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Show Area Spud Processor Uses Huge Steel Belt A revolutionary new development develop-ment in the oldest form of food processing the dehydration of food products is going to work here this month for one of the nation's largest processors of potatoes, Idaho Potato Growers. Each year, the Idaho Falls plant of this big cooperative processes pro-cesses some 2,500 railroad car loads of potatoes, enough to supply sup-ply the population of San Francisco Fran-cisco for a full year. Salient feature of the new drying dry-ing device is a stainless steel conveyor belt which forms a continuous moving trough that holds the food while heated air is forced upward through the belt's wire mesh. Three of the new dryers first installed in the intermoun-tain intermoun-tain area began operations at Idaho Potato Growers plant here recently. Initial runs were so successful that three more units have been ordered. Replacing aluminum tray dryers, dry-ers, the new equipment will dehydrate de-hydrate potatoes faster and more efficiently. The new dehydrator, called the belt trough dryer, was conceived and developed in the Wesern Regional Research Laboratory Lab-oratory of the U. S. Department of Agriculture at Albany, Calif., after several years of study. After a search revealed that existing belts would not make the new method commercially practical, conveyor belt specialists special-ists from U. S. Steel tackled the problem. The new dryers reduce mois ture content quicker and more uniformly, performing in about one hour dehydration which takes from four to five hours in the older method. The device has proved superior in the complete com-plete drying of foods such as aples, carorts, potatoes, bell peppers pep-pers and others. Great interest has also been shown in the dryer for industrial product drying. At Idaho Potato Growers' processing pro-cessing plant, the potatoes are peeled, washed and iced into small cubes which are fed onto, the new dryers. After drying, a high speed machine inspects the dried cubes separately by an electric eye before packaging for shipment. The processing plant, which employs some 325 persons, also produces frozen French fried potatoes and potato starch for shipment to all sections of the U. S. |