W. G. Hier

“ Every experienced manufacturer knows that regardless of the expertness with which he may work up his tomatoes into the finished product, he cannot expect to get good quality unless he has good stock to begin with. It is true that by using intelligence and extreme care in the manufacturing processes one manufacturer will make better pulp or catsup from tomatoes of fair quality than another man can get from the best quality of stock. ”

“ The bacteria spores, like mold spores, have a tough surface which gives them high resistance, and they contain the germ of bacteria life which can reproduce the species when favorable conditions for growth are again encountered. The bacteria spores, therefore, float through the air as do the mold spores, remaining in the dry state without nourishment for months at a time, and as soon as they light upon a moist surface containing the elements for growth, even to a very small degree, they reproduce the rod-shaped bacteria form, which begins to multiply itself again by the simple division method. ”

“ Buying the canned soup is also cheaper than buying the canned tomatoes and making the soup from them.
Factors Upon Which Success Depends The maker of tomato soup should be a crank on quality. There is no other tomato product in which quality is at a greater premium. In catsup and chili sauce, heavy spicing and mixing with lots of vinegar and sugar help to mask the tomato flavor, but in soup the spicing is light, no vinegar is used, and being eaten as a food in itself, instead of as a condiment with which to flavor a food, the palate quickly detects inferiority. ”

“ There is nothing more trying on a manufacturer than having complaints on fermentation coming in from every corner of the country. The natural inclination is to let well enough alone, and take no chances.
At the same time it must be admitted that thousands of cases of catsup are being manufactured every day without processing, and it is giving little or no trouble. Those who use this system say it is a waste of time and money to process, and that years of experience have shown that processing is unnecessary. ”

“ The quality of the tomato stock is the real important thing. Fresh tomatoes may be used or a fine grade of pulp may be used, and either will make an excellent soup. With poor tomato stock a good soup cannot be made no matter what you do to it. Spicing artistically, and making rich by the use of plenty of good butter, will not make amends for poor quality of tomato stock. ”

“ They know nothing about mold counts, but most women can be impressed with the importance of watching for moldy streaks and spots in mashed and split tomatoes, and the importance of eliminating every bit of tomato tissue that is so effected.
Every sorting belt should have a boss—a competent sorter who knows his or her business, and who stands at the end of the belt and inspects the tomatoes just as they are about to leave the belt. ”

“ Although most bacteria spores are killed by boiling for 10 or 15 minutes, there are a few species of extremely high resistance which have been known to remain alive after several hours’ boiling. Spores of this nature are infrequent, however, and the packer might as well forget that they exist. Not one case of spoilage out of a hundred is caused by the presence of such spores, and if all food products were cooked a length of time sufficient to kill all bacteria spores which might possibly be present, the foods would be cooked to death, and unfit to eat. ”

“ As soon as all of the tomato juice for the batch is boiling in the cooking kettle the soda is added. The amount of bicarbonate of soda to use depends upon whether the soup is being made from fresh tomatoes or pulp, and if made from pulp the soda should be varied according to the pulp’s acidity. It is nearly always necessary to use more soda in pulp than in fresh tomatoes, and if the pulp is old goods which has lost much of its sweetness, and in which the acid has been increased by the slow but telling action of living bacteria, still more soda must be used. ”

“ The peelers can not be depended upon to sort out any substantial amount of rot when they do the peeling. Therefore the only thing that can be done toward keeping down the micro-organisms is painstaking sorting of the whole tomatoes and thorough washing to keep out the mold, having the conveying equipment and tanks clean, and bringing the trimmings to a boil quickly to prevent multiplication of yeasts and bacteria. It is wise to steam out the peeling buckets and bucket conveyors at noon, as well as at quitting time, as the juice which lies in them is constantly undergoing fermentation. ”

“ Labor is also very cheap and plentiful, and there is a ready market for the product, the oil being used as a soap stock, and the oil cake finding ready sale as a stock feed. In this country, however, there is not enough waste at even one of the largest plants to pay for the operation of a drying outfit and the pulp plants are so scattered that hauling or shipping charges to a central point would be expensive. Furthermore, labor is scarce and expensive.
That quite a little labor is involved in the preparation of the waste is soon discovered by a little experimenting. ”

