ALL NON-CITIZEN FOREIGN WORKERS BEING DEPORTED

A “what if” scenerio for the food industry.

FARMS AND FOOD MANUFACTURING PLANTS CLOSING THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES

The United States government today enacted the “No Papers No Pass” rule for foreign workers within the United States.  It is the most sweeping legislation concerning immigration reform ever passed.  Amazingly, it is also the most supported bipartisan legislation to come out of Washington, D.C. in decades.  Although the American people denounced it overwhelmingly in national polls, it passed both houses with very little opposition from either side of the aisle.  Senator Andrew Baxter of Kentucky was quoted as saying “It is important that our constituentcy understands that there are times in American politics when the politicians know best what this country needs more so than the voters.”  

The legislation effectively requires immediate and complete deportation of all immigrants regardless of years in the United States, to their home country.   Even the children of these illegal immigrants born in the United States must return with their parents until they reach 18 years of age at which time they are permitted to return to the United States and apply for Birth Right Citizen status.  Some of the key elements of this bipartisan legislation are:

1.        Immediate $25,000 fine per occurance for any employer hiring illegal workers.

2.       Immediate $10,000 fine per occurance for any landlord renting property to illegal workers.

3.       Fines and possible imprisonment of all individuals, regardless of citizenship, found aiding illegal workers.

4.       Immediate revocation of all work visas and visiting worker program paperwork.

5.       No proof of citizenship documention means immediate deportation without due process of law under the constitution.  The Constitution is declared “non-applicable” to the persons “unable to positively prove and establish United States citizenship.”

6.       Political asylum will only be granted to those whose lives are being threatened directly by home countries and only if that danger is acknowledged by the home country.

Although many industries are being crippled by the new rules, the reform has had some immediate catastrophic results in the farm and food industries and is causing shortages and widespread losses with the country’s food supply.  Fruits and vegetables are rotting on the trees and in the fields because even the automated means of harvesting some of these crops do not have drivers willing to do the work.   Not enough workers are available to harvest those crops that require manual harvesting methods.  Owners are finding themselves plowing under cash crops which normally would go to market immediately.

Feed lots, poultry farms, and other large scale food animal operations have all but ceased operation.  One source from White Meat Turkey Farms told this reporter that the turkey houses across the plain states that they operate are seeing entire houses dieing from lack of food, lack of animal care, and overall poor hygiene of animal barns and living spaces.  “There just ain’t enough people to do the work.”  He said on condition of anonymity.  Entire structures are being bulldozed, structure and carcasses, into massive trenches to avoid disease and cover the odors of death and decay.   Some of the piles are being amassed and burned.  Black smoke plumes carrying the smell of burning feathers, meat, wood, and waste can be seen dotting the horizon for miles reminding many of the burning oil well scenes of the first Gulf War in the early nineties.  

Those facilities that are able to produce are unable to find the ingredients and suppliers they may need for their production.  Sugar refineries, flour mills, egg suppliers, dairy processing, corn processing, and every other concievable ingredient harvested, refined, or produced is seeing serious shortages of available labor.  Goods such as cocoa, cinnamon, spices and other imported food stuffs are suffering since all other markets can not produce without the domestic ingredients.

Food shortages are causing panic on Wall Street causing blue chip food stocks to loose 80% or more.  Manufacturing facilities are closing their doors because there are no workers to process and pack the food products.  There are some isolated pockets of manufacturing still possible in South Texas where the Hispanic population is three and four generations removed from illegal immigration, areas of the Oklahoma where the indigenous Indian population is still available, and across Mississippi and Alabama where unskilled white and black labor populations have yet to be filled with the migrant labor  populations of Hispanic or Asian countries, as has happened elsewhere in the country.  California is also seeing some relief because of its multi generation Hispanic and  Asian populations.  Many of these workers are demanding higher salaries and benefits as a result of the increase work load and dependance on this unskilled work force.

Walmart and other large scale grocery operations who lobbied against such legislation, hedged their opposition by setting huge import contracts with foreign food producers.  Products from South America, Europe, and Asian countries are quickly taking the shelf space of domestically manufactured food supplies on store shelves.  The FDA and USDA have relaxed food safety rules to allow these items to come to market in a more timely manner to avoid food shortages and the threat of hunger.

