Oddball things to do on a road trip: Tour the Biglerville Food Packaging Plant
The Biglerville Pennsylvania food factory has been in operation for an entire 100 years, and was begun as a community cannery, in the middle of the prosperous and fertile agricultural land of Pennsylvania. Local farmers as long ago as 1910 would haul their produce - by horse drawn wagon, then model T trucks, and finally by modern transport, to the Biglerville Canning Company, which at first didn’t look like it would survive until the next harvest. It was only open a couple of years before it almost went broke and was sold to the Christian H. Musselman family, who are known today as the family that bottles all sorts of apple products like apple juice and applesauce.
About 40 years ago, the company became part of the PET Foods Corporation, and continued making juices along with various culinary sauces, jellies and fruit products. The company kept changing owners, but stuck to the thing it does best, which is bottling and canning Pennsylvania apples. If you want to tour the plant, it is open to visitors who can be guided through it and watch the production of apple juice, cider, canned apples, pie fillings, apple cider vinegar, and old fashioned apple butter. Nowadays it is owned by the Knouse Company, last we heard. But if you visit the old plant and call it the “Biglerville Plant” the old timers who have been there for decades will grin with appreciation and then show you around the historic plant. You can even get yourself a bottle of apple cider to help you quench your thirst as you continue your road trip through the curious little towns and historic places of the USA.