We were so lucky as to discover a detailed write up about the L & A Baking Co. The article was published in the Northwestern Miller index in October 1916 by Miller Publishing. The article reads as follows:
L . & A. Baking Co., Sioux Falls, S. D. The L. & A. Baking Co., Sioux Falls, operates one of South Dakota’s model bakeries. Henry Levinger is president, and Eugene Levinger secretary, treasurer and manager. V. I. Werle, baker and chemist, is in charge of manufacturing.
The L. & A. bakery is located at 910 North Main Avenue, and out of the reach of dust and grime incident to city traffic and manufacturing. Much money could have been saved in cartage bills by locating the plant on a railroad spur track, but it was not considered. The bakery site is on the edge of the business district, where the air is pure, and has a lawn and shade about it.
It is a brick building of two stories, 55×62, and represents an investment of $60,000. Twenty thousand loaves of bread could be baked daily. In the front, the exterior is of glazed brick. With windows everywhere, it can truly be called a daylight bakery. Each window is screened. making it fly and insect proof. All windows leading into proofing rooms, the bakery proper and the shipping-room, have double sash.
The inside is scrupulously clean. Every wall is white, each machine is enameled white, and the white-tiled ovens and the white plumbing all set it off: Each machine has its own motor.
Hardwood floors are a feature. There are numerous lavatories for the employees, and shower baths in the basement. A special corps of men is on duty all the time, keeping the plant clean. Each day the floors of the plant are scrubbed and cleaned, and the woodwork and machinery gone over.
Only the best of raw materials are used at the L. & A. bakery, this embracing flour, lard, sugar, etc., all of which are bought in car lots. The water used in the mixing of bread passes through a special plant, consisting of three different filters, and then is pasteurized. All employees who work in the bakery must be dressed in white all the time.
on the second floor is the flour room, equipped with a flour-handling outfit with a two-part bin. Going to the 25-bbl storage bin, it is sifted again. Passing to the flour hopper and automatic scales, it is weighed and dumped into the two dough mixers, one a high-speed gluten developing mixer and the other a slow-speed machine. There is also a tempering and measuring tank connected with automatic scales for the weighing of all water used in the dough. A mezzanine floor directly back of the dough mixers is used to get all mixes ready. The largest part of the flour storage is in the basement.
Dough is placed in steel troughs to rise, and from the dough room on the second floor it is sent to the first floor through a steel chute to the divider. It is then dropped on an endless belt, which conveys it to the rounder-up, proofing cabinet and molder, passing next to the proofing closet.
The two white-tiled basement-fired ovens are electric lighted and connected with steam boilers. From the ovens the bread is placed on steel racks and sent to the cooling room, from which it later emerges wrapped or boxed. The full process of baking is in plain sight of the passers-by.
Bread only is made, and of two kinds, Elanay and Sum, in 5c and 10c loaves. The business is wholesale, and the delivery is by automobiles. Two travelling salesmen call on the trade within a radius of 350 miles, and shipments are made to Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota.