1920’s
The second generation of the Urschel family, Joe (1913 – 1996) and Gerald Urschel (1916 – 2005), begin designing food cutting machinery. These talented inventors were awarded over 70 patents during their lifetime. Joe designs his first machine at age 13 and his last machine at age 80.
Patents included: fruit de-stemmers, harvestingequipment, bean cutters, ice cream cutting/coating equipment, and building forms.
1923
William Urschel develops a machine to cut bricks of ice cream into bar-sized pieces and automatically dip them into melted chocolate for the production of the Eskimo Pie.
1923 (Other Machinery)
During this time, William also develops many other types of machinery such as harvesting equipment, cherry de-stemmers, vegetable peelers, and a machine that creates concrete formed bricks and lays them in place to construct buildings.
1929
William’s bean harvesting equipment is sold to Fremont Canning Company in Fremont, Michigan. Up until this time, beans had been picked by hand. This invention represented a tremendous reduction in labor and cost savings.
Circa 1929, the company was renamed Urschel Laboratories
1929 (Sugar Beet Harvester)
At age 13 (1929), Gerald Urschel replicated William’s Sugar Beet Harvester in this scaled down version, which resides in the lobby of Urschel Laboratories.