National Guard troops are being deployed to oversee the orderly and timely deportation of illegal immigrants.  Thousands had already fled back to their home countries when this legislation began to gain traction in the House and Senate.  Fear of violence and fear that the jobs availible in their home countries would fill quickly, led to the mass exodus.  Some governors have had to declare martial law and enact strict curfews because of violence and backlash from their immigrant communities.   South Los Angeles saw riots and unrest as the governor of California,  Alejandro Martinez, a third generation Mexican American was handcuffed and led away by federal marshals for refusing to acknowledge the legislation and ignoring demands by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office,  the agency responsible for leading the implementation of the laws.  

More widespread opposition was expected, however, most Americans seem to be dumb founded and in a state of helplessness and shock from recent events as they see people torn from homes and lives in the United States and sent back to their home countries.

In New York City, Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, under the direction of Homeland Security, along with New York City anti terrorism teams are sweeping immigrant neighborhoods for violators of the laws.  Buses of these individuals are being taken to staging areas near ports along the Atlantic coast.  At last count 367 buses carrying over 40 passengers each have been dispatched.  With an estimate of over 500,000 undocumented workers in New York City alone, it is an impossible and volatile task.  These individuals will be deported immediately as they are processed.  ICE representatives indicated that some resistance was met, but the use of newly manufactured tranquilizing rounds and cannister emitting smoke that can subdue large crowds by causing massive blackouts, were effective in controlling the violence.  Cities across the country from San Francisco, Houston, Memphis, Detroit, New Haven and others reported similar enforcement and action in their cities.  Some political officials balked at the new laws, but knowing that as a provision of the legislation all federal funding would be cut from any state that does not completely support the implementation and enforcement of the law caused most state leaders to quietly back the measures.

States such as Arizona and Alabama who had already passed sweeping immigration reform that resulted in serious economic struggles have yet to recover.   These struggles have served to cause near collapse in state budgets and stalled all industry growth.  This example may have been overlooked by the new federal government legislation.

Larger than originally estimated populations of Eastern Europeans and individuals from various countries in Africa have been found throughout major cities in the United States working without the proper paperwork.  These individuals are also being detained and shipped to the various centers at our countries borders.  Polish, and Hungarian nationals in Chicago have already seen many of their countrymen flown out of the airport on Deportation Flights to their respective countries.   

A cost savings for the United States have been immigrant refugee camps that have opened just inside Mexican and Canadian borders welcoming the displaced illegal workers.  Both countries, in preparation for the legislation, identified infrastructure and established relationships with U.S. companies willing to move agricultural and food production just over borders to Mexico, South America, and Canada.  While the United States will suffer from the laws involved in “No Papers, No Pass” the economies of the countries with the foresight to expand manufacturing with the plentiful work force will prosper and see double digit growth.  Those not placed in employment will still face deportation to their home country. 

Academia is also feeling the pinch as some of the brightest minds from other countries are dealing with the reality of deportation with the revocation of their work papers.  Representative Barbara Fister was quoted as saying that “It’s time for smart American’s to step forward and prove they are smarter.”  

Despite the fact that League of United Latin American Citizens, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Italian American Federation, The American Foundation for Irish Heritage as well as a host of other minority based organizations opposed the bill that became the law, the legislators were not swayed.  New York Senator Antonio Leone, an Italian American, said “It is time to draw a line in the sand as established citizens, and if you have not yet crossed that line into American citizenship, you have lost the lottery and need to go home.”

The cost of food is expected to increase by 45-60% until other means of growing, harvesting, and producing can be established.  Many brands will cease to exist, restaurants will close, and the American public will find that the variety that they have enjoyed for so many years will disappear from shelves and pantries.  The food an farming industries may well be the hardest hit segment of the U.S. economy.    Our country is headed for an full economic collapse in the wake of legislation that is founded on isolationaism, predjudice, and irrational arguments.   

The food industry has become the new economic bubble collapse that will eclipse the subprime mortgage from earlier in our history. At last count over 16 million people are part of the food industry and account for over 15% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product).  Farmers, exporters, restaurants, disposable goods, transportation, and all the industries that are part of the food industry infrastructure in the country are showing signs of instability.  Coupled with the industries that support, and export for the industry, the GDP affect could be as high as 30%.

Despite the dire predictions of leading economists and professionals in the industries hardest hit by the legislation, the President today asked for calm and control from the true American people during this most difficult of times.  She indicated that her administration felt that in 6-9 months, the country would regain a point of stability and focus.   Quoting the government promotional material in her speech today, she said, “We will rally around the flag of the United States of America, one people, one focus, one common citizenship.”  

With the history of the United States being founded and built on peoples from other countries, one must ask what would have happened if the first settlers had to first pass through immigration?

