as well as for shipment of the final canned product. Usually the cannery- 

 faces the dock vdth the rail line at the rear. Ordinarily, a doorway opens 

 from the dock side of the plant into a room where the fish are thawed and 

 butchered. If thawing tanks are employed^ these may be in this or in an 

 adjoining room. If a cold storage is available on the pi>emises, it is 

 generally adjacent to and entered from this room. The fish are usually 

 delivered to an open space near the door and if frozen are merely laid on 

 the floor for defrosting with or without sprays. The butchering table, 

 sometimes peniEnently installed, in other cases on casters for moving 

 about, is usually nearby. The racks and baskets are generally assembled 

 in an area near the butchering table and the perforated papers (if used) 

 inserted in each basket before it is wheeled to the end of the table to 

 be loaded with fish. In most plants the precookers, and in seme cases 

 the steam boiler, are located in space adjacait to the butchering room. 

 A typical tuna plant layout is shown in figure 15 . 



In most cases, the cleaning, packing, and seaming equipment are lo- 

 cated in space directly behind the thawing snd butchering room. In a few 

 plants butchering is carried out at a different floor level than the other 

 operations. In the ideal layout (where space permitct) the cleaning, 

 packing, and seaming operations take place in straight lines. In the 

 larger plsmts as many as nine such lines are em.ployed vrf-iile the smaller 

 plants may have only one or tvro . Wliere many lines are operated, it is 

 conmon to reserve several of them for putting up special packs such as 

 flakes or chunks. Flakes, in such plants, are almost invariably put up 

 in separate lines. Chunk pack may be put up in the same line as solid 

 pack with provision to divert cleaned loins to alternate fillers and 

 seamers. In smaller plants having only a very few lines ^ the arrange- 

 ment has to be very flexible so that the same lines can be used for 

 different purposes when different tj^^es of packs are being put up. Con- 

 siderable ingenuity is used in some of the simll and medium-sized plants 

 to achieve maximum flexibility in use of the equipment for different 

 types of pack. 



After seaming, cans are washed. Usually a separate washer is placed 

 at the end of each line iiunediately after the s earner. In a few of the 

 plants a single large washer was employed through which conveyor chains 

 containing cans from all the lines passed. From the washer the cans are 

 conveyed to the retorts and then to the labeling and boxing area. 



Cans are generally labeled and boxed in a room at the rear of the 

 cannery which is adjacent to or part of the storage room. In most plants 

 this room has access to a spur railway line at the rear of the plant. 



286 