“ In the hands of one manufacturer excellent results will be obtained with the use of a formula, while another man who has practically the same formula will make an absolute failure of his manufacturing. ”

“ It takes sunshine to give tomatoes a brilliant color, and when there is an absence of sunshine for a week or ten days many of the tomatoes will rot before they attain a bright red color. At such times during the season it is impossible to get a brilliant color, but if the packer will exercise as much control as he is able to over the picking, persuading the farmers to hold their tomatoes back just as long as possible, he will not have a great deal of such goods and he can get a fair color out of what he does get, out of these dull colored tomatoes. ”

“ Spicing and Sweetness Improper spicing of catsups is not a common fault either. Even where essential oils are used exclusively for spicing, a real good flavor can be had if the oils are properly administered. As to sweetness, many catsup makers are coming to the conclusion that the public is demanding a slightly sweeter catsup than was generally packed eight or ten years ago. There is very little doubt but what a composite sample from a half dozen prominent brands of today, if compared with a composite sample taken from the same brands ten years ago, would show quite an increase in sweetness. ”

“ Yeasts are the principal gas-forming agents in the fermentation 58of pulp. In the production of this gas they consume the natural sugar of the tomato. They will multiply by the budding method described above as long as they are in a medium which is favorable for their growth. As soon as this medium drys up, or for some other reason becomes an unfavorable medium for the multiplication of the yeast cells, the yeasts resort to spore forming, just as bacteria do. These spores are formed within the yeast cell, and when the cell wall breaks the spores pass off into the air. ”

“ There are many different species or varieties of mold plants which thrive on tomatoes and tomato pulp, but they are all very similar; they reproduce themselves in exactly the same way, and they are all arrested in their growth by extremes of temperature, and are killed by continued boiling. It should not be thought, however, that boiling for a very few minutes will kill all mold spores, as they have a tough surface which has considerable resistance to heat. ”

“ Packers who put up a general line of tomato products will do well to reserve their fresh tomatoes for catsup, and to use their pulp for bean sauce, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, etc., all of which can be made better from pulp than one can make catsup from pulp.
Thickness The thickness of catsups found on the market is fairly uniform, and there is rarely a cause for complaint on this score. When catsup is packed in cans, the thicker it is the better the buyer likes it as a rule; however with bottled goods excessive thickness is not a virtue but a cause of much annoyance to the consumer. ”

“ One good tomato is not picked up, looked at, and placed on the belt again by a number of different sorters. When a tomato is picked up by a sorter some disposition is made of it at once. If good it is tossed in the center and is never looked at again except by the final inspector. If bad, the good part is thrown in the center and the bad allowed to remain on the outside, to be conducted to the waste barrel. All the sorters except the first four can spend their entire time working on tomatoes which need to have bad parts cut out of them. ”

“ It is hard indeed to make catsup from pulp which tastes like the goods which is bottled from freshly run tomatoes. It falls behind in both color and flavor. One finds that color and flavor are very closely associated in catsup. A bright red catsup is practically always a fine flavored product, while a dull colored catsup with a brownish cast to it very frequently has a more or less unpleasant taste with the suggestion of being somewhat scorched. ”

“ In this case the buyer usually cannot be as particular about the quality of the tomatoes he buys as can the packer who has his tomatoes all grown under contract at a specified price, and who can exercise supervision over his farmers. This is particularly true in seasons of short crop, when the grower sells his tomatoes on the market and can afford to be very independent, and buyers are wildly forcing up the price by competitive bidding, and taking whatever they can get. ”

“ If the tomatoes are firm and largely free from cracks around the stem end it is not so bad, but when they come in badly cracked, with tufts of mold growing in all the cracks, as is often the case late in the season, the amount of labor required to properly sort them makes the working up of trimmings unprofitable.
When the trimmings show up fairly well, and the labor to handle them is available, there is no reason why the chili sauce packer or tomato canner should not utilize what would otherwise be a waste by turning it into pulp or “trimming catsup.” ”

