Here’s an example.
A grocer wants to make up fruit baskets containing four different fruits: apples, pears, oranges, peaches.
He has 72 apples, 48 pears, 60 oranges, 36 peaches in stock. Each basket must contain the same mixture of fruits and he wants to use up all the fruit he has in stock. What is the largest number of baskets he would need?
The GCF of 72, 48, 60 and 36 is 12, that is, 12×6, 12×4, 12×5, 12×3. So each basket would contain 6 apples, 4 pears, 5 oranges and 3 peaches. He would need 12 baskets each containing 18 fruits.