The O'racca confectionery

Media

Part of The Sugar Cane Planter

Title: The O'racca confectionery
Language: English
Year: 1937
Rights
Fulltext: 24 THE SUGAR CANE PLANTER [DECEMBER, 1937 THE O,RACCA CON Recently the locality has shown added impetus for swerving their productive energies into fields of industry, and SUGAR has been playing its role in the scene of endeavors opening an endless vista of prosperity and solid bright future for cane producers in general. Its prospects as a manufacturing basis has already been discovered by a couple of enterprising men and we believe that mucli more of its possibilities in the field of industry is in store for vigorous and fresh attacks in the world of production. CANDY MAKING is only a phase of the sugar prospects-and through it the O'Racca Confectio:aery Co., Inc., has been índirectly boosting the rather decaying product by eating up in the course of its industrial processes vast quantities of sugar. The O'Racca confections and delicacies stand for a new era of development for sugar and insure the greater independence of the sugar production from foreign markets. THE O'RACCA LJFJ-DERS THE VISIONARY ,._.. Arata Tsutsui, founder and president of the O'Racca Confectionery Co., Inc., started the now prosperous enterprise with such humble beginnings as a baby endeavor swaddling through economic life in an effort to give to Filipino palates a taste and liking for a native rice cake commonly known as "ampau". He engendered the idea and gave it humble birth, constantly pursuing the manufacture of this centavo-cake that was, like in a fairly tale, to become the stepping-stone to a large and prosperous factory and the conerstone of a name that is a by-word of industrial stability in this country. In 1925, when the idea took concrete form, Tsutsui had only 5 Japanese employees and 5 Filipino workers, constituting as it were the whole ARAT A TSUTSUI President O'Racca Confectionery Co., ]ne. ByM.B. Vl paraphernalia of a small business in its stage of uncertainty and keen struggle for an existence . among the industrial moguls already fully established in the country. To his clear and vivid foresight, his financia! shrewdness, his sound business principies and his firmness and constancy of endeavor is attributed· the birth · of the wonderful idea, the launching on to a precarious industrial trial and the realization of a large scheme of industrial developmentthe O'RACCA CONFECTIONERY-as it now stands seniorial and sure on a 5,000 square meter block, a bulwark of economic steadiness a n d t h e beacon of local pros-· perity. , Through him, Arata T s u t s ti i-THE BUILDER AND THE Hundreds of girls work in the packing and wrapping department, plying their VISIONARY-O'Racwork cheerfully and efficiently. ca became a fight word Please Patronize Our Advertisers DECEMBER, 1937] THE SUGAR CANE PLANTER 45 En el túnel No. 4 la transversal Este adelantó 57 piés en granito, habiéndose cortado una venita. El transversal Este en el túnel No. 6 adelantó 3 piés en granito, cortando dos venitas. "MINERAL RESOURCES" INAUGURA Y CONSTRUYE SU 24º MOLINO El 15 de septiembre último se inauguró en la Isla de Marinduque la segunda instalación de metal basto y el 24 º molino que se construye y va a operar en Filipinas. Esta mina es de la propiedad y está explotada por Mineral Resources, y contiene zinc, plomo y oro. La propiedad comprende de 26 denuncias de vetas minerás y es la primera mina que se pone en explotación en Marinduque. Este depósito mineral fué descubierto a fines del pasado siglo por un fraile refugiado que se vió obligado a ocultarse en los bosques durante la insurrección. En 1902 varios Americanos localizaron la pertenencia y montaron en él pequeños molinos bocartes para extraer oro. No lo consiguieron pero mantuvieron la explotación y siguieron pagando el impuesto. En 1913 se organizó la Marinduque Mining Company y esta compañía erigió en la propiedad un pequeño horno de fundición, de construcción local. Por falta de conocimiento técnico en el tratamiento de la ganga, fracasó también esta aventura y entonces las pertenencias fueron devueltas a John Mueller, su propietario original. A 200,081.70 ASCENDIÓ LA PRODUCCióN DE "UNITED PARA CALE" Por el quinto mes consecutivo la United Paracale ha ido estableciendo nuevos registros altos en producción. La producción de Octubre ascendió a P200,081.70 la más alta hasta ahora obtenida por esta mina. El molino trató 7,962 toneladas de mineral por un promedio