Grape Juice Bonus

Last week the employes of Welch Grape Juice Co. were given for Christmas 10% of the outstanding Welch common stock. The four Welch brothers made the gift from their personal holdings, in memory of their father, Dr. Charles Edgar Welch. Founder of the company, Dr. Welch was known up to his death in 1926 as an ardent prohibitionist. His discovery, with his father, of "the best process for producing an unfermented and non-intoxicating grape juice"* led him to abandon his Philadelphia dental practice and pull the teeth of the grape. High points in his career were: member, Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church; delegate, General Conference of M. E. Church (four times); trustee, Chautauqua Institution of Chautauqua, N. Y.; president, town of Westfield. N. Y. (six times); Prohibition Candidate for Governor of New York in 1916. Even Dr. Welch's beverage seems to share his antipathy to alcohol: unlike such soft drinks as ginger ale and mineral water, grape juice does not combine well with alcoholic liquors.

Though the four sons of Dr. Welch now run the business (Edgar T. as President, Paul R. as Vice President and Treasurer, John F. as Vice President and Secretary, and all three plus William T. as Directors) the company has been controlled since last November by a Nashville, Tenn. financial syndicate. The Welch Christmas gift is worth, at current market prices, approximately $425,000. Since there are only about 300 Welch employes, each Welchman found in his Christmas stocking something in the neighborhood of $1,400--more or less, depending on his rank and length of service.

*The Welch Process: Carefully selected Concord grapes are shipped to the plant, washed, weighed. A stemming machine separates them from the stem, drops them through aluminum pipes to aluminum stirring kettles, where they are heated to bring out skin colors and aromas. The juice is pressed out by hydraulic presses built so as not to crush the seeds in the process. From the presses the juice journeys through more aluminum pipes to more aluminum kettles, where it is again heated, this time to prevent fermentation. After spending several months in glass carboys to allow the cream of tartar to settle, the juice is siphoned off into bottles, pasteurized, shipped. The other important Welch process is that by which is made grape jam ("Grapelade"). Acid crystals had previously frustrated all attempts to make a commercial grape preserve until the Welch Company discovered (and patented) a process for extracting them. So delighted were jam-eaters with Welch's "Grapelade" that the company has developed a long line of "Welch Lades," including such concoctions, as: Peachlade, Plumlade, Cherrilade, Fruitlade, Strawberilade, Currantlade, Blackberilade.

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