American army

"At the armistice, Michelin will be able to boast of having manufactured in its factories and with a female workforce, “one thousand eight hundred eighty-four planes — one hundred forty-seven of which will have been delivered to the American army — eight thousand six hundred bomb launchers and three hundred forty-two thousand bombs of various calibers, twenty-seven thousand seven hundred of which to the American army. Furthermore, Clermont-Ferrand will have manufactured “three hundred thousand rubberized coats, five hundred thousand rubberized gloves, five hundred thousand feed bags, two hundred fifty thousand tents, two hundred thousand sleeping bags.” Bibendum will have earned the appreciation of the “rookies.” An investment for the future."

"this mantra time and time again whenever the question was broached. As for expertise, Harrison and Wallace once again got lucky when they learned that a pioneer in the business was living just down the road from them, working for H.C. Baxter in Houlton, Maine. Olof Pierson would earn the label “the father of the frozen French fried potato.”16 Pierson was an eccentric, MIT-trained, chain-smoking, hard- drinking, absent-minded inventor. He earned a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from MIT in 1932, and while serving in the American army during the Second World War he was given the task of working out how to dehydrate potatoes for the armed services. His success led to his joining H.C. Baxter, where he continued his work on processing potatoes, first in canned goods and later in freezing them as french fries. He invented and drove the process and indeed was dir- ectly responsible for the first package of frozen french fries sold in 1947 by the Birds Eye Company.17 He later became an independent consult- ant in the frozen food business. McCain Foods was an early client, and later he advised the United Nations Food Organization. Pierson had the run of the place on the technical side with McCain"