Uruguay: Fray Bentos – Museum of Industrial Revolution

The name of Fray Bentos was known all over the world for the canned meat brand. In 1899, a company called Anglo created a huge meat processing planned on the outskirts of Fray Bentos that supplies corned beef to Europe (in UK, generations grew up with Fray Bentos canned corned beef), USA, and Australia. More then 5000 workers were employed here and more then 2000 cows were killed everyday. At its time, this was the most technologically advanced meat factory in the world (in fact the first electricity in Uruguay was here). The plant closed in 1979, but the grounds were preserved as a Museum of Industrial Revolution, that is a UNESCO World Heritage site now. A guided tour through the factory shows you all the processing halls where cattle was slaughtered, bled, chopped and made into corned beef and beef extract soups, and then canned and labeled (not sure you’d want to eat corned beef after this). Finally, there is a museum at the end of this fascinating tour.
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