OUR INDUSTRIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10035, 28 April 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR INDUSTRIES.

PHCENIX CONFECTIONERY WORKS,

Among the many industries of Dunedin that carried on by the Phceaix Company (Limited), which consists of the manufacture of jams, biscuits, and confectionery, holds a very important position. As is well known, the company's factory is situated at the corner of Maclaggan and Clarke streets. The concern was originally carried on by the firm of R, K. Murray and Sons, for whom the premises were erected, but, after the old proprietors had conducted it for a considerable time, the business was purchased by the Phcaaii: Company in 1886, and since that year it has been greatly extended until it ia now one of the largest of its kind in the colonies. The business had a few years ago increased to such an extent that the company were compelled to extond their premises, so that they might ba enabled to keep pace with the growing demand for their goods, and an addition giving double the amount of floor space they formerly held was accordingly erected, but even now the accommodation the company have is recognised to be none too much. It is not our intention to give a description of how the various goods produced by the firm are made. Such a description, eufficieutly detailed to be clearly intelligible, would involve too great a demand on our space, and, indeed, a personal inspection of the processes is necessary to their being [ thoroughly understood. The motive power, it may be meutioned, is supplied by a multitubular boiler of 1001b pressure, working with a 14 h.p. steam engine. In addition to this boiler, which is exclusively devoted to supplying tho motive power, two other tubular boilers, each carrying a pressure of 601b, are used for supplying steam throughout the factory for'pans used in jam and confectionery mahing. The jam-boiling room on the ground floor is fitted up with six large steam-jacketed copper pans in which the preserve is made, after which it is put up in tins, etone jars, and glass bottles, the latter being made specially for the company, whilo finally a lift carries it to the finishing room, where the vessels containing it are covered and labelled. Some idea of the annual output ot the Phoeaix Company in this branch alone of its business may bo gained from the fact that this season they have bought 160 tons of fruit, nearly all of which was locally grown, and a similar quantity of sugar. Off the jam room is the peel depart? meat, supplied with steam pana and syrup vats. The skins used are imported from Sicily, direct from the citron fields, and are brought hero in biine, which, on their arrival, ia steamed out of them a3 a preliminary step to their being cared and candied. Oq the ground floor ate also the boiling room and bakehouse. In the former, the process of su^ar boiling—the first stage in the manufacture of lollies—ia performed, the sugar being boiled in copper pans, from which it is poured on to plates and manipulated, and then, having been allowed to cool, is passed through tho various rollers; and the eight of the confectionß as they come through the rollers would certainly bo delightful to a child. The bakehouse has recently b>en fitted up with what is known as a patent chain travelling oven. This is a huge oven in which the dough 13 placed after it has been through the "mixer," the "brake roller," the kueading machine, and the "cutting" machine—the biscuits baing cut in the latter machine ia the desired shape. The oven is 40ft long, and is heated by furnaces from beneath the floor level. It is something like a revolution in baking that is accomplished through its agenoy, for the biscuits, put on plates at tho one end in the shape of dough and carried through to the other end on chains travelling on pulleys, which are driven from the engine, come out ready for packing when once they have beencooled. The oven is capable of baking 30cwt of biscuits per day of eight hours. Ia the lozenge room two mills may be seen at work grinding sugar to tho fineness of flour, and there are also a '' mixer,"

"brake rollers," "pinning" and "cutting" machines, through which the dough—the dough this time of sugar and other ingradients— passes before it emerges in the shape of a commercial article. Adjoining the lozenge room is the pan room, where six large revolving pans are noisily at work, two others being in course of erection. Above this department, on the third storey, is the starch and moulding room, in which are made jujubes, chocolate creams, fondants, and goods of a similar description, and .alongside it ate drying rooms and a chocolate dipping room, in which the chocolate creams that are bo much in favour receive their outer coating. At the front of the building are the packing and labelling rooms, which communicate by a lift with the store, which U on the ground floor, and adjoins tha sample room and counting , house. The company make on the premises aU the tins they require for their own purposes, and, moreover, make all their own packing cases, nhile their employees include an engineer, who has a room fitted ap with the appliances sufficient -for effecting necessary repairs. Besides

the factory and offices in Dunedin, the company have branches ia Christchurch, Wellingr ton, and Auckland, at which centre?, however, they do Dot manufacture. la addition to these branches, they are io constant communication with all parts of New Zealand,' for they have travellers calling at every township of consequence throughout th 9 colony. It will be recognised that the business the company command is a very extensive one. The number of hands employed by them at present is 96 — by no means an inconsiderable number, and it is not to be overlooked that they give a.large amsunt of employment in an indirect way. The quantity of sugar used by the company annually amounts to 480 tons. When it is considered that a great portion of their manu-

factures may be classed as luxuries, it miy seem sutprisiog that in these days, when the strictest economy has to be practised by the masses, that the business done by the company is so large as it is. Such, however, is the case, and the company, baviDg a firm faith in tho future of the colony, are hopefully making further extensions.