“ Sorting By far the greater part of the trouble packers have with their goods not complying with the government regulations as to molds, yeasts and spores, and bacteria is due to inadequate sorting. At least ninety per cent of this trouble could be overcome right at the sorting belt. Packers often say they can’t understand why the mold is running high on their pulp and catsup, as they are sorting their tomatoes carefully. However, the chances are ten to one the trouble is they are not sorting them carefully enough. ”

“ Unless the plant consists of several floors and the tomatoes start at the top and come out as finished pulp at the bottom, or the plant is built on a terraced plan, as one plant is in Indiana, which is built on the side of a hill, it is necessary to do a certain amount of pumping. An ordinary pump will not do, as there would be contamination by iron, and considerable rusting, while the pump was idle, of those parts of the pump with which tomato juice comes in contact, this rust to be carried along with the tomato juice the first time the pump is used again. ”

“ Method of Handling Tomatoes When Trimmings Are Pulped If the trimmings are to be pulped the tomatoes must be very carefully sorted, and thoroughly washed, preferably in a rotary washer. As it is practically impossible to sort or wash the trimmings, the tomatoes must be in almost perfect condition when they enter the scalder. Washing the trimmings carries away too much of the tomato substance which clings to them, and sorting is not practicable, as the soft rot and mold becomes incorporated in the entire mass and it is impossible to separate it. ”

“ Variable Speed Transmission is ideal for regulating the speed of your Tomato Sorting Belt. You can get any speed even to a fraction of a revolution at any time by simply turning a small hand wheel. It is so simple that even a child can operate it and get variation as low as two to one or as high as ten to one. It is admirably adapted for regulating not only the Tomato Sorting Belt but Cappers, Fillers, Exhausters, Pea Blanchers, Viners or any kind of vegetables or fruit packing machines where a variation of speed is desired. ”

“ If a manufacturer makes his product at a large central plant, where he can count on reliable and fairly intelligent help at all times, and where he is so equipped that he is not bothered with frequent breakdowns and delays during the day’s run, he should give the non-processing method his careful consideration, and I believe he will profit by adopting it. ”

“ A good flavored catsup can also be obtained with the amounts of pepper, oil of cassia, and oil of cloves given above, but with no oil of pimento.
It should be remembered that with these oils the most important point is the successful administration of them. Giving proper quantities to use amounts to nothing if they are improperly administered. In fact, any kind of a formula for making a tomato product amounts to very little in itself. It doesn’t make any difference how fine a formula a man has, it by no means assures a good product. ”

“ All one has to do to convince himself that it is not too long is to take one of those thermometers which are made especially for determining temperatures at the center of the bottle, and put it in a bottle of catsup while it is being processed, watch the mercury rise, and note the time it takes to bring the center of the bottle to the temperature of the water surrounding it. ”

“ One who has not had much experience managing help on the tomato sorting belt would imagine that almost any woman could step up there and sort out the good tomatoes from the bad, and know what to cut out, and what not to cut out. But such is not the case. The tomato sorters must be instructed. Someone who is competent to do so must work with each one of them and show them just what is a good tomato and what is not. ”

“ Enameling or lacquering of the outside of the cans is essential if there is not sufficient sheltered storage for the pulp, or if it must be stacked in a damp warehouse. An excessive amount of moisture in the air will quickly start the tin to rusting on plain cans, and many cannery warerooms are entirely too moist for stacking cans, as they are near the process room, and the air is often misty with the presence of condensing steam from the process tanks. If there is ample dry storage space, the outside enameling of the cans does not seem to be an advantage. ”

“ The tanks are not only an additional expense to the equipment, but require one or two operators to tend to them, and they take up a lot of room, and consume a lot of steam. No seed can be saved from tomatoes which are pulped hot, as the cooking either kills the germ or renders it impotent. Quite a few canners save the seed from cold pulped tomatoes, and the revenue from it proves to be a profitable item. ”

“ When making soup from canned pulp it is necessary to watch the sweetness of the pulp very close, and it may be necessary for the cook to vary the sugar on a 100–gallon batch ten or fifteen pounds during a day’s run. Canned pulp often varies greatly in sweetness, and if held in storage for many months it often loses some of its sweetness on account of the 114action of living, acid forming bacteria, which may not be present in large amount, but nevertheless, in time, have a noticeable effect on the sweetness of the pulp. ”