Premier Malt Products Company

By now, you all know of my fondness for the photos and renditions of the various manufacturing plants that are sometimes shown in the vintage advertising cookbooks.

The one shown today is from the booklet Tested Recipes with Blue Ribbon Malt Extract (1928, 32 pp.). This prohibition era recipe booklet is filled with recipes for cakes and pies and puddings and vegetables, and so on and so forth. It's illustrated with lovely color illustrations of the prepared recipes.

No recipe or mention is made of home-brewed beer, which was a primary use for the product back in those days.

There's a two page spread near the center of the book that shows "a composite view of the four immense plants of the Premier Malt Products Company, devoted exclusively to the manufacture of malt extract." It's called "The Home of Blue Ribbon Malt, America's Biggest Seller."


It's not quite clear to me exactly where this plant was located--Milwaulkee? Peoria Heights? Somewhere else? If anyone knows, please comment.

Inside the front cover is the Guaranteee for Blue Ribbon Malt Extract, signed by the President of the company, Harris Perlstein. It guarantees that "Blue Ribbon factories are spotlessly clean and kept so by a rigid system of sanitation." It also guarantees "Blue Ribbon Malt Extract always to be uniform in quality, pasteurized and packed in modern sanitary cans in order that it may reach you in perfect condition."

The beautiful color illustration on the rear cover is of their 3-lb. "sanitary" can. I love this. The colors are so bright and cheerful and they are sharp and crisp in the illustration.


Throughout the booklet, small black and white illustrations of the interior of the factory are used to gain the confidence of the consumer in regards to the clean and modern facilities in which the product is manufactured.

Our house had a kitchen sink like the one shown in the Testing Kitchen below, although it was sitting on top of a cabinet. I still have it around somewhere (of course), waiting to be put into a garden shed or something of a similar nature.


This illustration shows men working in front of a Group of Evaporators:


A section of their Big Laboratory is shown below. Doesn't it appear to be clean and modern, just like their Guarantee?


The Canning Department:


This concludes today's factory tour. Hope you enjoyed it!