B. HUDSON AND CO.'S WORKS.

The business carried on by Messrs R. Hudson and Co. is the oldest of its kind in Dnnedin, and embraces several classes of manufacture?, each one of which would in the old country be regarded as sufficient for a manufacturer to devote bis attention to. 'ihf-ra is method, however, in this firm's policy, and they have found it to their advantage to manufacture not one class bub numerous classes of goods. It was not always the case that the operations of the firm were so widespread as they now are, the business having been commenced in a very humble way by Me Richard Hudson, who is the sole proprietor, though his sons—four of whom are engaged in the firm—have now relieved him from much of the anxiety attendant upon the management of a large industrial concern. It was six-and-twenty years ego when Mr Hudson, with less than £100 to his name, established himself in the biacuit-bakiog busiI nes3 in Dunedin, The struggle was at the j outset a hard one, and he' suffered a severe blow when in the first year he contracted a bad debt for more than half the amount of his capital; but ho persevered determinedly and made headway gradually. In 1871 he was enabled to secure a confectionery plant and to add the manufacture of "sweets" to his business, and from that time his business has pr>greSßed by "leaps and bounds" until it" now givea employment to 100 hands and has extended its ramifications north and south throughout the colony. The bulk of Messrs E. Hudson and Co.'s manufactures aro produced from the factory in Moray place, behind and above their offices. In those premises it is that the confectionery is manufucI tur<^, that the "soft" biscuits are baked, that j the lemon and citron peel ia candied, and that , their cocoa and chocolate business is carried on.

With reference to the production of confectionery ifc is needless to say much. The process of manufacture is a simple one in the case of boiled goods; it is more delicate in the case of what are called starch good', such as jujubes and foudants, which are ruu iota starch moulds and theu allowed to dry, cleansed from tho starch that has adhered to them, and fioally crystallised; aud ifc is most delicate of all ia tho case of chocolates, for the making of which the bejt machinery and the most skilled workmen were secured from London, with the result that the firm are now able to produce an article that is, they claim, equal to the best imported and lower in prico. Some hundreds of different kinds of confections are turned oub by Messrs Hudson and Co., the majority of which are made by the agency of machinery, the higher class goods, however, being wholly or in part made by hand, whereby a superior finish is secured. For tho higher class goods, only the Auckland Company's best sugar is used, and it may be mentioned that the sugar is passed from tho milU through a silk "dresser," which separates the coarse from the fine. The principle upon which biscuits are made need not here be explained, but it may be said that the bakehouse contains two revolving ovens, each containing about a dozen spokes, which work in the same way as a steamer's paddle-wheel, carrying the trays containing the biscuits iv its circuit, the duration of which is regulated according to the length of time required for tho baking of the particular biscuits in course of manufacture. A third oven is

what i 3 called a continuous baking oven

and is employed for only a certain class of work. The production of cocoa forms an important part of the firm's business. The cocoa beans, which are imported from Trinidad, Ceylon, Grenada, or Africa, are, in the first instance, thrown into a "roaster," heated by a coke fire, and after they have .been allowed to cool, the beans are next broken up by a machine into what is known a "nibs," the fluffy shells being at the same time expelled by a very strong fan. The nibs are thon placed in what is called a chocolate melanger, a steam