de P25,13 tonelada en comparación a P28.39 el mes anterior. En la producción arriba mencionada están incluidos P2,683.80 correspondientes a la producción de 142 toneladas de mineral procedentes de la fracción Rocky Mountain de la propiedad de la Northern Mines. La producción total este año hasta la fecha asciende a Pl,528,983.22 en comparación a Pl,176,283.00 durante el mismo período el año pasado. LA "GOLD CREEK" PRODUJO MAS EN OCTUBRE QUE EN SEPTIEMBRE La producción en Octubre ascendió a P455,232.57 de un total de 23,553 toneladas trituradas, registrando un aumento de Pl5,000 sobre la producción en Septiembre. El promedio de extracción en 22,577 toneladas fué de f'21.05 y la producción P437,489.23. La Gold Creek entregó 976 toneladas que dieron un valor de Pl6,807.98 y una extracción de P18. 72 tonelada. El molino trituró un promedio de 771 toneladas al día y una extracción de un 91.94 por ciento. La producción total de esta mina este año hasta la fecha asciende a N,617,462.99 en comparación a P4,045,424.90 durante el mismo período el año pasado. · THE O'RACCA CONFECTIONERY CO., INC. (Continued from page 28) factory atmospheres go the O'Racca prem1ses nas an air of homey friendliness. Every detail has been systematically mapped out by the genuis guiding spirit and each worker like the soldier and silently and methodically and with orderly precision pursue bis proper sphere of work with cheerful casualness. The factory building has a big Bachelor's Mess where unmarried employees live in the companionship of fellow-laborers. This department is situated in a third floor in a wing quite removed from the factory itself and closer to the office department. There are also dressing rooms for the women employees and lockers for the men. Every worker changes bis clothing before leaving the factory leaving bis work clothes in thelockers placed under the direct supervision of a lockman. There are also recreation halls that may easily be converted foto gathering halls if the emplovees are given a day "out". " Every detail of office, factory and laborersquarters is carefully supervised to perfect harmony with the rest of the activities. The manaj!"er's desk has careful note of every important feature in the premises without in the least hampering the great degree of freedom enjoyed by the O'Racca employees. MARKETS We have exported the O'Racca products to Guam and Hawaii markets but the greatest market is of course local. The company has a branch office in Java that can handle the foreign orders. The local and main factory of the O'Racca Confectionery Co. Inc., is the almost exclusive provider of candy and biscuit tid bits in our localities. For the 7,000,000 lbs. of local sugar that it uses up in a year the factory turns out vast quantities of sugary delicacies that have found acceptance all over the islands. The role that the O'Racca plays in the social· readjustments of our masses cannot be overestimated. It embraces a total of 700 Filipinos work-. ers and the insignificant number of 60 Japanese, It is worthy of note that the Japanese employees are mostly engaged only in the clerical phase of office work while the Filipino elements are all entrusted with the machinery departments and the more delicate job of handling the finished O'Racca products. · Please Patronize Our Advertisers DECEMBER, 1937) THE SUGAR CANE PLANTER =:TIONERY CO., INC. 'EVA against economic fear and national smallness. THE WORKER 25 But the guiding hand in the busi.ness at present, the follower who could beat his master ín commercial wisdom and managerial ability, the servant who could be trusted because he is responsible and at the same time enterprising, the perfect team for the thinker and the visionary is the WORKER-and in his young son-in-law Shigeru Murase, Tsutsui found the very man he needed for the fast growing and rapidly-moving concern. He needed the live-wire m a n, the machine footed worker, the here, and there and everywhere spirit that could in a simple and systematic way embrace a large deAnother curious mechanical piece o/ ingenuity-the biscuit cutter has just pr!Jssed its cutting teeth on a thin sheet o/ biscuit dough and we see the su<Jking device tha.t conve,ys the shreds o/ dough back into. the mi.xer partment factory. And Shigeru Murase filled this need. With a broad general culture behind him, a fondness for learning, a keen knack for observing SHIGERU MURASE General-Manager O'Racca Confectionery Co., lnc. technical processess, and