"Lloyd Hall" (June 20,1894-January 2,1971)

Lloyd Hall was a chemist who developed methods of food preservation.

Hall an honor student while attending West side High School in Auroa, IL, and captured the school debate team while competing in basketball, football and track.  Lloyd graduated High School in the top 10 of his class and had to chose between four college scholarships offers.  He decided to nearby Northwestern University, earning a Bachelors Degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry in 1916.  While at Northwestern, Lloyd attended classes with Carroll L. Griffith who would later go on to become the founder of Griffith Laboratories. After graduation, Hall earned a graduate degree from the University of Chicago.

Lloyd was soon hired by the Western Electic Company in a telephone interview.  When he showed up for his first day, he was told by a personnel officer that "we don't take niggers."  Recovering from this slight, he began working for the Chicago Department of Health as a chemist and was promoted in 1917 to senior chemist.  The next year he moved to Ottumwa, Iowa, where he held the position of chief chemist at the John Morrell Company.  During this time, World War I broke out, and Lloyd received an appointment as Chief Inspector of powder and explosives for the United States Ordance Department. 

On September 23, 1919 Lloyd married Myrrhene Newsome, a teacher from Macomb, IL.  Two years later, the couple moved to Chicago where Lloyd began working for the Boyer Chemical Laboratory as chief chemist.  There he focused on the emerging field of food chemistry, and began looking at a way of preserving meats with Chemicals. In 1922 he moved on to Chemical Products Corporation where he served as President and Chemical director of their consulting laboratory and often consulted with Griffith Laboratories. 

In 1925,  Lloyd was offered a position with Griffith Laboratories, as chief chemist and director of research.  Griffith Laboratories of course had been founded by Lloyd former classmate Carroll and after years of moving moving from company to company, Lloyd accepted the position and remained there for the next 34 years. 

Lloyd had been working for a number of years exploring different areas of food chemistry an upon joining Griffith Laboratories began looking into methods for preserving foods.  Up to that point, foods, and especially meats had been preserved by using sodium chloride (table salt).  As well, nitrogen-contain chemicals were also used to preserve meats.  It was found that nitrates chemically changed into nitrites and then into nitrous acid which caused the meats to maintain a healthy, red color (the process was referred to as curing meat).  Lloyd found, however, that when sodium chloride, sodium nitrite and sodium nitrite were used in order to preserve and cure the meat, the nitrates and nitrites penetrated  the meat much faster than did the sodium chloride.  In doing so, the nitrates and nitrites adversely affected the meat by breaking it down before the sodium chloride had a chance to preserved it.  In order to correct this,  Lloyd found a way of encasing the nitrates and nitrites within within a sodium chloride "shell" by utilizing a process called "flash-drying"the crystals over heated rollers.  This allowed the sodium nitrate to be introduced to the meats first and dissolved, and then the nitrates and nitrites were able to penetrate the "preserved"meat and therefore "cure" it.

Lloyd next addressed a problem which arose when meats were stored in containers. The sodium chloride/nitrate/nitrite combination tended to absorb the moisture from the air inside or the container and caused them to form a caked mass on top of the meat.  Lloyd was able to determine that by adding glycerine and alkali metal tartrate to the original combination, the glycerine's and tartrate would effectively absorb the moisture without "caking" and thus preventing the chloride/nitrate/nitrite combination from absorbing it.

Lloyd also maintained an interest in sterilizing foods, utensils and tools.  Although many people through that certain spices and flavorings also had the added benefits of preserving foods, Lloyd found that many of these agents actually exposed the foods to an abundance of germs, molds and bacteria.  Lloyd set out to prevent this while at the same time allowing the spices and flavoring to retain the aroma and color (many of these lost their and aroma and flavor when exposed to high sterilizing temperatures.)  He eventually found a gas called ethylene oxide, which he introduced to the foods with in a vacuumed environment which eliminated the germs and bacteria while maintaining appearances, taste and aroma.

Lloyd published more than 5 scientific papers and received more than 100 patents.  He also served as an advisor to the United States during two World Wars, served on dozens of advisory panels and boards and received hundreds of awards and accolades.

In 1959 Lloyd retired from Griffith Laboratories and moved to Pasadena, CA, where he died.