Undocumented workers in the United States could be around 11 million according to the Center for Immigration Studies.  Some estimates put it as high as 20 million.  Undocumented workers are a major portion of our country’s infrastructure.  Whatever the eventual decision is to address the issue, let us hope it does not include this type of legislation which, at state levels, is already happening.

Written by Anonymous

Rush Limbaugh is CCF and Bill Maher is PCRM

“Hot Dogs cause Butt Cancer”

In today’s political climate we have liberals versus conservatives that take arguments so far out into left and right field that we are past the warning track and into the bleachers.  Their attacks on each end of the spectrum are almost comical if only in their tabloid style approaches.  You can find this in any industry and the food industry is no exception.  

A recently story from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is causing a bit of a stir for the processed meats and sausage industry (see bill board copy below).  The PCRM is not a completely credible point of nutritional and dietary information because their non-profit charter promotes a completely vegan diet.  Its founder, Neal D. Barnard, has called cheese “dairy crack” in his quest to promote his message of vegetarian and vegan diets.  PCRM’s membership is large and its advisory board is full of brilliant people.  They also have a strong relationship with PETA, which may push them more to the radical edge of medical science.

I do not dispute PCRM’s logic and I find myself as a Food Scientist and manufacturer at odds with its overall message, after all I have been manufacturing ice cream, cookies, pies, and cakes during my career.  Food has become an issue for our population, because some get too much and some get too little.  The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), a non-profit lobby group for the food and beverage industry, is obviously in the opposite corner in its relationship with PCRM.  So much show, I find myself at odds with its overall approach to educating the eating public also.

Family relationships, friendships, and acquaintances and generations of history tell us that an occasional hot dog with chili and cheese, or a sub sandwich with salami and cheese, cake and ice cream are not going to adversely affect our health.  Eating a hot dog with chili and cheese at every meal could be a major problem just like eating only Kale could result in some unpleasantness.

I look at the PCRM group as the very skinny (almost anorexic) team on one side and the CCF as the obese (real fat cats) on the other side.   Most of the United State population’s thought processes fall in the middle.  The middle is not a bad place to be.  Diet, nutrition, exercise all need balance to be effective for our population.  There is room for brussel sprouts and a good steak in our diets.   

To be continued………

“Pink Slime” and The FDA G.R.A.S. list  

Recent eye opening in the world of “pink slime” hamburger meat additive gets noticed by ABC News, Mom’s and others looking for a food cause to focus their attention upon.   McDonald’s and others are now vowing this food additive on the FDA list of approved additive, known as GRAS, will never make it into a Big Mac again. 

 The FDA’s G.R.A.S. list is food and food additives “Generally Recognized as Safe”.   It is a poor use of the word “Generally” which calls to mind the synonyms of normally and usually in the description of the list.    I personally like the idea of calling it the “Usually Recognized  as Safe” or URAS, because as a food manufacturer it is truly UR-AS if you get in trouble with a food additive.  The FDA has a published list that tells food manufacturers how much of anything that can be added to food. 

In theory the mandate of GRAS makes sense as its definition  reads: “any substance that is intentionally added to food is a food additive, that is subject to pre-market review and approval by FDA, unless the substance is generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having been adequately shown to be safe under the conditions of its intended use, or unless the use of the substance is otherwise excluded from the definition of a food additive.”   The good news is the FDA has to approve them but the bad news is they also approve prescription drugs, and you understand from the news its success rate.  The list changes constantly as food scientists work to find additional food additives that can prolong shelf life, recreate texture,  improve color etc… of what has been served up as food.  When I read the G.R.A.S. additives that are currently awaiting approval,  I would think that Mom’s would approve of “Rice Bran Fiber” but might raise concern with “Magnesium dihydrogenpyrophosphate (MDPP)”.  Don’t worry the second one can only be used at 2-15 grams per kilogram, if you understand the metric system.

By maintaining and updating a G.R.A.S. list, the FDA allows the food manufacturing community to find levels of anything they can dream of that can improve their bottom line.  The “pink slime” I mentioned above is the scrapings of the floors of slaughterhouses that someone looked at one day and wondered how they could market meat and meat by products that were obviously being wasted down the drain.    In many cases it may not actually hit the floor, but the bits of meat scraps and connective tissue that are treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens did not fit the “pink slime” story as well.  Google “pink slime” to see what I mean.  They either needed to avoid having the product hit the floor or find a way to harvest it once it reached the floor to avoid the loss of a revenue stream.     

Don’t get to down on meat products, every part of the food industry has its dark little additive secrets that the news people have not added to their story list yet.

