Charles Burford dies at 81; inventor created equipment for baking industry

Charles E. Burford, a prolific inventor whose patents included the equipment that puts twist ties on bread bags, has died. He was 81.

Burford died May 16 at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas of what his family said were natural causes.

Charles Elmore Burford was born April 28, 1932, in Lindsay, Okla., where he graduated from high school and became a farmer. In 1945, his father, Earl Burford, invented an automatic hay baler, a wire-tying device.

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In 1961, Charles Burford founded Burford Co. in Maysville, Okla., and put a new twist on the farm wire-tying technology to package bread in polypropylene bags.

“At the time, Dad realized a need in the bread industry to make bread last longer,” said his son, C.B. Burford.

Charles Burford later applied his baling technique to other industrial applications, including binding compacted trash.

He also developed other equipment for the baking industry, including a device that applies a tamper-evident plastic seal on bread bags and an assembly-line machine that evenly sprinkles sesame and poppy seeds on hamburger buns.

In 2010, the elder Burford was inducted into the American Society of Baking Hall of Fame, which recognizes innovation and entrepreneurial spirit.

Burford loved inventing, but many of his ideas never found a home.

“My sister joked that at one time he was out in the garage working on spray aluminum so you could spray the aluminum on a potato before you baked it,” his son said.

In 1967, Burford moved to Dallas, where he could better manage his growing international bakery-equipment business.

He was also a big-game hunter and conservationist devoted to the sport and to the animals he pursued.

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Burford, a leader in efforts to save the black rhino and desert bighorn sheep, made 18 safaris to Africa, two trips to Australia and hunted in South America.

“If you’ve only been to Africa once, you were too old when you went the first time,” Burford said in 1997.

In addition to his son, Burford is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.

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