jacketed mill, in which they are ground to the condition of a thick treacle-like

liquid. This having been run into canvas bags, is subjected to powerful hydraulio pressure, the elEect of which is to squeeze the oil out aud leavo a dry cocoa The latter is passed through granite rollers, and is allowed to dry in blocks, after whioh it is sifted throngh a small sieve and reduced to a powder, becoming the cocoa of commerce. The whole of the machinery in these works is driven by a oompouDd engine of W horse-power. An entirely new plant for the manufacture of "hard" biscuits was some short time ago erected by the firm in well-lighted and convenient premises close to their main factory. Steam power iB obtained from an engine and boiler which are in position outside the building, whence is driven the machinery, the whole of which—and there is a complete biscuit plant by means of which every kind of biscuit could be made—was locally made. The mixing machine, to which the flour is conveyed through a shoot from the floor above, is capable of mixing—that is to siy, of working up the ingredients into dcugh— 2001b at a time, and from it the dough passes to the "break rollers," of which there are two, both constructed by the Electrical and Engineering Company in' our own city. These machines perform the operation of kneading, and when the dough has been treated by them it goes to the "cutting" machine— this machine was also made by the Electrical and Engineering Company,—which, being fitted with gauging rollers, gives au^ven thickness to the material. With stampingTlies which are adjnsted in this machine, the biscuits I are cut into the desired shape, ready for the I oven, which is of the travelling description, the pans containing the biscuits being carried through the whole lfingth of the oven, from which the biscuits are taken out fully baked. This is the flr3t oven of the kind mado in New Zealand, probably in Australia, and it was made to Mr Hudson's own design. The speed at whioh the pan 3 travel through the oven can be regulated with a range of from 2i minutes to 30 minutes. There are two furnaces, and an even heat can be thrown to any part of the oven by the usa of dampprs. Having their own flour mill, Meesw Hudson and Co. oan make whatever variety .of fljur is wanted to suit the different classo3 of good?, and this fact i', as may ha imagined, a great advantage ta thsm. The present mill—for this part of the business is not a new feature, as mmy suppose— which is convenient, and exceedingly clean, is situated in Cambsrland utreet, and has storage accommodation for 10,000 sacks of grain on the ground floor, where there are also the boiler and engine for driviug the mills and tha main driving shaft and the elevator bottom?, there being quite a forest of shoots extending from tha floor to the coiling and through to the next flat. An improved mill is utiliitd for tho manufacture of granulated porridge meal, which partakes of tho character of semolina, and mikes a good substitute for oatmeal. It contains neither fine flour nor coarse brau,1 and tho objectionable features of most wheatmeals, so far iv the making of porridge is concernod, are therefore excluded. On tho ground floor also ia a large hopper into which the wheat, to Iw oonvertod mto flour, braD, or poll»rd, is shot prior to its being paseod tnroughsevoralwhea£eloauing machines, wherein tho grain undergoes a system of separating, scouring, and polishing until all the imparities have boon removed. The wheatcleaning machinery is on the top floor, and from it tho grain goss to the silos, from which it is "spouted" to the first "break roll," and thereafter to the

"Bcilping" machine, where it is sepir&ted, a portion going to the gradiug real, which grades the various products of tbo mill to tha respective machines, and the coarser portion passing to tho second break roll, and thenco oa to tha second scalper. The products from the second scalper pass through a grading machine containing a huge cylinder, about 20ft long, which is covered with silk of various degree 3of fineness. What remaius at the second soalpor pa93es to tho bran roll, where, so far as the grinding process goes, tho bran is finished. The products from the grinding net go on to a double reform purifier, which is automatic in its working and entirely dustless. This machine is one of tho latest inventions, hiving been only completed in the latter part of last year, and in November last only two machines of the pattern had left Great Britain for tho Southern Hemisphere. The purifier takes off six grades of middlings, portion of whioh passes to the rolls, another portion being bagged off for local use as fine and coarje semolina. At the till of tho machine an aspirator is to ba seen at work, drawing impurities from the stock, which are carried away »moog*t the offil. A row of centrifugal flour-dressing machines on this floor is fitted with internal "beaters" dressing out the flour from the products of the rolls. At this stage the flour of the finest quality is abstracted and called "patent" flour, the name being given to it on account of ita fiaenes3. While reference has been made to some of the opera-

lions to which grain in course of conversion into flour U submitted, it should be said that about 27 different machines deal with the material, and the whole process is so exceedingly complicated, that any attempt at a detailed description of it would, even to an expert mechanic, inevitably prove confusing. This much may be said; that tho machinery by which tho wheat is treated, while it removes every particlo of impurity, leaves the flour of the very finest whiteness, and deals with the products in sach a way that the strength of the, whext is not destroyed, as it often was in the days of tbo old stone grinding. Messrs R. Hudson and Oo.'i flour mill has only been started for threa months, but it 13 at-pre-sent working to its fullest capacity, and the firm, who arc, of course, themselves large consumers, have no stock oa hand. To meet the growing demand for their "Planet" brand of flour they are now making preparations for the duplication of their plant, tho order for tha extension having been placed in the hands of Mr Henry Simon, of Manchester, who expects to have the extra plant running by the end of July. Messrs Hudson and Co. are also erecting other _ milling machinery for the requirements of their trade, and expect before the expiry of tha year to have I all parts of their milling business iv full swing.