04-14-2012, 01:46 AM
When I was five years old, 1956, I visited for the first time the old Campbell's soup plant in Chicago with my fahter. He was delivering a truck load of tomatoes and had a contract to supply tomatoes. I vividly remember the place and how it worked. We would wait in a long line of trucks waiting to drop off the tomatoes. The line moved slow. Then the tomatoes were dropped off and went into a pulverizer and made into a pulp for the soup. There was a huge conveyor system with scoops that scooped up the pulp. This was all out side in the open air. The conveyor went high up in the air with all these scoops filled with pulp. Finally the pulp would get deposited in large round open vats maybe 15' in diameter.
The vats were semi outside as there were only three walls. There were large rats everywhere. The rats were all over the conveyor structure which was totally outside. The rats were around the vats and every so often a rat would fall into the vat. Pigeons also were all over. The wind would blow dirt/and dust at the dripping scoops and conveyor.
So now you know why their soup is ummm, ummm good. This is no joke. This factory operated for many years. I went there many times afterwards and there were always the rats.
I am a mechanical engineer today and would add that the conveyor system chain and bearings would contaminate the pulp too with the oil and grease. It was a crude design.
We had to use a certain strain of tomato plant per their contract. This tomato was large and had a hard core in the center. These were not great to eat as the flavor is not that good and the core is not appealing. We grew a different tomato to sell to other people such as local produce stands and offered the public to pick their own. That tomato had great flavor and no core. Why then does Campbells need a poor tomatoe? My mother made real soup from the good tomatoes. You would never have Campbells soup after tasting her soup,
These other factories are all inside it appears. The Camden NJ plant is older than the Chicago plant so I expect they had a similar factory to the Chicago plant and was used to design the Chicago plant. Tomatoes must be in tomato hampers (like bushels but for tomatoes). The local farmers used their own hampers and reused them. I doubt tomatoes came in by rail. They were inspected at the plant and the farmer was given approval. Then the truck was weighed before and after.
Even if there were no rats or pigeons, if you saw this process with this crude machinery made of rusted steel carry the pulp, you would never want to eat this soup. There were workers with brooms pushing the pulverized pulp in a pile towards the scoops on the conveyors. They walked in the pulp also. All this contaminated pulp went to the vats. The wind blew dust and dirt in this too. This was not a squeaky clean stainless steel factory. There was no stainless as it used steel. The scoops were rusted from being outside and the pulp is acidic. This is not Grandmas home made soup. The pulp dripped every where and I think is why it was mostly outside. It could be cleaned easier.
Campbell's website says they make healthy products for more than a century. haha If you saw the heavy spraying of pesticides Campbell's required per their contract that would make not want to eat it too. We did not spray our own tomatoes like that. There was no problem with our own tomatoes as they were delicious. Take a tomato fresh from the field and eat it. You never tasted such a good tomato. The grocery store tomatoes have lost most of the flavor. Now process the tomato like Campbell's and how is that? Home made tomato soup is amazing. People don't know what they are consuming. Now apply this processing to their other products such as split pea soup. That is a pulp too. Who knows what they did there?
Modern machinery still creates metallic wear debris and that gets into the food. I have used a scanning electron microscope to look at the product and see the debris.
Chuck
Phoenix, AZ
The vats were semi outside as there were only three walls. There were large rats everywhere. The rats were all over the conveyor structure which was totally outside. The rats were around the vats and every so often a rat would fall into the vat. Pigeons also were all over. The wind would blow dirt/and dust at the dripping scoops and conveyor.
So now you know why their soup is ummm, ummm good. This is no joke. This factory operated for many years. I went there many times afterwards and there were always the rats.
I am a mechanical engineer today and would add that the conveyor system chain and bearings would contaminate the pulp too with the oil and grease. It was a crude design.
We had to use a certain strain of tomato plant per their contract. This tomato was large and had a hard core in the center. These were not great to eat as the flavor is not that good and the core is not appealing. We grew a different tomato to sell to other people such as local produce stands and offered the public to pick their own. That tomato had great flavor and no core. Why then does Campbells need a poor tomatoe? My mother made real soup from the good tomatoes. You would never have Campbells soup after tasting her soup,
These other factories are all inside it appears. The Camden NJ plant is older than the Chicago plant so I expect they had a similar factory to the Chicago plant and was used to design the Chicago plant. Tomatoes must be in tomato hampers (like bushels but for tomatoes). The local farmers used their own hampers and reused them. I doubt tomatoes came in by rail. They were inspected at the plant and the farmer was given approval. Then the truck was weighed before and after.
Even if there were no rats or pigeons, if you saw this process with this crude machinery made of rusted steel carry the pulp, you would never want to eat this soup. There were workers with brooms pushing the pulverized pulp in a pile towards the scoops on the conveyors. They walked in the pulp also. All this contaminated pulp went to the vats. The wind blew dust and dirt in this too. This was not a squeaky clean stainless steel factory. There was no stainless as it used steel. The scoops were rusted from being outside and the pulp is acidic. This is not Grandmas home made soup. The pulp dripped every where and I think is why it was mostly outside. It could be cleaned easier.
Campbell's website says they make healthy products for more than a century. haha If you saw the heavy spraying of pesticides Campbell's required per their contract that would make not want to eat it too. We did not spray our own tomatoes like that. There was no problem with our own tomatoes as they were delicious. Take a tomato fresh from the field and eat it. You never tasted such a good tomato. The grocery store tomatoes have lost most of the flavor. Now process the tomato like Campbell's and how is that? Home made tomato soup is amazing. People don't know what they are consuming. Now apply this processing to their other products such as split pea soup. That is a pulp too. Who knows what they did there?
Modern machinery still creates metallic wear debris and that gets into the food. I have used a scanning electron microscope to look at the product and see the debris.
Chuck
Phoenix, AZ