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The History
of the Allbright-Nell Company
For the past century, the
Allbright-Nell Company (ANCO) has existed as one of the most dependable
product lines in the industry. In 1993, Rick Eaglin purchased the ANCO
line, creating a new company under the name ANCO-EAGLIN, Inc. In the following
links, you can learn about ANCO's past and how it developed into what it
is today.
< The
Beginning > < 1965-1977> < 1977-1993 > < 1993-Present > < The
Beginning > Mr. William B. Allbright graduated from MIT
and for the next 15 years his employment gave him complete charge of
the manufacture and sale of oils, fats, grease and other animal products.
He developed many new processes and invented new machines that later became
standards in the industry. Among these was a process for making cottonseed
oil and mixing it with beef fat and stearine to produce a "compound." The
company gradually expanded until the Great Depression, but it recovered
well.
In time, Mr. Allbright became associated with Mr. B.
F. Nell and in October 1902, formed The Allbright Nell Company, which
started in a small building at 4023 Wentworth Avenue. In 1917, they moved
into the newly constructed building located at 5317-5329 South Western
Boulevard. Shortly after vacating their original building, it collapsed.
By
1920, the company had expanded to include a line of soap-making and canning
equipment as well as Barometric Condensers. The Engineering and Production
Departments had developed manufacturing techniques to such an extent
that management was confident that ANCO could successfully compete with
any and all competition.
Up until the mid-20's, most of the machines
that were built were flat belt driven. Pulleys and countershafts were
big business. With the compilation of the No. 20 General Catalog by Schemer
in 1932 came the first promotion of directly motor driven electric machines.
In 1921, the depression forced ANCO to suspend shop operations on alternate
weeks for a short period. Shop supervisors made repair parts and breakdown
orders were filled and shipped with the help of office employees.
In 1930,
the first year of the "great depression" did not affect
the meat industry or ANCO too heavily. However, in 1931 and 1933, ANCO
wages were cut. (The Roosevelt bank holiday occurred in March of 1933).
Around this time, ANCO became one of the first industrial offices to
have air conditioning in Chicago.
Under a New Deal program, a "cooperative
adjustment in corn and hog production," during
1933-1935, the meat industry was an unwilling partner in the liquidation
of 6,188,000 pigs and 220,000 piggy sows, as well as other emergency
and relief activities of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.
This was all due to an over production of hogs and a severe drop in prices.
In
1934, the drought brought on a program of government buying of starving
cattle and the canning of meats for relief purposes. Even some states
started the canning of meats. Therefore, ANCO was loaded with orders
for equipment to prepare meat for canning.
In 1937, ANCO installed most
of the equipment for Armour's new six story Chicago Beef Plant, the largest
in the U.S.
After two years
of experimenting by Tobin Packing Co., ANCO installed the first complete
Resin Depilatory system in their Fort Dodge, Iowa plant. It was here
that the first ANCO industrial movie was made. After shooting in many
plants during the next couple of years, a 1200-foot film was produced
and shown throughout the world.
In 1938, just a few days before the AMI
Convention, an agreement was made to produce a Bacon Press which Swift & Co.
had experimented with. With just two large photos of their crude apparatus,
they secured orders for about twenty presses. The ANCO Press soon became
a big seller.
1941 brought the U.S. into World War II and soon the Office
of Price Administration placed ceilings on meat prices--then food rationing.
Most wages were frozen. Up to this time, ANCO had steadily progressed.
During the war years ANCO doubled it's output for the meat industry and
did nine times this amount (in dollars) in "war work". Most
of the latter was in machining and the partial assembly of parts for
Sherman army tanks. Two shifts were operated and some women were hired
and trained to operate small tools and weld.
By this time, great progress
had been made in the development and manufacture of the Hydramatic Slicer
with its unique involute knife. By 1964 it was estimated that over 85%
of all sliced bacon was being cut on ANCO Slicers. The diamond trademark
was registered in the U.S. Patent Office (Reg. No. 559,232). Through
1966, ANCO agencies had equipped five large slaughterhouses in Russia,
Philippines, Formosa, South Africa, and New Zealand.
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< 1965-1977 >
Chemetron Food Equipment Division of Chemetron
Corporation, a newly formed combination of the previous Allbright-Nell
Division, Votator Division, and Mepaco Division, was created.
Their batch
cooker has a built-in power pack drive; this assured fast, even cooking
with the reliability of a durable, custom made drive system that provided
the long life of this equipment. An electronic end point control system
allowed the operator to preset the precise moisture level of the final
product. Although the basic batch rendering process has not changed a
great deal from the old days, it had been automated to such an extent that
it could be very competitive with the continuous rendering operations.
Their
innovations in the batch rendering field include automated blow tank systems
for charging cookers, or controlled cooker feed through the use of a new
hydraulically operated piston-type raw product pump, which can be set to
meter precise charges.
Improvements were also available in air and water
pollution control. For condensing in areas of the country where cooling
water is not available, air-cooled ondensers can be used, which operating
as a giant radiator, condenses the cooking vapors. In areas where there
is a need for hot water, heat recovery systems were available which, as
a by-product, produced useful, potable hot water for other operations.
The
ANCO Continuous Hydrolyzer was a new innovation for poultry feathers and/or
hog hair. This equipment rapidly subjected the feather material to relatively
high pressure in the presence of moisture for a short time, affecting the
Hydrolysis of the material from its present state to a granular state and
changing the chemical make-up of the material to provide extremely high
digestibility.
In 1977, the company was in the process of developing a
heat recovery system that would preheat the product in a heat exchanger
heated by cooking vapors prior to the product entering the Strataflow Cooker
itself. This system is expected to further reduce energy consumption.
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< 1977-1993 >
During the period from 1977 through 1993, two other companies owned the
ANCO equipment line. Sales declined drastically due to less emphasis being
placed on the equipment line and because of the consolidation of the sales
force. The company's final ownership was under Cherry-Burrell Process Equipment,
a division of the United Dominion Industries, Inc., a Delaware Corporation.
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< 1993-Present >
In
August of 1993, after purchasing the ANCO® equipment line from
Cherry-Burrell Process Equipment, our company was formed under the name
of ANCO-EAGLIN, Inc. The company began operation in Greensboro, North Carolina
with the goal of successfully changing the declining history of the ANCO® equipment
line over previous 15 years. Besides increasing the number of cookers sold
since acquiring ANCO®, we introduced a newly designed crax-press to
the beef industry. Its immediate success allowed expansion into other related
rendering applications. At the new manufacturing facility in Greensboro,
our inventory was increased to a half million dollars of replacement parts
for related ANCO® equipment. ANCO-EAGLIN, Inc. continues to make
its primary goal to provide you with quality, service, and superior workmanship. Recently, in January of 2003, ANCO-EAGLIN completed construction on the
newest addition to its Greensboro, NC factory. By the end of the month,
the new addition had doubled the size of the plant, and thus doubled the
production capabilities, to futher meet the needs of the rendering industry.
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