R&D Associates Plans Natick Move Transfer of the Army's Food and Container Institute creates problems for liaison organization Last week Research and Development Associates, Food and Container Institute, Inc., held its 16th annual meeting in Chicago. The theme of the spring meeting was the role of the food and container industries in the civil defense program. But military and industry leaders attending this year's conference also were discussing another item which is currently of high interest to them: How will Congress' decision to move the Army's Food and Container Institute from Chicago to the Quartermaster Corps' research complex at Natick, Mass., affect R&D Associates, a liUison organization composed of food and container companies that work closely with the Army's Food and Container Institute. Hotly contested for over two years, the transfer finally became a reality earlier this year when both the House and Senate appropriation committees approved the move and funds were released for the transfer (C&EN, Jan. 8, page 2 3 ) . R&D Associates will move with the institute. And how it will implement this move is one of the topics its board of directors discussed at the meeting last week. The board was to decide on the date and method of relocation, financing of the move, and the possibilities of expansion to include other research groups in related fields now at Natick. Known first as the Subsistence Research Laboratory, the Quartermaster's Food and Container Institute was established in 1936 and located at Quartermaster's Chicago administration center. Its purpose was to advise the Army of the merits of various food products the Army was asked to buy. In 1944, the lab ,was renamed the Quartermaster Subsistence Research and Development Laboratory. It received its present name in 1946. And in 1953, the Food and Container Institute was placed under the Quartermaster Research and Engineering Command, at Natick. R&D Associates grew out of a need for new rations and containers which confronted the military in World War II. A liaison of military, industrial, and educational groups was set up to tackle the situation and R&D Asso-
ciates was organized in 1946. A nonprofit organization, its purpose is to study and to help solve military food and container problems. R&D Associates carries out this job by working closely with the institute, industries, and institutions. Headquartered with the institute at Quartermaster's Chicago site, R&D Associates currently has about 230 member companies in the food and container field plus 150 scientists from research and educational institutions. Geographical Problem. A ground-
Harlan Wills Support regardless of location breaking ceremony for the Army's new food and container center was held earlier this month at Natick. The new center will include office, library, research lab, and pilot processing facilities. It should be completed by the end of 1963. In addition to new facilities, the consolidation offers a number of other advantages, the Quartermaster Corps says. These include: • Savings of $1 million annually. • Access to the large number of scientific and industrial institutions in the New England area. • Mutual availability of the facilities of the Research and Engineering Command at Natick. Some elements of the Army's Food
and Container Institute will begin to move this summer. A new lab for the irradiation of food is already nearing completion. Target date for completion of the transfer is September 1963. Space is also being provided for R&D Associates at Natick, and it plans to start moving in line with the institute's schedule. R&D Associates freely admits, though, that Natick will create some problems. The primary problem is geographical, inasmuch as the major portion of its members—the food processing industry—is in the Midwest. Research can be carried out anywhere, but development should be where the producers and the markets are, R&D Associates feels. And the biggest producers and markets for food and food containers are in the Midwest, it adds. Thus, it will be a challenge for R&D Associates to encourage industry to continue its fullest cooperation despite the geographical separation, Harlan J. Wills, executive secretary of R&D Associates points out. Rut, he says, "It has been our stated policy to support the institute to the fullest degree regardless of its location or the agency to which it is assigned—and we will continue to do so." Consolidation Goal. The controversy that culminated in the decision to move the institute to Natick began in 1959, when the Department of Defense proposed that Quartermaster consolidate its food research program With its other R&D activities. Widely scattered at one time, Quartermaster R&D facilities are now centralized at Natick (headquarters of the Quartermaster Research and Engineering Command was established there in 1954). The proposal touched off a two-year battle led by Congressmen from Illinois to block the transfer. Rackers of the move claimed it would save millions of dollars annually and would improve efficiency of the food research operation. Its opponents, led by Sen. Paul Douglas (Dem.-Ill.), argued that little or no money would be saved, pointed out also that it would be harder for midwestern food processors to take part in the institute's activities. The move was successfully blocked until last June, when Congress approved a House-Senate conference report on a military construction bill which included $3.8 million to move the institute from Chicago. Then Sen. Douglas led a floor fight to strike the $3.8 million from the bill, but the APRIL
3 0f 1962 C & E N
31
amendment was defeated in the Senate. However, the new site of the institute still hadn't been set. The decision for its final location then went to the appropriation committees of both the House and Senate. And another roadblock was thrown up. Congress added a proviso that none of the money could be obligated until both committees approved the transfer after an impartial study by the Secretary of Defense. The study was affirmative, and the battle ended this January.
