Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip from an industrial documentary made in 1954 shows the processing of peanuts from roasting to the production of peanut butter. Peanuts emerge from roasting ovens for cooling, blanching and husking. Uniformed female operators remove imperfect nuts from a conveyor belt. The nuts are crushed into peanut butter, extruded from a large grinding machine into jars and hand-labelled. Lids are hand-fastened, then tightened by machine. ETA delivery trucks leave the factory grounds. The clip is accompanied by a voice-over commentary and music.

Educational value points

• This clip demonstrates the extent to which the food-processing industry in Australia had become mechanised by the early 1950s. The clip shows new technology such as the roasting ovens, moving conveyor belts, a blanching machine and the gleaming steel of the automatic grinding machine, but it also shows that there continued to be a significant reliance on manual human skill.

• Although the importance of women to the food industry in 1950s Australia can be seen in this clip, where all but one worker is a woman, this was not reflected in their conditions. Women were often paid on average up to 40 per cent less than men for the same tasks in factory environments at the time, perhaps explaining why women constituted up to 80 per cent of the food industry workforce.

• The style of presentation used in this clip is typical of an industrial documentary of the 1950s in which the aim was to maintain interest as well as to educate. The neutral, factual voice-over explains key manufacturing steps illustrated by the visuals. The music is intended to liven up the presentation of the factual material. The camera provides close-up shots to reveal detail and create the feeling that the viewer is following the peanuts through their journey.

• ETA peanut butter was one of a number of major Australian food brands that developed between the First and Second World Wars. This product, like Vegemite, Arnott’s biscuits and Aeroplane Jelly came to be symbolic of the strength of the Australian food industry. ETA Foods Ltd, like the other three, was eventually taken over by a foreign-owned company and is now owned by Kraft Foods of the USA.

• The centre of the peanut industry in Australia is Kingaroy, Queensland, where the factory shown in the clip was located. From the planting of the first commercial crop in the early 1920s, peanuts slowly developed to become a major agricultural crop in Queensland by the 1950s. The Peanut Marketing Board was formed in 1924 in Kingaroy and managed a steadily rising peanut output into the 1980s. Nearly the entire peanut crop is still consumed by the domestic market.