The Exhibitor (1959)

TYPICAL BLUE RIBBON SUPPLY SOURCES (cont.) BLEVINS POPCORN COMPANY plant, Ridgway, III. GREEN RIVER: For 50 years it has been a mark of distinction for soda fountains to dispense Green River. Today, this still holds true, but in a more inclusive way than ever before, for Green River now reaches a larger public than ever before because thousands of satisfied customers now depend upon ABC automatic vendors to hand them the beverage. Hundreds of indoor movie houses and drive-ins have tested and proven the immediate accept¬ ance of Green River in vending machines. H A R V I C MANUFACTURING COM¬ PANY : This Gotham firm serves ABC with a full line of counter-type pizza ovens and a new all-electric broiler — the “Chark-el” — especially designed for drive-ins. The new broiler gives meats and other foods an authentic, charcoal-broiled flavor without the fire hazards, soot, ashes and greater costs involved when using charcoal. Other advantages claimed by the manufacturer are economy in installation cost and space, simplicity of operation, ease of cleaning, flexibility of location, speed in warm-up — requiring only 90 seconds to full heat from a cold start, and elimination of special ventilation and air conditioning problems. Two models are currently available. AUSTIN PACKING COMPANY: Austin’s Vendapaks feature a horizontal arrange¬ ment of the firm’s cheese peanut butter sandwiches. The company has recently in¬ troduced its Pizza Sandwich, a spicy pizza spread between crisp cheese crackers, six sandwiches in each package. The package is double-wrapped in cellophane and printed in bright yellow, red and white, an eye-catcher in vending machines from coast to coast. The company has had to expand constantly since its founding in 1935 by Ernest and Martin Fox. Today it occupies a building that is spread over a lot of some 65,000 square feet — and is still expanding. Austin makes its own spreads, peanut butter and pizza spread, to assure a high standard of taste quality. The firm has been an important supplier to ABC for more than 20 years. THE NESTLE COMPANY: At the turn of the century, The Nestle Company, a Swiss controlled organization, was known to Americans solely as the manufacturer of fine chocolate and baby food. At that time, too, the vending industry was in its in¬ fancy and to the average citizen was limited to penny-in-the-slot machines, which dispensed candy and chewing gum chiefly in stationery stores and “el” sta¬ tions. As vending grew in structure and public acceptance, Nestle adapted itself to the new trend. Penny packages grew into five-cent and ten-cent sizes. Nestle in¬ creased its candy line from pure milk chocolate to include a milk-chocolate-andalmond bar, its Crunch package and its Fruit ’n Nut package. In addition to the aforementioned products, Nestle also offers Nescafe, instant coffee, Nestea, Nestle’s Choc-Lade, and EverReady sweet milk cocoa, all available in special vending packages. In addition, for smaller vending locations, the company makes “single¬ service packages” of coffee, hot chocolate and soups. To meet the demand for ma¬ chine-vended soups, Nestle also offers its specially packaged Maggi Brand Instant Chicken Soup and Instant Beef-Vegetable Soup. BLEVINS POPCORN COMPANY: Own¬ ers of the largest popcorn facilities in the world, the Ridgway, Ill. operation, is but one of three major operations of the Blev¬ ins Organization. Blevins maintains an ac¬ tive cooperation program with the major universities in their development of better hybrids. Each year the Blevins Organiza¬ tion works closely in the testing of experi¬ mental hybrids so that large users of pop¬ corn, as well as the farmers who produce the crop, may know all the advantages of any new hybrid in its experimental stage. The company now offers popcorn processed to exacting quality specifications, shipped from three modern processing plants to provide a maximum savings in freight rate to any part of the world. The firm offers its product in a great number of packages for vending machines in theatres all over North America. Theatre owners themselves are well aware of the amazing popularity popcorn has achieved as a food since its introduction in their lobbies. FLAVO-RITE FOODS, INC.: makers of Flavo Shrimp Rolls and Flavo Lobster Rolls and for eight years pioneers in the development and national distribution of foods for drive-in theatres. Flavo-Rite re¬ cently moved to larger quarters in New York City. The new plant, located in a modern building, has a floor area of 10,000 square feet, including storage space, and is twice the size of their former layout. Food preparation equipment is all of stain¬ less steel and is especially designed for quality control as well as increased pro¬ duction, according to Kenneth Fell, presi¬ dent. A special testing kitchen serves as a research center for the development of new and varied products for the growing drive-in theatre, drive-in restaurant and other concession fields in which the com¬ pany plans to intensify its activities. Al¬ though Flavo Shrimp Rolls are now served in 1,200 drive-in theatres, new facilities will enable the company to extend the market further westward and to serve present customers even more efficiently. NESTLE CHOCOLATE COMPANY building, White Plains, N. Y. ABC-28 MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR July 1, 1959