Here's why a historic meat packing plant in Uruguay was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site

"Not only did our products fill European stomachs; they also got into European hearts and minds," Rene Boretto, director of the Museo de la Revolución Industrial, said in an interview with the BBC. "In World War I, soldiers would say 'Fray Bentos' to indicate that something was good, the same way we nowadays say OK."

In fact, according to the BBC, during the first World War, British soldiers even named one of their few tanks Fray Bentos because they felt like tinned meat when they were inside it.

In the 19th century, German chemist, Justus von Liebig, created a meat "tonic," which we know today as the bouillon cube. He moved to Uruguay, where he went into cattle processing with Belgian engineer, Georg Gieber.

Their factory first opened as the Liebig Extract Meat Company in 1859.

By 1887, the factory had become in such high demand from Europe that it had its own district with houses, cleaning and garbage services, a workers' district and a specialized hospital for staff.

The plant was eventually taken over by a British firm and it operated day and night until it closed in 1979. Over 5,000 workers maintained the plant everyday, processing around 400 cows an hour and 2,000 sheep per day, making it one of the most advanced meat processing technology developers in South America.

To honor its history, the plant was recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Today, the Museo de la Revolución Industrial stands at the site, displaying antique photos of the working factory and the plant's original machinery.

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