Detroit: Today and Tomorrow - Twin Pines Dairy and the Detroit Board of Health (1957)

2015.011.031

Color 16mm film containing an installment of the Detroit Tomorrow Committee's series "Detroit: Today and Tomorrow," focusing on the Detroit Department of Health, and Twin Pines Farm Dairy.

The film begins with information about the Department of Health's operation in the City-County Building. Here the department offers classes and annual x-rays for food handlers.

Off site, at the Bruce H. Douglas Health Center, the department carries out its "Detroit Plan," a collaboration with local doctors aimed to providing regular check-ups and preventative education for residents. As part of its special focus on children, the Detroit Plan also involves home visits from public health nurses for new mothers.

The film also covers several other of the Department's specialized operations. In Central Supply, the camera rolls a technicians sterilize and prepare of supplies for immunization programs and hospitals. In the Chemical Laboratory, foods are tested using scales and chemical analysis. A scientist is shown inspecting a hotdog, a soft drink, and several canned vegetables, as well as milk.

From the discussion of milk testing by the Department of Health, the film transitions to focus on the workings of Twin Pines Farm Diary. The story begins at local dairy farms, represented in the film by Porath Farms, where a representative from Twin Pines, inspects the farm's milk and facilities before picking up a shipment in tank truck. At one of the two Twin Pines Farm Dairy plants, the truck is unloaded, and the new delivery is inspected prior to processing.

From there the milk undergoes clarification, homogenization, and pasteurization. After processing the milk is bottled, another process which involves washing the bottles, then filling, capping, and casing them. The film also shows the alternative packaging method using plastic coated milk cartons.

This is followed by a sequence covering the production of cream cottage cheese at the Twin Pines Farm Dairy plant on East Outer Drive. This is an emphasis on the sterilization process for each part of the production process during this segment.

The Twin Pines portion of the film ends with shots of delivery trucks lined up to pick up products from the factory, the plaque in factory's lobby, a milk route salesman delivering bottles to a house, and a finally a family drinking the milk.