Toilet Goods Sales Climbed 8% in 1961 Retail sales of toilet goods continued to increase in 1961—exceeding 1960 sales by 8.3% and again growing faster than gains in population and disposable income. According to the Toilet Goods Association, sales were more than $1.93 billion, compared with 1960's $1.78 billion. TGA's figures show that annual sales growth has been running at about 6.5 to 10% in recent years. Among specific jproducts, sales of hair coloring materials were strong, but shampoo sales leveled off, says TGA. Dentifrice sales gained the normal 3%. Fluoride toothpastes showed a substantial increase but did not, as has been true in the past when new formulations came out, add new volume to the over-all market. The eye-makeup business was "spectacularly good," TGA adds, but the overall market is too small to affect industrywide volume. Market Shares. Drugstores increased their share of the market in 1961, according to TGA, reversing the trend of the 1950's. Sales of toilet goods through drugstores amounted to 26.7% of the total in 1961, compared with 26.2% in 1960. But in 1951, they had 36% of the,market. Department and specialty stores lost ground again, as they have been doing since 1955. Their share of the market declined to 16.8%, down from 17.5% in 1960. Food stores, with 23.6% of the market in 1961, maintained their share at about the same size as in 1960, after a decade of increasing their share of the market. The house-to-house sales percentage declined slightly to 20.7%, after reaching a peak of 20.9%? in 1960. 32
C&EN A P R I L
3 0, 196 2
BRIEFS G. Barr and Co., Chicago private label producer of aerosol products, has been acquired by Pittsburgh Railways Co. in a cash deal. Pittsburgh Railways, largest public transit operator in Pittsburgh, Pa., terms the purchase a major step in diversifying its business. G. Barr earned $546,000 last year on sales of $15.1 million and says sales this year are "substantially ahead" of 1961. Pittsburgh Railways operated at a loss in 1961.
International Chemical and Nuclear Corp. has acquired Bio-Nuclear Corp. in exchange for stock. International Nuclear makes research biochemicals; Bio-Nuclear makes radioactive-labeled compounds.
Tennant Development Corp., a subsidiary of C. Tennant, Sons & Co., New York, has purchased the iodides and iodates business of Cooper Chemical Co., Long Valley, N.J. Tennant will manufacture the products at its Tennant Chemical division near Newton, N.J.
Perkin-Elmer Corp. will acquire Erb & Gray Scientific, Inc., Los Angeles, Calif., through an exchange of stock. Erb & Gray distributes scientific instruments and laboratory equipment. It is the exclusive U.S. distributor of electron microscopes made by Japan's Hitachi, Ltd. Last year, Perkin-Elmer and Hitachi set up a jointly-owned company in Japan.
The U.S. Tariff Commission says output of rubber processing chemicals was 205 million pounds in 1961, 3 % above 1960 production. The increase was chiefly in amino antioxidants. Sales of rubber processing chemicals were 156 million pounds, worth $104 million, in 1961. In 1960, sales amounted to 153 million pounds, valued at $101 million.
Union Oil Co. plans to acquire Texas National Petroleum C o / s oil and gas producing properties, undeveloped acreage, its Houston, Tex., office building, and interest in a natural gasoline plant in Colorado. Texas National will receive about $54 mil-
lion in return. The sale is subject to approval of Texas National shareholders, completion of financial arrangements, and a favorable tax ruling from the Internal Revenue Service.
International Minerals & Chemical and American Maize Products Co. have an agreement to license foreign manufacture of water-soluble starch phosphates. IMC owns patents in the field and is the exclusive licensing agent of the starch phosphate .process under the agreement. American Maize will provide technical research, control, and manufacturing know-how to licensees. According to IMC, companies in Europe and the Far East have expressed interest in the new products, which can be used in the food processing, pharmaceutical, ore refining, paper, water treatment, and adhesives industries.
NEW FACILITIES Du Pont is building a new dinitrotoluene unit at its Chambers Works, Deepwater Point, N.J. The new unit is scheduled to be in production before the end of the year. Existing units will be kept in operating condition in case there's a temporary shutdown, of the new unit. Du Pont says the new capacity is needed to supply its own needs for isocyanates manufacture and to supply other isocyanate makers.
