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Producers Creamery News 



By Frank Gougler 



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On August 8 the first contract was let 

 for converting the Vail Garage building 

 60 X 185 feet af Olney into a modern 

 creamery. Saturday, November 10, the 

 last piece of machinery was installed. 

 This final piece of equipment was the 

 power plant of Producers Creamery of 

 Olney — a new 40 H. P. Fairbanks Morse 

 Diesel Engine. Olney is the first to pro- 

 vide its own electric power plant, nec- 

 essary in this case to avoid excessive 

 power rates. 



Cream received only from Richland 

 county on the opening day, November 

 12, was churned into 500 pounds of but- 

 ter under the supervision of Federal In- 

 spector C. O. Tuttle. The first churning 

 scored 90%. Enough cream was received 

 on Tuesday, the second day, to make a 

 1,500 pound churning and Manager C. W. 

 Simpson is confident that by the time he 

 receives cream from all counties, he will 

 be making from one to one and one-half 

 cars of butter per week. 



Producers, merchants, hotels and res- 

 taurants throughout the district have 

 been eagerly waiting the opening of this 

 plant so that they may be supplied with 

 Prairie Farms Certified butter. • 



The Olney plant will serve 13 coun- 

 ties, as follows: Fayette, Jasper, Effing- 

 ham, Crawford, Marion, Clay, Eichland, 

 Lawrence, Wayne, Edwards, Wabash, 

 White and Gallatin. The organization is 

 governed by a board of directors con- 



sisting of the following men: Burton 

 Leamon, Olney, president; Rolla Barbee, 

 Louisville, vice-pres.; J. C. Piper, Sum- 

 ner, treasurer; Silas Andrus, Mt. Car- 

 mel, secretary; Perry Huber, Albion; 

 Chester McCord, Newton; John Peters, 

 Carmi; Walter Mellendorf, Effingham; 

 Claude Ivers, Fairfield. 



Manager Simpson has employed Geo. 

 Adams of Salem as his buttermaker and 

 plant superintendent. Mr. Adams has 

 had several years experience as plant 

 manager and buttermaker in the Salem, 

 Illinois Dairy and in Chicago plants. All 

 the plant help has been employed includ- 

 ing truck haulers for nearly all counties. 



The 13 counties comprising the Olney 

 District have a total of approximately 

 60,000 milk cows on 2300 farms produc-^ 

 ing more than four million pounds of 

 butterfat. There are more cream pools 

 in the Olney district than in any other. 

 Fifteen pools now serving the territory 

 have been handling approximately 1,000,- 

 000 pounds of butterfat annually. These 

 pools will all be closed eventually and 

 the cream trucked direct from farm to 

 plant twice each week. Butter scoring 

 92 or better will be packed in cartons 

 under government inspection and sold in 

 the district. Surplus butter will be 

 shipped to central markets where it will 

 be sold for a premium. 

 , On its opening d^y, September 13, 

 Producers Creamery of Champaign 



t ' 'I u l"'. ' J 



GOVERNMENT INSPECTION TO PRODUCE CERTIFIED 92 SCORE "PRAIRIE FARMS" BUTTER 

 Picture shows receiving room of Farmers Creamery, Bloomington. Left to right; Farrest Fairchild, 

 manager; C. 0. Tuttle, federal butter inspector; Clyde Hamlin, buttermaker; Roy C. Potts, dairy special- 

 f ist, Washington, D. C. ; Otto Losness, cream grader. 



started off with a "bang." The plant was 

 equipped on a million pound basis but 

 the flow of cream into the plant the first 

 few days was on a better than a two mil- 

 lion pound basis. On the second day a 

 wire was sent out for additional equip- 

 ^ment. 



On the first day 33 truckloads of 

 cream were delivered to the plant. By 

 evening one churning had been made, all 

 vats were full and 11 truckloads still 

 remained. The problem confronting Man- 

 ager Burns, and President Williams was 

 "what to do with the cream?'' It was 

 finally decided to dispatch a truck to the 

 Farmers Creamery Company of Bloom- 

 ington for a truckload of ten gallon cans. 

 These were filled about midnight and 

 stored in the cooler. On the second day 

 another flood of cream arrived and so 

 on day after day until the additional 

 equipment arrived which made it possi- 

 ble to clean up the accumulation and take 

 care of the regular flow. . r,^ ; 



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: V :.y- Quality Comes Up 



It IS not always possible to anticipate 

 what may happen in starting a project of 

 this kind. It was a plain case of not being 

 equipped to handle such a large volume. 

 Everyone was overjoyed because of the 

 large volume, yet it had its "kickback." 

 Insufficient equipment made it impossi- 

 ble to properly handle and ripen the 

 cream; therefore, this resulted in a low 

 scoring butter. " " ''"■' 



October operation tells a different 

 story. During the month, 138,948 pounds 

 of butter were made — local sales 

 amounted to 8,425 lbs. and shipped to 

 market centers totalled 130,523 pounds. 

 jQnJthis basis, the plant should put out 

 approximately two million pounds the 

 first year. It should be remembered that 

 November is the lowest production month 

 of the year, and furthermore, not all of 

 the Champaign District is yet being 

 served by truck haulers. -% : _ 



- c- v-,^^:;-,:vi^,v jiqj.^ EfficieHcy •'■ •'■■:^^'-:v^^-• 

 Needless to say, the board of directors, 

 the manager, and everyone connected 

 with the plant is exceedingly happy be- 

 cause during October the quality of the 

 butter has materially improved over the 

 make during the last two weeks of Sep- 

 tember. Furthermore, the plant help has 

 been shifted to serve its purpose better. 

 Improvement in quality and more effi- 

 ciency in the plant had already proved 

 that this group of co-operators can "turn 

 the trick." 



The making of a better product has 

 only been started. Federal Inspector C. O. 

 Tuttle is visiting the plant each week to 

 assist in standardizing the product. He 

 first grades the cream into Grades A A, 

 A, B and C. After the cream is churned 

 he then scores the butter. The results 

 reveal to him whether or not the plant 

 ; ■ ;■ (Continued on page 15) 



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