an ability for almost everything connected with business, Murase joined the factory in 1930 as vice-president, treasurer and general marn!ger. And the factory saw an interna! metamorphosis-Machinery was added upon machinery, rnodern conveniences were installed, division of labor developed. departments were created, plans begun to unfold and the baby enterprise now no longer a sucking youngster entered into phase of rnanhood rnaturing into an industrial unit of great proportions. With a universal, cosmopolitan education, a passion for English literature especially Shakespeare, a love for operatic rnusic and general letters. this Japanese-built gentleman of the cherry land is Occidental in all other respects but his clear-cut Nipponese features. Murase took cornmercial courses in the Tokyo Commercial School and especialized in English literature in the Palmose Institute at Kobe, accepted a governrnent position in China for. 6 years, conducted an orchestra while there, carne to the Philippines to devote sorne of his time to journalist work for El Debate, and after getting a foretaste of alrnost every branch of human activity launched hirnself body and soul into the field that was to revea! hirn a master of business, commercial and industrial forces. To him, the energetic young worker of a rnodern world, is due the ta.sk of "carrying on". Through him the large factory as built by Tsutsui became large not only in its size but in its modern tendencies, progressive features, more extended fields of endeavor, improved general office managernent, most effective sale systems, and up-to-date operations. Please Patronize Our Advertisers 26 THE SUGAR CANE PLANTER [DECEMBER, 1937 THE FINISHED PRODUCTS-O'Racca gleaming sugary gems and temptingly delicious chocolate bars that constitute children's delight and .... shall we say? ..... SUGAR'S sal11ation ... ~. SIDE-SLANTING THE O'RACCA A cursory visit to the O'Racca Confectionery in the company of and with the expert guidance of no less a person than the general manager himself becomes at once an adventurous excursion into the fields of mechanism and business in general. It is a valuable experience by itself, which aside from demonstrating the high point o-f progress attained by local industrial art also gives to the observer an unforgetable ecstasy of admira tion for the beautiful ways in which little candy tid bits go into process of manufacturing and imbues the studious visitant with a big dose of mechanical knowledge and wise business principies. The highlights of our visit revealed the marvelous departmentation of the extensive field of work now undertaken by the O'Racca Confectionery. No longer exclusively devoted to the simple manufacture of the "ampau", the factory is now operating by units, each department or division being wholly dedicated to one of the various products produced by the factory. We take for instance the BISCUIT DEPARTMENT and note the wonderful process through which oµr ordinary soup crackers or soda biscuits are undergone. The flour, milk, eggs, yeast or sóda and whatever ingredients are used for the biscuit dough are automatically mixed in large mixers which rotate and move the said ingredients so thoroughly that they soon become an evenly mixtured dough. Almost mechanically too the dough, when of the right consistency, is transferred to the roller machines which flatten it to a very fine sheet. Without the aid of human hands, the sheets on the baking pans are travelled through the large machinery called the cutter, which pressing their sharp teeth on the fine sheets of dough leave them cut into the ordinary cracker shapes. The most marvelous feature of this machinery is that the clippings or shreds left by the incisor cutter are sucked up into a sliding pane that brings them all back to the mixer for re-utilization. The pans of biscuit are now taken by the boys, this time into the large CONNELL BROS. CO., LTD. HARVEST QUEEN FLOUR MORJON FLOUR L.,_,_, Manila AUSTRALIAN CROWN FLOUR TRIANGLE FLOUR MASTER BAKER FLOUR CHOICE FLOUR Please Patronize Our Ad,vertisers DECEMBER, 1937) THE SUGAR CANE PLANTER 27 ovens which are only a pace or two from the cutter-machine. The ovens we spoke of are unique Japanese ovens, brick-tiled in built, 40 ft. by 5 meters in size heated with powdered coal, with self-filling fur: naces which do not need a watcher to fill or tend. The other side of the vast ovens open into the baking pans and pack the biscuit in labelled cans. The