Explaining my interests

Unlike my colleagues who studied Physics with me at university, who all wanted to make fundamental measurements, my interest was in making difficult measurements in an industrial process which affected the quality or quantity of the product. For example, I was interested in moisture content measurement, and it did not matter for my interest to me whether it was Kit –Kat wafer or plasterboard.

Unlike others as in the food industry Rowntree’s recognised that it was behind in measurement, which was a good start  on measurement and with governments support formed a collaborative instrumentation Committee to improve matter throughout the industry, 15 years later I became Chairman of the committee and as such visited many of our competitors and I was the only person from Rowntree’s to visit Mars! 

When I went for my interview at Rowntree’s I was interviewed by the Divisional Director who had trained as a physicist but with a different interest as me he had developed into food technology.

I very much liked the ethos of Rowntree’s, which like Cadburys and Frys had been founded by Quakers. The Quakers were not allowed to go to university because they were non-conformists and went into trade instead.

I was pleased that quite a few of the staff were still strongly influenced by the previous ethos.  I very much liked the way their word was their bond without the need for contracts and I liked the way they did negotiations. Both partners went away satisfied feeling as though they both had gained something, rather than one partner feeling as though they had been “screwed” by the other. 

They were very paternalistic, Cadburys and Rowntree’s, building model villages near their factories with all the facilities except a public house. Joseph Rowntree left several charitable foundations. Rowntree observed there was always money for soup kitchens but not for the underlying causes of poverty which he wished to tackle. Rates of pay were perhaps below average, but all sorts of other benefits were excellent, and I think that more than made up for it.

Details of my work for Rowntree

I was disappointed and amazed there was no proper physics laboratory, so one of my first tasks was to set a physics lab up, closely followed by an electronics laboratory since electronics are involved in many measurements and I tried to staff these labs with suitable people giving further training where appropriate.

We designed and developed several instruments to measure the mechanical properties of the products which of course reflected the eating properties of the product, also I did  a lot of work involving moisture in products which critically involves the eating  properties, I  developed some novel methods of moisture measurement and obtained two patents for the company.   Moisture in Kit-Kat wafer is critical for several reasons and to get the best eating quality it is not just the total moisture content but it is how it is distributed and is bound to the substrate, I found an indication that a mono-molecular layer had to form first there was before additional moisture was added.

We designed and built a device which recorded temperature and humidity which could be sent through the cooling tunnels along with the product.

My staff and I pioneered the use of high-speed cine-photography initially to monitor the machine which made Walnut Whip (by the mechanical piping method) this enabled our engineering colleagues to see what was wrong with the machine.

I also did two socially useful things

1. Aflatoxin content of products containing peanuts was reduced by a factor of ten, by my new processing method.   “Aflatoxin” is a nasty toxin and carcinogen I did this with an ingenious processing method this involved no physics just straight logic (and I would argue that a study of  physics is one of the best trainings  for the mind). 

This is one of the jobs I have done for Rowntree’s I am most proud of.

• Some parents were concerned that colours in sweets caused hyper activity in their children; whether true or not that was their perception. I did some work to ensure the colourant (the added colour) was used as efficiently as possible so minimising the quantity that needed to be added.

With the help of colleagues from the “Operations Research Department” I pioneered the use of the firm`s IBM commercial computer for scientific work even though the results came out in the form of punch cards which then had to be fed into a line printer.

Staff Development

Several of my staff went on to obtain senior positions elsewhere the company for example:

(A) The Computer Programming Manager

(B) Planning Manager (who had the very important job of deciding how many shifts to put on for the manufacturer of each product).

(C) My assistant physicist became the manager of the whole Products Research Department.

Initially I was disturbed by my projects being affected by removal of staff, but I felt better when senior people in Rowntree told me that part of my contribution was very much recognised as being in the development of people.

 very large job was design and implementation of a comprehensive computer system called “comp” which answered questions on the products and ingredients at any factory location, part of the benefit was ensuring consistency for example, now, everybody called the same item by the same name. It provided a way for staff in the “Products Function” to answer questions within and to answer questions from other departments, a special feature allowed both “how to make it and “what is in it “for example if ingredient ‘A’ is reacted with ‘B’ which is then extracted and put in the product as ‘C’ neither A or B are on the ingredient list but if you don’t order A or B you won’t be able to make the product.

I was about to add a facility jointly with a specialist colleague to answer nutritional questions when I went on to secondment.

I found a way to remove a “bodge” which was widely used in the company and possibly other chocolate makers to calculate the composition of chocolate with such a quality and expensive material, even a difference of 1/2%  can make a big difference to eating quality and yield. It sounds very simple when written down but no-one else in the company had thought of it to have an explicit ingredient called “condensate”.

The company were kind and gentle when a project was messed up. I tried to do a project to detect cherries which still had a stone in them this project really required a micro processer which was not yet available and I tried to do it just using individual transistors.

Nether my staff or myself had enough knowledge of electronics to conclude the project successfully and I blame myself for not calling in outside specialist help from a Electronics Company to sort out the electronics and so avoided a failed project just because of the electronics part. 

Work in my spare time at Rowntree

I had always been interested in helping deaf people and my other great interest was in music, I decided to combine the two interests and bring joy of music to deaf people.  I intended this to be done via an electronic / computer system and I spent a great many evenings and weekends working on this on a voluntary basis with equipment and travel paid for by local charities.  The Rowntree company gave me a great deal of help on an unofficial basis.

Major charitable help

One day my boss said to me “how would you like it if we could give you six months off on full pay to get on with your charitable work” I would snatch your hand off “write a case then Gordon”.

At this time the company was seconding nine people to work temporarily for charities to give them skills that they lacked. This was charitable giving on a massive scale. Since it involved paying nine salaries for a period of about two years but also pension contributions and other benefits and also keeping their jobs open and with other staff to cover.  I thought to myself that if they can second nine people they can second a tenth (it seemed that this charitable time was right for me). “You are turning the secondment scheme on its head, Gordon, it is supposed to be charities who apply to us for a loan of specialist staff who   have knowledge or experience which they lack”

“Yes I know that, I replied, but it is a very good cause; will you not consider it?”

“Alright- make a case.”

I had to make several cases before, to my delight, the case was accepted and the original six months off from my boss turned into a two-year secondment at the University of York. During this secondment I was invited to lecture at several Universities in the UK and in the Netherlands, but the highlight of my life was being invited to lecture in Washington DC in the USA and in the model school for the deaf in the USA.

It was wonderful to meet other people in the world who were working in the same field.

Rowntree company thought I did so well in my secondment as did the Head of Department of Music and the Head of Electronics at University of York that the company extended my secondment by six months making a total of thirty months. I was so grateful for this boost for one of my great aims in life, I went back at work to Rowntree’s (by then Nestle) determined to do good work for them.