Seeing is believing.
Seeing is also learning, and it’s what I’ve experienced at every one of the approximately 200 operations I’ve visited over the years as a trade journal technical editor. An editor can see and learn far more than can be explained and heard during a phone interview. That’s a key reason why my senior-level colleagues and I regularly get out into the field to see first-hand what we’re writing about.
A recent visit to marshmallow maker Doumak’s plant in Bensenville, IL, was no exception.
I’d been warned that photography could be a challenge. Starch, used prominently in marshmallow production, serves as a temporary bed for the extruded ribbons of warm marshmallow. This process takes place in a room next to the packaging operations. A faint fog of starch lingers as production continues, accumulating everywhere over time, on equipment, on people, and potentially on a camera lens.
However, our visit purposely coincided with the plant startup after a lengthy shutdown, so everything was clean as a whistle.
As is usual with these in-plant visits, I learned a few things talking with company president Barry Blum and touring the operations.
One thing that he pointed out that sticks with me is that marshmallows are difficult to package, especially on vertical form/fill/seal machinery. When Blum mentioned this to me, I suggested that maybe it’s because they get caught in the seal area? That does happen occasionally, but that’s not what Blum mentioned.
Hmmm…how could something so soft and fluffy be hard to package?
Can you figure it out before I did?
Time’s up: It’s the fact that marshmallows are light and fluffy that makes them problematic to package. They are so light in weight that when they cascade down the machinery’s forming tube to the awaiting opened bag below, they displace air, which rushes upward to impede their downward flow.
Unlike candy or cheese or vegetables or just about anything else that can bagged, marshmallows aren’t significantly heavier than air. He also notes that the regular (large) size is more challenging to package than the miniatures.
“In my next life, I’d like to package ball bearings,” lamented Blum after explaining this to me.
Although I don’t recall having seen ball bearings packaged, I have seen nuts and bolts bagged, and I know that they are much louder and hit the bag with a lot more force than marshmallows.
Blum’s observation is my latest tidbit in a long list of packaging minutia I’ve accumulated through the years. Perhaps someday there will be a Trivial Pursuit Packaging Edition to play.
