Madison County History and Genealogy

History and Genealogy



History of Madison County


London Creamery Company


From History of Madison County, Ohio, Chester E. Bryan, Supervising Editor, B.F. Bowen & Co., Indianapolis (1915)

Almost over night, in 1913, a red brick building, with a tall smokestack attached, sprang up on the old Morgan lot at Oak and Fifth streets, and London people began at once to speak about the London Creamery Company. Its approach was made quietly but steadily, for the men behind it realized its opportunities and its possibilities, and they were of the quiet, unostentatious type of boosters. The company simply decided that it was to be, and in a short time it "was." In an agricultural community the word "creamery" is fami1iar—everyone knows what butter is and how it is made—yet, when

it is stated that the London plant is a gathered-cream creamery, it probably arouses a question in the minds of many. A gathered-cream creamery simply means a plant where only separated cream is used. Very little sweet skimmed milk is used in such a creamery, and then only for a "starter."

Delivery of cream is made by anyone who has cream to sell. Only cream is purchased by the London company, and when it is delivered at the plant it is subjected to the butter-fat test to determine its percentage of butter fat. The cream is then placed in a large vat to await the inoculation with the lactic acid germs from sweet milk. A portion of sweet milk is heated to one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit and held at that temperature for about thirty minutes. It is then cooled to fifty degrees and then gradually raised to seventy-five degrees, which is the growing temperature for the lactic acid germs. This warm milk is then innoculated with a germ culture made the day before, and allowed to stand over night, forming the clabber which is used as the starter for the cream.

About two thousand pounds of cream are used for a churning. This cream is pasteurized or heated to one hundred and forty degrees and then held thirty minutes before being lowered to seventy-five degrees, when it is innoculated with the lactic acid germs formed the day before. The cream is then allowed to "ripen" for about four hours and afterward cooled to about forty-six degrees, which is the average churning temperature. The inoculating and ripening processes take place in large vats which hold about four hundred gallons each. Inside the vats are copper coils which are hollow and contain hot water or steam and cold brine or simply cold water, depending on the temperature of the season and whether the cream is to be heated or cooled.

HOW BUTTER IS MADE

After the cream has ripened it is pumped into a large cylinder churn, which has a nine-hundred-gallon capacity, but which contains only three hundred gallons at a churning. The churn is revolved at high speed until the butter comes up in granules about the size of a grain of rice and floats on top of the buttermilk like popcorn freshly popped. The buttermilk is then drawn off and water is passed over the butter to clean it. Salt is added and the churn revolved again. This time, however, the workers inside the churn are set in motion and the butter is thoroughly beaten and worked and salted. It only remains now for the butter to be taken from the churn and packed for shipment. This is done in sixty-two-pound firkins for the Eastern markets, and in one pound prints for state and local consumption. It is stored away in an eight-thousand pound refrigerator until ready to be shipped, but never does it stay at the plant more than five days, so great is the demand for the London creamery product.

Shipments are made regularly to various commission houses in Columbus, Dayton, Springfield, Pittsburgh, and occasionally to New York and Boston. The Hartman farm, near Columbus, cannot make enough butter to supply its own demands, and has selected the London product as the one to satisfy its wants. Orders of one hundred pounds or more are sent each week to that place.

Although not in actual operation until May, 1913, the company from the date of its opening until January, 1914, did over twenty thousand dollars' worth of business. During the year 1914 the company paid out over fifty thousand dollars for cream alone, and so far this year has exceeded that average per week. The business, in spite of the war, and general financial depression, has been booming and there is every reason to believe that it will continue to do so.

The directors of the company are: R. W. Boyd, president; Frank Kaufman, general manager; George Langen, secretary; John B. Van Wagener and T. H. Orcutt.


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