The Production of Bread From Peasant to Present

 

 

Bread is a commodity which most Americans consume about three times a day, in its various forms. For the most part, the convenience of purchasing bread, and the shift of women into the work force from the home, has resulted in an overall decrease of the in-home baking of bread. We often receive bagels, loaf bread, english muffins, bread crumbs, croutons and rolls which we receive directly from the either our server in a restaurant or from its protective plastic wrap from the grocer. Where does most of the bread come from when we order or buy it? For the most part the only image in the minds of most consumers is what the supplier provides them with. Many companies offer their bread within packaging that shows it coming signally from the hearth of a fire. This leads the consumer to consciously or unconsciously think of that bread having been made specifically for them, by the original process. More companies still take advantage of these effects by providing a brief story of the family tradition and recipe involved in that specific product. Still other bread is simply contained within plastic offering only the company logo and the mandatory nutritional information. When we see the loaves of bread or bags of rolls in the store with only our eyes, only the packaging is visible to us--but there is more that has gone into these objects.

 

History of Bread

Bread originated from the Egyptians about 2600 b.c. Bakers discovered that if they did not immediately bake a grain-and-water recipe called gruel, but first let it ferment, the resultant product was higher, lighter bread. With this discovery of leavening, Egyptian bakers expanded their production to include more than fifty different loaves. The Westphalian Germans later created a variation on sour rye bread and called it pumpernickel, from pumpern, "to break wind," and Nickel, "Old Nick the devil." This bread was reportedly coarse, ill-baked and as black as coal because they never sifted their flour. The sour rye bread was considered so difficult to digest that it was said to make even Satan break wind. (Panati 400)

In general terms, bread was baked in small batches, supplying at the broadest extent only the people of a very small village. Bread was made fresh and the skill and traditions of the process were passed on from generation to generation. This was how things were for a very long time, up until recently, about the early 1900's when bread began its transition to a mass produced commodity.

 

History of a Present-Day Company

Franz is a large baking company that presently goes by the name Franz, Snyders, Williams, and United States Bakery; depending on the market the company is supplying. The company was started in 1902 by two brothers-Joe and Englebert Franz. They claim to be the largest and most successful independent baker in the northwestern United States. Presently, the northeast Portland branch produces bread loaves, bagels, buns, rolls, english muffins, bread crumbs, croutons, cookies, and doughnuts. They supply many of these items to such fast food places as Burger King, Arby's and Carl Jr., as well as to sixty percent of the northwest restaurants, and nearly all of the grocers in the area.

 

The Franz Production Process of Sesame-Seeded Rolls

On the lower floor of the main bakery is where the flour is stored. It is held in two massive silos that reach up through the building. Down here, the flour is machine pumped through a sifter that shoots it up to the mixing room at a rate of 30 pounds per second. The flour is then mixed by machine with yeast, soybean oil, water, and the preservative calcium propionate. From here, the dough is sent to rise three feet in its massive bins which are each about five feet deep, twelve feet long and three feet wide. Once risen, the dough is wheeled out and machine lifted into an industrial mixer. At this point a man dumps in one weighed bucket of salt, and liquid sugar. The dough is mixed for another eight minutes and then released back into its bin to be machine funneled down a shoot where it is formed into small balls. This one batch will make about 6,000 rolls. The balls are then machine floured four at a time, and flattened. The circles of dough are then dropped into vegetable oil greased baking tins, each tin will hold 24 buns. At this point, where the dough is being machined into the tins, there are two men on duty that throw out the imperfect circles. The tins are then conveyor-belted to an oven set at 110 degrees. Here the buns are not cooked but made to rise again. The buns are then lightly sprayed with water and sprinkled with sesame seeds. There is a sensor light prior to the water and seed station that tells the machines when to release the toppings. The buns are then conveyed to the oven where they are baked for eight minutes. From this point the buns are taken along a twenty minute conveyor belt ride above the machinery, in order to cool off before packaging.

Before the buns are ridden into their plastic wrap, they glide by two inspectors who weed out the rejects that have not risen completely, are ill-formed, punctured or browned unevenly. The buns that have been rejected will be sold for one cent per pound to other companies that will use them for chicken feed. From here, the buns are plastic wrapped in groups of twenty-four and hand loaded onto palates. The palates are stacked, sorted for their destination and sent to the lower floor to be loaded on trucks by machines called "alligators". These buns are sent to fast food restaurants like Burger King and Arbys, as well as to restaurants and markets. This process is continual, from when the workers arrive until they punch out. Only one specific product is made per day, each day, or couple of days, the machinery is rotated or adjusted to churn out a specific product.

 

Ingredient Origins

Flour: The flour comes from the endosperm of Hard Red Winter wheat and Hard Red Spring wheat grown in Montana and Kansas. The wheat is then sent to a cereal food processor located along the Willamette River, and then trucked to Franz.

Yeast: The yeast comes from the company called Red Star Yeast located in California.

Sugar: The sugar is imported by Liquid Sugar Incorporated located in Portland.

Salt: The salt is mined in the Middle East and processed in California.

Sesame Seeds: The sesame seeds come from Mexico and Guatemala.

 

Personal Observations

When I showed up at the Franz Bakery in North East Portland for my tour of the bakery, I was joined by a large class of sixth-graders. We were herded by a small white woman in a hair net and Franz sweat shirt into a section of the bakery complete with memorabilia, logos, products, a television, VCR, and samples.

During our tour, the teacher of this group of children continually instructed them that their assignment was to find the problems with the present Franz system of making sesame seed buns. The kids came up with inefficiencies like, many sesame seeds are wasted when they are sprinkled on, and they are expensive. Also, they noticed that the rejected dough sold at one cent per pound was a lose of profit. They also thought that a machine could be invented and employed for many of the jobs, like staking palates and tins, that could be more quickly performed than by the people presently doing the jobs. Children are learning earlier and earlier to value efficiency and profit as paramount.

One possible problem that I noted was that with the exception of the female tour guide, every single one of the workers that I saw was a white male.

When our tour was over our guide fed us free, fresh doughnuts and milk, and we watched a video. Supposedly geared toward the younger kids, the movie was about the Food Pyramid. In one scene a boy was asking his mother what the pyramid was, her response was, " It's the secret to life...the secret to a healthy life." In another scene, the boy said to a nutrition character, "I heard white bread is bad for me." The character responds saying that white bread is very nutritional. Most of the kids laughed at this hilarious Franz propaganda, but they still got the message.

When I left the huge bakery I had a full stomach and my own goodie bag which included an apple turnover, a small sample loaf of bread, a Franz paper hat , and a paper Franz bread truck. I couldn't help but have somewhat of a good feeling toward Franz. At first I couldn't understand why a company would expend the effort of having free tours. I see after having been on one that it is a powerful advertising mechanism that builds perceived feelings of camaraderie, and closeness.

Page by Sara King

Work Cited

Panati, Charles. Panati's Extrordinary Origins Of Everyday Things. Harper and Row, 1987. New York, NY. p.400