Industrial Air Products Co., Portland, Ore., has started to produce liquid oxygen, nitrogen, argon, and other gases at a new plant in Boise, Idaho.
Chemetron's chemical products division has a new nitration process on stream at its Newport, Tenn., plant. The process, a continuous one, produces organic nitrates "of exceptional purity and uniformity."
Rohm & Haas has started to build a new research center at Spring House, Pa., 20 miles north of Philadelphia. First units will be a synthesis laboratory, an applications lab, and a utility building, total cost of which is estimated at about $5 million. Completion is expected for the summer of 1963. Research in Philadelphia and
in its first public offering. President Alexander I. Newman, who now owns 927c of the stock outstanding, will sell the balance. The Chicago manufacturer of industrial and laboratory instruments will use its proceeds to build a new plant, repay bank loans, expand research and development, and increase working capital.
Olin's Chlorine-Caustic Plant Begins Producing This cell room of Olin Mathieson's new electrolytic chlorine-caustic plant at Charleston, Tenn., can produce about 180 tons per day of each product. The $13 million plant is located on the Hiwasee River, a navigable tributary of the Tennessee River. Products will be shipped by barge, truck, and rail. Part of the output will go by pipeline to the nearby plant of Bowaters Pulp & Paper Co. Olin also will use part of the output captively at its Brandenburg, Ky., plant. The company will soon start to build another plant at the Tennessee site to produce HTH purifier for swimming pools and laundry bleach (C&EN, April 16, page 36). Olin also makes chlorine and caustic at Saltville, Va., Mcintosh, Ala., and Niagara Falls, N.Y.
Bristol, Pa., will continue, but no major expansion will be made at these labs.
FMC Corp.'s organic chemicals division has expanded and modernized its phosphorus chlorides facilities at Nitro, W.Va.
Humble Oil's Enjay Chemical Co. division has completed a new plant at Bayonne, N.J., for production of Paratone viscosity index improvers for motor oils.
Bituminous Coal Research, Inc., an affiliate of the National Coal Association, has completed its new $1 million research center near Pittsburgh, Pa. Financed by coal companies, with help from electric utilities, equipment manufacturers, and coal industry suppliers, the lab consolidates work formerly carried out in Columbus, Ohio, and in Pittsburgh. The lab's staff studies the origin of coal, its chemical behavior, and its physical structure and properties.
Air Reduction, at a special meeting June 4, will ask its stockholders to authorize an offering to stockholders of about $45 million of convertible debentures. Proceeds from the offering, together with $50 million to be borrowed from insurance companies, will be used to refinance present longterm debt and provide funds for plant expansion and modernization.
INTERNATIONAL Imperial Chemical Industries is building a new p-xylene plant at its Wilton Works in northeastern England. The plant will have a capacity of 60,000 tons a year and should be completed by mid-1963. ICI says it's building the plant to meet continued demand for Terylene polyester fiber in Britain and by ICI licensees in other countries.
FINANCE Reichhold Chemicals has omitted its cash dividend for the second successive quarter but will distribute a 2% stock dividend to shareowners on May 15, as it did in the previous quarter.
Lab-Line Instruments (formerly Labline, Inc.) has registered 142,860 shares of its common stock with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company will sell 122,168 shares
Badger Mfg. Co. is the prime contractor for the ammonia-urea complex to be put up in Miaoli, Taiwan, for Mobil China Allied Chemical Industries, Ltd. (C&EN, March 26, page 33). Allied Chemical and Mobil Chemical will each put up 35% of the capital and the other 30% will come from Chinese Petroleum Corp. Badger will begin construction soon and has scheduled completion for the fall of 1963.
Quarterly Price Report to Appear Next Week C&EN's quarterly report on current chemical prices, with its individual price quotations, which regularly would appear in this issue, will be published in the May 7 issue instead. Its publication has been delayed one week to make room for the series of feature articles beginning on page 90 which discusses the economics and antitrust aspects of pricing chemical products. These features deal with a topic of great importance to everyone in the chemical industry, especially in light of the recent controversy over steel prices. They present opposing views on pricing policies from three people with industrial, academic, and government backgrounds.
APRIL
30, 1962 C & E N
33
