Who Made All The Pies???

Who Made All The Pies???
Fray Bentos, Uruguay

Fray Bentos, Uruguay

I would say that it is more than a little likely than anyone other than our English friends will have absolutely no idea why we were excited about going to Fray Bentos. Well for those of you who don’t know Fray Bentos is a brand of very cheap and pretty disgusting tinned meat pie which is sold in the UK. I personally didn’t know that these pies actually originated in this tiny little town in Uruguay.

Fray Bentos is located at the mouth of the Uruguay River across the watery border from Argentina. It got its name from a reclusive priest Friar Benedict who lived in a cave on the Uruguay River. In 1863 the Liebig Extract of Meat Company opened a meat processing plant in Fray Bentos and the towns industry began to flourish all because of a product that 90% of you probably have in your kitchen cupboard right now, the humble OXO cube.

In 1847, Justus von Liebig developed a concentrated beef extract in hopes of providing a cheap and nutritious meat substitute for those who could not afford the real thing and so the predecessor of and eventually the OXO cube itself was born here. Yup here in this very factory in little ol’ Uruguay!

In Europe meat prices were too high to justify the amount of processing needed to create the product however in South America the majority of cattle meat was going to waste as usually the cattle were killed for their hide alone, making production in Uruguay viable due to cheap and plentiful meat supplies and also excellent export routes from the Uruguay River on the factories doorstep.

By 1864 the factory in Fray Bentos first produced 50,000 pounds of extract worth £12,000. By 1875 500 tonnes of the extract were being produced each year.

In 1873 the factory also began to produce corned beef. In 1899 an English company called Anglo purchased the factory and installed a huge refrigeration system, during its peak this factory had 5,000 workers from England, Belgium, Russia, Italy and Spain. This huge factory became known as the ‘Kitchen of the World’ in 1943 as 16 million cans of corned beef were exported from Uruguay to provide rations during WWII.

In the 1950’s Fray Bentos’ Pie production was transferred to the UK and after 117 years of service the factory finally closed down in 1979.

The factory was just this year declared a UNESCO world heritage site due to the amazing example of industrial engineering that these buildings house. The huge engines which powered the huge refrigeration building were absolutely revolutionary for its time. The town that built up around the factory where the workers live was the first to have power and the factory was the home to first lightbulb ever lit in Uruguay.

How with that history could be pass up on a chance to visit this little historic landmark…

We took the bus from Colonia to Fray Bentos and couldn’t quite believe that the buses in Uruguay were cheap, brand new, had immaculately clean toilets and even wifi that worked! Unsurprisingly Fray Bentos does not have a huge amount of tourism so we booked into the main hotel in the town which was rather luxurious by our standards, we had just one night and one day and the next day set off to the factory.

We initially thought that we would get a taxi there, but it was only a 30 minute walk along a nice seafront promenade and the sun was shining, it must be fate as we passed the Google Street View Car on our route so can’t wait to find ourselves on the Fray Bentos Map, what a claim to fame!

When we arrived at the factory, we kind of expected there to be some other people there, we can’t be the only two people in the town that were visiting, oh actually it seems we were exactly that. We headed to the ticket office to be told that on Tuesdays the factory had free entry, so we headed down to the museum for a look. There was a young guy in the museum and he came over and ran off terrified when we spoke to him in English. A few minutes later he reappeared with a leaflet in English and told us that he did speak a bit of English and could show us around. It turned out that this young guy was an architecture student on a one year placement at the factory and spoke perfect English and offered to give us a free tour. We got possibly the best free tour ever received in the history of the world. We saw the Engine room, the control room, the slaughter house; we went into the giant 12 story refrigeration unit and even went onto its roof to take in possibly the best views over the city and over into Argentina. We saw the office which was still left exactly as it had been when the factory closed in 1979 and as an added bonus we even got a tour of the manager’s mansion in the grounds of the factory.

We learned a few interesting facts about the factory; the Russians were employed to work in the refrigeration unit as they were more able to handle the cold, but could still only stay in there for 12 minutes at a time. The floors outside the factory are paved with solid steel tiles which were used as ballast on the ships coming to the factory and were considered worthless once delivered. No part of the cow went to waste at the factory, they produced everything from fertiliser to soap using the parts not needed in meat production, the only part of the cow that was not used was the ‘moo’! Finally there was one office worker at the factory who at 6″7 was too tall for his desk and suffered with sore legs, he used to rub his feet on the floor to ease his aches and pains and still today there are two divets in the wooden office floor where he used to sit. This factory is just a perfect little historic time capsule and I would recommend a visit to anyone.

Because we walked there and back this tour into this little slice of English culture cost us absolutely nothing and was one of the best days out ever!

We had a bus to catch to Montevideo the capital of Uruguay so it was time to say farewell to the town that made all the pies! Farewell Fray Bentos it has been fascinating!