452 Cereal Production

With that, the Head supervisor left the scene..... and Muriel, Kate and the rest followed their sector supervisors into the building quietly 

The building itself was very wide too, and had several entrance/exit points that Muriel could spot just from afar.

Muriel looked at the 4-storey building in awe.

'How exciting!'

.

The group followed the sector supervisor until they finally arrived at their sector.

"Everyone!

Before allocating you all to different sectors, you all will first be given a general overview of our production process.

Right now, there are already 120 workers within the Corn Flakes sector.

These workers were brought in from different departments within the food industry.

So they have more experience when dealing or working with the machines and tools here.

Many of these workers have already worked in the food industry for close to 3 years now. 

So with that said, in the future, if any of you face any problems.... please feel free to consult them at any time.

And to make it easier on you all, since they have already been properly trained on cereal production for the past month..... for each division within our sector, I will appoint 3 division supervisors from their group.

So please consult them first before coming to my office for any concerns.

And if it's something that concerns their morals and ethics... then please follow the protocol for such scenarios and I will get back to you all then.

Any questions?"

Everyone looked around, and when they saw no hands up in the air some .... they immediately replied.

"No sir!"

"No questions sir!"

"No!"

"_"

"Since there are no questions, then let's begin!"

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With that, they immediately walked towards a room that had several conveyor belts, white metal tanks and equipment within it.

The room was as large as a warehouse, and occupied 50% of the ground floor.

Trucks came in and dumped what they were carrying onto several conveyor belts, and the machines and workers immediately sorted the raw materials out.

Just one look, and one could see that this room catered to all different sectors within the cereal department.

And standing around this many equipments, were several workers that wore blue industrial jumpsuits..... as well as a dark blue apron, gloves, safety boots, and safety eyewear.

But even with their standard safety gear on, they still insisted on them to wear hairnets, aprons, and face masks too.

Eh?

Why did they look more like kitchen workers rather than the other workers that they had seen in the Food industry?

Well, the answer was simple.

In essence, the entire production phase was just cooking the raw ingredients up.

So no matter what, they needed to cover their hair up.

Just seeing the conveyor belt alone blew them out of their minds.

.

"Everyone.....on this floor, there are 2 divisions.

One division takes care of ray materials, while the other stores and takes care of finished goods.

And right now, we are in DIVISION 1... which focuses on raw materials.

Here... the solid raw materials are brought in by trucks and offloaded onto the vibrating conveyor belts.

The vibrations help to evenly spread the products along the conveyor belt.... as the belt passes through several screening processes.

Essential, these screening or sorting processes will help us eliminate good raw materials from the rest.

From there, the good grains are then inspected again just to be sure.... before finally passing through 4 washing tanks and 3 drying processes.

And of course, once dried..... specific raw materials are then sent to the different cereal sectors within the building.

As for the raw materials, all cereals will have 5 main type raw materials added: Grains, sweeteners, minerals, vitamins and additives (like salt and preservatives)"

As Muriel listened, she frowned slightly.

"Sir..... so do all cereals have the same type of raw materials added?"

"That's a good question.

No... they do not.

Take for example the type of grain used.

Some cereals may require the use of wheat, while others may require the use of oats, rice, barley and even corn.

For sweeteners, some might even use fruit flavours, honey, sugar or even cinnamon spice.

So the raw materials are selected depending on what product is needed."

Listening to that, Muriel and the rest nodded in understanding.

"So sir.... what type of grain will we use for the Corn Flakes?"

"Well.... we will be using Corn Kernels!"

"_"

Everyone looked at him deeply and tried really hard to imagine this cereal thing.

Weren't corn kernels just raw unpopped popcorn?

So will this cereal also pop like popcorn too?

.

After looking through division 1 thoroughly, Muriel and the rest continued on to the Corn Flakes sector within the building.

Here, they immediately continued their grand tour at the sector's Division 2.

"This division is where we process raw materials.

On my right, are storage tanks used for storing liquid raw materials..... and to my left, are storage tanks for the solid raw materials that are sent from Division 1."

Muriel looked at the massive Silver tanks that had corn kernels constantly being dumped into them by a series of conveyor belts.

"Alright!

Looking at the solid raw materials.... specific amounts are sent out to the grinders in batches, where they will be ground to our desired requirements.

The ground kernels are then sent to an industrial version of what is known as a pressure cooker."

Pressure cooker?

What was that?

Muriel searched her mind again, and new thought nothing like that existed in Baymard.

This industrial pressure cooker thing must be new.

Eh?

So it just cooked the Kernels in industrial batches?

She looked at the massive industrial pressure cooker which was essentially a massive horizontal tank.

.

"We have 12 industrial pressure cookers at the moment.

So when specific amounts of ground kernels are placed in the cookers.... the operator will lock the lid, and the system will pipe water and flavouring directly into the cooker.

From there, we leave each batch to cook for 3 hours tops."

As they listened to the supervisor, they also watched the operators and workers control the equipment too.

"Sir... why is the cooker now rotating?"

"It rotates for an even distribution of heat, and even cooking within the grains."

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement and later followed their supervisor towards Division 3.