MARSHMALLOW SECTION is a very simple department with only one small machine to operate the process. Starch-plaster moulds are prepared beforehand. The snowy semi-fluid dough is mixed in the marshmallow depositors and allowed to flow into tube-like protruberances THE BOILER-an automatic steam creator that functions all by itself and stops without the aid of human hands. Proud of his boiler, Mr. Murase stands near its stea.ming heat to explain the details of this wonderful mechanism that sets the whole factory to. motion. situated below the mixer. As the machine functions, the tubes move an up and down motion with such impregnable precision that every time they are lowered they eject the marshmallow mixture exactly in the hales of the moulds, each ejection being mathematically of an even quantity and weight. Once filled the moulds are removed to a room called a "dryer". It has a temperature of 150° and hardens thc marshmallows to such consistency that they neither bake entirely nor will allow of melting under any given ordinary temperature; rather they attain in the "dryer" that gelatinous state of the finished product every marshmallow gormandizer raves about. COMPLIMENTS OF GHZ BROS. & CO. MANILA IMPORTERS-EXPORTERS OF GENERAL MERCHANDISE ,~ ; ;1 ;1 ;! ,~ ji ji , , ~ , ,~ . 1 ji ' , 1 ~~,_,_,~~--_, ___ ,_,~~-"---'~-,~~-'-"'---~ ·~--;::---~ __ .... ~~ ...... ......,..,,.,...._.~.,-;;; ;>~~ ..... ¡>~....-;;; ~..--r~~. CEL-0-GLASS Ligih. tweigh t, non-shatterabli1 window material in rolls FIR-TEX building board for insulation and air conditioning FILTER PAPER in sheets in rolls SEWING TWINE Distributors J. P. HEILBRONN CO. 233 David Manila ,~ ,~ 1 .,, . l. Please Patronize Our Advertisers 28 THE SUGAR CANE PLANTER [DECEMBER, 1937 The cooling unit, the freezing apparatus of the factory now being installed. The CARAMELS are cooked in regular-sized vacuums or continuous cookers moved by steam. The candy cores are also cooked this way then passed on when cool to a coil machine which brings· out the material in lenghty coils. The coils are dumped into a ball machine which upoa one stroke cuts each of them into rounded halls. For a chocolate-coating, candies are passed on to another department where revolving pans run by steam take the job of coating them very evenly on all sides with a chocolate ingredient. Caramels and other chocolate candies are dried WITH COMPLIMENTS OF ATKINS, KROll & CO., INC. IMPORTER~EXPORTERS 1~:~~~~~~~7>'~!:!::~><J. in another drying room of less heat than the marshmallow dryer. As for chocolate bars after they receive chocolate coatings, they are mechanically slided into a cooling box. Chocolate bars need to be cooled so that they do not melt later in their wrappers. The Company is installing a new cooling unit or ammonia compressor which will govern all the freezing work in the factory. The toffee process is almost similar except in that the leathery dough must be very carefully flattened for severa! times in the roller machine until they attain the required thickness. It has a unique sizing and shaping machine which operates in two motions. In one motion the flat matter is cut lengthwise by a blade device and with the other fell of another set of blades the lenghty coils are cut crosswise into toffee squares. The whole manufacturing system is a curious compendium of mechanical work that involves a lot of ingenuity-not in the minds of the geniuses who invented each indivídual machinery-but in the organizing ability of a11 these separate devices to fit in into one vast factory system elevated by modern standards. THE O'RACCA PREMISES-A MODERN FACTORY A happy feature of the O'Racca factory is the general spirit of contentment that reigns over the working force. Girls and boys neat in their apparel and in uniformed O'Racca caps ply their respective Iabors with cheerfulness. As far as · (Continued on page 45) E V E INK-STAINED FINGERS! R ~ Like a tightly-corked bottle, 1 ~ the Eversharp Pen can't leak! The Safety lnk Shut-Off has banished all ink stains and S messiness. When you screw on the ln u1 cap, you automatically cork up the ink in the barrel. lt can't leak out to mess up A .fingers, papers, clothes. ,A\. Eversharp alone has the r¡ ~ Safety Ink Shut-Off, the adR" justable point, Doric beauty of design. The transparent barre! holds an amazing P amount of ink . . . .fills in onc scroke. Philippine Education Co. 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please Patronize Our Advertisers