Under the caption "Who knew Kodak would keep so many skeletons in its closet?", the paper in a front page display, said Monday that beef bones were bought by the giant company through a subsidiary, Eastman Gelatine corp.

The journal said the price of cow bones had risen 25 per cent in the past two years to about $400 a tonne, driven by soaring demand for gelatin, now used in everything from yogurt to vitamin pill gel caps.

"There is something of a frenzy for cattle bone," said vice president of byproducts at Excel Corp Michael Rempe of Wichita, Kansas, a major beef processor.

George Eastman established the Kodak plant in 1930 to have better control over the gel-making. He had nearly been ruined after buying a batch of bones from cattle fed with mustard seed, causing his gel to overexpose thefilm before pictures were taken, the paper said.

Kodak's gelatine plant is located at Peabody, Massachusetts, 400 miles from its headquarters at Rochester, New York.

The work of getting the marrow from beef bones and turning it into gelatin for film and for consumption is anything but pretty, the paper said.

"The stench of death rises from 16-ft high piles of cow bones chopped up into popcorn-size nuggets. Frank T Angelakis, known as the boneman or bonehead, perched on a catwalk, grabs a fistful, rubs the pieces between his fingers, and grimaces. "Not the best stuff," Angelakis said. "It is hard enough. Not porous. But it feels greasy."

When the deliveries arrive by rail at Peabody, the bone chips click along a conveyor belt to bubbling vats of hydrochloric acid. There, the bone percolates for a week to remove calcium and phosphate minerals, which are sold as (cattle) feed and fertiliser.

It is then soaked in a murky lime solution for about eight weeks, where it liquefies and is pumped through aseries of water tanks and filters, transforming into a syrupy state before it is cooled. Then it is dried, ground into a powder, where it is mixed with other chemicals to create a photo sensitive emulsion on strips of film, the paper said.