HISTORY OF THE CENTURY MACHINE COMPANY, CINCINNATTI, USA

At the peak of the American boom in 1929, Baker Perkins Co. Inc. bought the whole of the assets of the Century Machine Company of Cincinnati, a manufacturer of bakery equipment for the smaller wholesale baker.

During WW2, Century developed a portable field bakery - a wheeled oven and bread make-up equipment similar to that produced at Westwood (click here). The company was given the Army/Navy Award for its success in manufacturing thousands of these for all of the theatres of war where American troops were serving.

The 1955 Group Annual Report stated that "the Company (Baker Perkins Inc.) staged an impressive exhibit in conjunction with its subsidiary, the Century Machine Company, at the 1955 Atlantic City Convention". However, by this time the pattern of American bakeries had changed. Two types of business were developing – the small retail bakery selling products on its own premises and the large-volume wholesale bakery requiring 200 loaves a minute from each line of plant. The Century Machine Company's product were aimed at the diminishing, medium-sized machinery sector being squeezed between the two. Baker Perkins Inc. therefore decided to liquidate the Century company in that same year.