as it was outside. What is the temperature? 40 degrees. Yeah 40 degrees. Where's our next operation? Down on the floor below at the

enrolbers. All right let's move down there. Now we have come to a machine which puts the chocolate coating on the candy bar that we have produced up to this point. Here again is a conveyor belt as I told you earlier in the program. This company certainly uses a great deal. Read many conveyor belts throughout the entire operation. Again a conveyor belt bringing those candy bars down into a series of funnels and onto a chain conveyor belt. Into the coating operation they go a few of them are coming down now and through the chocolate. The chocolate coating is being put on the bar and as it moves through the chocolate coating there is a wheel over here that can be turned to control the exact amount of chocolate which will be put on each candy bar. Now here come the bars through the machine and we can see that they have been coated with the chocolate. They are moved down onto another conveyor belt right here in front of us

and the conveyor belt is then pushed through and takes the candy bar with it into a cooling operation. The candy bars are then cooled inside of the inside there and if you put your finger down here or hand I can feel the cold air coming out from that room. So it is much colder in that room than it is out here and the candy bars are being cooled in there. So the next operation after the candy bars are cooled of course is to wrap them and that is where we are going to go next. Now we have reached the point where the baby root candy bars are placed in paper wrappers. Paper wrappers come in a series of it looks like about 10 and strangely enough this is the first time we have seen very much done by hand. The baby roots are placed in the wrappers by hand by girls here on the production line. Now after they

are placed in the wrappers there is a machine. Is this machine closed the wrapper in here? Yes, sir it does. Then after the wrapper is closed on either end it is again moved on a conveyor belt down here below us and high up over our head well it isn't really over our head it's down at the other end and about oh shoulder high and down there it is placed in cardboard cartons and from that point while it's ready to go on to the stores and all over the city of Chicago all over the country for that matter. Now Mr. Roses there's a couple of questions I'd like to ask you before we finish the program tell us something about the name of baby roots I understand that it was not named for the famous baseball players many people think. No it was named as I understand it for the first baby girl that was born in the White House and I think that was President Cleveland's daughter if I'm not mistaken. Well Mr. Roses we want to thank you very much sir for taking us to on a tour of the Curtis Candy Company and showing us how the baby rooth is manufactured. Well

it's been a real pleasure Mr. Hill. I enjoyed you and your associates very much today. Thank you very much sir and that's the story of the manufacturer of the Curtis Candy Company's baby rooth candy bar one of the most famous in the world and it's done in Chicago which is going getting more to be the candy capital of the world that's what it is right now in fact. Chicago is the candy capital of the world one of the most famous candy bars the baby rooth is made here that's the story of its manufacturer this is Hugh Hill speaking.