HutchBook.comCleanliness
Early industry supply
catalogs and related books providing bottlers with advice on proper soft
drink bottling procedures placed heavy emphasis on the importance of
cleanliness. Even after 60
years of business experience, the 1910
W. H. Hutchinson and Son
Bottlers’ Supplies catalog stressed:
Care should be taken to have the bottles absolutely
clean and rinsed. One of the
chief vexations of the bottler is the so-called ropiness or viscous
fermentation. Too often this
is attributed to poor extracts, water, etc., when the trouble is far
more direct and lies entirely in uncleanliness.
A bottling shop is necessarily somewhat damp and the walls moist,
forming a splendid vehicle for the propagation of the bacteria, to which
this fermentation is due.
Fungi growths occur on the damp walls and ceiling.
The spores being dislodged by the first draft of air passing
through the shop, settle down in bottles, kettles, measures – in fact,
everything left open to the air.
The fermentation is then started which so frequently results in
the loss of large quantities of goods.
Let every utensil and vessel, then, be washed thoroughly
immediately before use, and never lay it aside until it has been
thoroughly cleansed, for it is far easier to prevent this ropiness than
it is to remove it after it has once obtained a foothold.
In fact, one may say a bottler’s direct enemy is dirt, and his
greatest boon is water, and plenty of it.
This
THE RIGHT IDEA.
By Wm. H. Minck,
I have been in some good big bottling plants, and
the condition they keep their places and machinery in is certainly
awful. Surely their
customers can’t feel proud when they bring a visitor around to go
through the plant. Floor
wet and dirty, cigar stumps, old labels, corks, broken glass, etc.,
lying around. As for
machinery, you can’t tell whether it is iron, brass, copper or lead;
walls covered with spider webs, dirt and dust.
Workmen’s appearance correspond with the surroundings, makes
a nice impression on the ‘Soft Drink’ drinking public when they
happen in. Now, this is
not as it should be. The
people drink your goods, therefore, cleanliness is, or should be the
bottler’s first thought.
Have your floor clean, nice pictures on the walls, machinery
polished, and everything neat and clean.
It’s no trouble once you get things clean to keep them so.
In my place of business the floor is swept every morning and
mopped every Saturday. I
have house-cleaning twice a year, Spring and Fall, when all movable
things are taken out, pictures and ornaments from the walls, the
ceiling brushed, the side walls swept down, floor scrubbed good,
machinery painted, furniture washed and oiled; then we are ready to
do business for the next six months, and don’t have to feel
embarrassed or ashamed should a visitor chance to drop in.
My generators, syrup cans, gauges, faucets and all brass or
copper about the place is polished so that you can see yourself in
it at any old time. I
don’t believe there has ever been one traveling man in my place
since I have been in the business (five years) who has not made some
remark, or complimented me on the cleanliness and good shape things
were kept in.