Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Martin's Potato Chips Tour – New Droid X

(York, PA) – It was pouring when we got up and we weren’t sure if we wanted to get out for factory tours or not, but by the time our 11:00 appointment rolled around it was partly sunny.

Martin's Potato Chips is a small company about four miles from our campground.  They don't even have their name on the building.
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The only place we saw their name was on the truck outside.
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Potatoes come in daily by truck, sometimes there are three trucks during busy times like Christmas or Super Bowl time.  The potatoes come from as far as Florida or New York.  Today's load came from Michigan.  They’re dumped on a conveyor belt with little rubber knobs that cleans off dirt and sand, then the belt carries them into the factory.
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They’re dropped into a bin with rough sandpaper type scrapers to take off the peelings.  It’s very fast.
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Once they go through a giant cutter that slices them into chips, they're dropped into canola oil in the deep fryer.  There’s four fryer bins.  The oil is constantly tested by a quality controller and changed when needed.
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When the chips start floating they’re taken out of the bin and put on a conveyor belt.
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This belt shakes back and forth to flatten the piles of chips as they go to the next stage
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This machine sprinkles salt on the chips.  It’s a very powdery salt, not like regular table salt.
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The chips then are dumped into bucket-like containers and are carried up to the second floor for bagging.
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They also make popcorn which is air popped in this giant drum.
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We had to wear hair nets.
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This is the bagging machine.  It pulls the bags from the spindle, opens them, puts in the correct amount of chips, and then seals them. This machine also applies price tags to the bags.
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The bagging machine dropping the chips into the open bags.
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The empty boxes come down the line and the employees put bags in the boxes, then it goes to a box sealer machine.
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The warehouse has thousands of flattened boxes to be assembled.
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It was quite informative and our tour guide was really good.  We have really enjoyed our tours.  We didn't have time for another tour today.  I wanted to get back home and wait for Fed Ex to deliver my new phone, the Droid X.

It came an hour after we got back, so I activated it and played around with it trying to learn all that it does.  I have a class on Thursday at Verizon to give me tips on how to set it up and use it.  I figured out how to answer it, and make a call, but other then that I haven’t got much accomplished.  It’s quite a piece of equipment with a steep (for me) learning curve.  I feel like I’m always connected now, and the PC will be for computer work when I’m home and the phone will be my PC when I’m away. I’m hoping to use it as my GPS and give Jim the Garmin GPS for the truck.

We’ll see what we get into tomorrow, just not sure at the moment.  There’s still a couple tours to do, and hopefully no rain.

6 comments:

Gypsy said...

You really are going hi tech!

Karen and Al said...

I have been thinking about getting a Droid X also. I understand you can tether it to the laptop too. Was their any waiting period when you ordered it?

I'll bet that tour smelled really good!

KarenInTheWoods said...

Oooh now a fancy schmancy phone! Let us know how it works----

You can learn for all of us and answer our questions when we get one LOL

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Karen and Steve
(Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/

Along the Way with JnK said...

I have been wanting a Droid X, a friend got one and she loves it but I just can't justify paying an extra $30 a month when we hardly use our phones we currently have.

Plus, it would take away our current grandfathered in plan which gives us all unlimited at a price they no longer offer.

Will be waiting for a full review on this new gadget.

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for posting this. We've been learning about where our food comes from with our daughter and she was really interested in your pictures and description.

Good luck with the Droid!

John and Carol said...

I love my Droid! It does have a bit of a learning curve but it is so amazing. My girl friend has one too. It seems like our phone conversations now are all about new apps. :)

I justified the $30 extra fee per month by being able to eliminate my internet service. You can tether the Droid to your lap top and have very good service.

Enjoy!

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