Public Iceboxes

Near Centralia, Wash., in the fall of 1917, while the rest of the U. S. was busy with World War I, a hunter bagged some pheasants which he wanted to keep for his Christmas dinner. As an accommodation, an ice-plant operator named J. A. Winchell plunked the birds into a water-filled milk can, froze them in a solid ice cake. On Christmas Day the frozen fowl came out of the ice cake fresh.

To Engineer Roger Sprague of Omaha's Baker Ice Machine Co., who serviced the Winchell account, the frozen pheasant episode gave an idea. Mindful that most U. S. farmers lack easy means of preserving for their own use food which they raise, he saw the possibility of a new market for ice machinery: plants to freeze and store food for the public. The idea took years to catch on. But today thousands of farmers go to cold-storage locker plants, rent lockers big enough to hold 250 Ibs. of meat (or 6 1/2 cu. ft. of any food) for $10 a year. The plants quick-freeze their meat. They also slaughter animals (at $2 a head for cattle, $1.50 for hogs, 75-c- for sheep) and prepare and freeze vegetables or fruits for 2 1/2-3-c- a pound.

Iowa, which had nary a plant in 1933, now has 500 of them. Last year 3,000 U. S. locker plants did a gross business of $20,000,000. By 1940's end the completion of 750 new plants is expected to up the industry's investment to $45,000,000. Baker Ice Machine Co., of which Roger Sprague is now sales head, last year made $400,000 worth of refrigerating machinery for new locker plants -- about a third of the U. S. business in that field.

Seventy-five per cent of the plants are situated in rural areas, but lockermen have their eyes on the big city markets. They say, for example, that housewives can save $100 on the annual meat bill of a family of five by buying a side of beef wholesale at a little better than half the retail price and having a locker plant's butcher cut and freeze it. Apostle of this drive to invade the cities is stumpy, chipper, leather-lunged Alfred Michael Reilly, Baker's Chicago sales engineer, who has peddled ice machinery for 27 years. Weekly he delivers lectures to persuade Midwest businessmen to scrape up the average $10,000 needed to build a locker plant. Some sales points in his favor:

1) few locker plants have many empty lockers on their hands; 2) the risks are small since consumers carry the inventory of frozen foods.

For the city trade he advocates a branch plant system whereby self-service locker plants have their dressing, quick-freezing and administration handled by a central unit. At present Mr. Reilly has a group of Chicago promoters flirting with his idea.

Their plan : to ring the city with a chain of branch locker plants serviced by one central unit.

Since the first branch plant opened four months ago, 50 more have been ordered or built. Last week a 100-locker branch plant opened for business in Geneseo, Ill. (pop.3,406). To it went customers who had been waiting for lockers in Emil Klinger's filled main plant. For his $10 deposit each newcomer received two keys -- one to the front door and one to the locker -- and the right to borrow an overcoat from the rack inside, so he won't catch cold getting his food out of his 0DEG-10DEG safe-deposit box.

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