It was an ordinary day. Adding the photos that I took at the Reist Popcorn Company a few days ago. Yesterday I wrote a story about the company and the great time I had visiting with the owner, Dave Reist. Dave is truly an ambassador to the Lancaster County small business industry. He was more than willing to take his time to talk about his trade and you could tell that he really enjoys what he does for a living. I have too many photos to add with the story, so I decided to keep them until today to share. As I said in the story yesterday, the explanations that accompany the photos are my fabrication and I hope they are fairly accurate. Dave told me he was sure I would do a good job. Here's hoping, Dave! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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Original Reist Seed Company building from 1925
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Reist Popcorn Co. along Manheim St. in Mt. Joy. Mural was painted by artist Wayne Fetro.
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Rail cars arrive and unload the popcorn through bottom chute.
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This is photo of Dave, right, and his son-in-law Mike Higgins in front of the density gravity separator machine. Photo from Lancaster Newspapers
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The density gravity separator uses air to separate the kernels by size. Small kernels, cob residue and refuse is channeled in chutes to the barrels in the foreground. Some of the kernels that can't be used for popcorn are used for bird seed.
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The kernels that can be used for the popcorn are sent down a chute and eventually go to the third floor of the building to go through the Optical Scanning machine.
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Dave shows me the state-of-the-art Optical Scanning machine that checks every kernel with a photo scanner for color and discards kernels that have any discoloration. The scanner can process about 12,000 pounds of popcorn per hour and assures that the kernels are a very pure product. The corn then continues to the bagging area.
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Justin Sheetz, one of the five employees who work at the company, collects the corn kernels in large bags. The weight of the bag can be seen on the digital reader at the rear. The large bags of popcorn are then transported to a storage area by forklift.
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The popcorn is eventually bagged and stored for shipping.
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The corn on this skid is of the mushroom variety.
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Dave and one of this other employees, Jay Kreider.
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Great and informative story about Reist Popcorn, Ldub!! You did a great job capturing the business and the pictures are great! They make me proud to be a Reist (Dave is my father)!
ReplyDeleteThanks again for writing about a local small business! Dana Reist Custer
Nice post. Thanks for sharing. We also manufacturers of Gravity Separator MachineGravity Separator Manufacturers
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