It is a little concerning and very obvious that the primary reason that items are submitted for approval are to help companies  make a profit in the food industry.  Why else would anyone work so hard to add Hydrolyzed sardine protein to foods?  “Intended Use:  Ingredient in beverages and breakfast cereals, frozen dairy desserts and mixes, milk and milk products, fish products, pastas, hard and soft candy, soups and soup mixes, and processed fruits and vegetables and fruit and vegetable juices. “

Take a look.

http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodIngredientsPackaging/GenerallyRecognizedasSafeGRAS/default.htm

Food Borne Illness is the Result of Economic Pressures to be Profitable.

This was originally written a couple years ago about a problem with a peanut butter manufacturing facility.  However, as recently as November 2011, we still have not learned our lessons completely.

After over 25 years managing food manufacturing facilities, touring food manufacturing facilities, studying good manufacturing practices and all the minutia associated with the production of safe food I can relay to you how something like  a widespread contamination of part of the American food supply happens.  It is simply the result of economic pressures and the need to be profitable.

Most people are naïve enough to think that food manufacturing facilities are like those seen on television with well groomed workers wearing white uniforms, hairnets, and sanitized footwear.  We are all led to believe that the training involved is extensive so each employee understands their importance in preventing food illness from occurring.  Unfortunately, proper food handling, state of the art equipment design, sanitation programs, and employee training are all very expensive.  Maintaining proper records of food lots, tracking distribution, and implementing recalls are also very expensive.    Food manufacturers are the lowest profit margin per sale item in the US economy.  A simple concept such as the amount of food waste a manufacturing facility generates can greatly affect a company’s bottom line.   Too many times I have seen managers try to invoke the “5 second rule” when a food item hits the floor only to be put back in line for packaging.

Understanding the costs may better explain why our nation is unable to avoid yearly food borne illness outbreaks headlining our news sources.  Whether it is Listeria in milk products, E.coli on produce, or salmonella in peanut butter it is all the result of economic roulette that is played every day in the food industry as underfunded food companies of all sizes and shapes use undertrained employees to produce the nation’s food.  Food companies are in business to make money and anything that pulls from the bottom line will cause prices to rise and consumers to complain.  Some foods are safer than others because of their acidity or water activity which are deterrents to bacterial growth, but even these foods are subject to contamination by foreign substances used within the manufacturing facility.   Dairy processors many times feel that their pasteurization process will eliminate the sins associated with food borne illness and bakers think the oven’s heat will kill everything that could make people sick.  History shows us there is so much more to safe food than that.   The larger a food production facility becomes the larger and more widespread and catastrophic the outbreak can become.  No wonder Homeland Security implemented some rules for food ingredient distributors, despite the rules’ paper veil of perceived security.

We have all come to want and expect low priced foods and we want them available around the clock.    Food manufacturers are under enormous pressure to produce such a food supply.  We read of China’s lack of food regulation in their dairy industry which caused the recent deaths of children and we shake our heads in disbelief and understanding that they must not have the resources needed to produce safe food while all the time the United States implies they have the resources that continually fail to prevent food illness outbreaks.    Regulation is fragmented between agencies at the federal and state level and private industry self regulation through such organizations as the American Institute of Baking (AIB), Food Marketing Institute (FMI), International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), and a host of others found in all food industry sectors still miss the mark to completely secure our food supply.

Would you be willing to spend 5% more on all your groceries to insure that all food companies could show at least 5% of revenue going toward food borne illness prevention and training?  We complain about the price of a gallon milk yet pay for water put in plastic bottles.  We want safe food produced by workers that have to be trained and constantly reminded on the importance on washing their hands after going to the bathroom. 

 Moving targets of regulation from almost every type of agency acronym- EPA, USDA, FDA, CDC- at the federal and state level push inspection and regulation to new levels of expense.  New programs and methodologies emerge after each unfortunate set of news headlines and hospitalized Americans.    I have a prediction that involves the “clean” and organic focused foods that do not benefit from the technologies of insecticides, bactericides, food animal vaccinations, preservatives, spoilage deterrents, and food additives.  As larger companies begin to build this part of the food industry into a more formidable force, someone will miss something in producing these types of foods that will result in the sickness or deaths of Americans committed to a safer food supply.  Ironically, the American consumer destined to provide their family with a safer supply of food will inadvertently contribute to food illness. Raw milk drinkers who expound the benefits of milk right from the udder may be the first to feel the bite of intestinal pathogens that are missed at the organic producer’s farm.   In the hunt for revenues and profits, everything is an expense and subject to being ignored or forgotten for the sake of the bottom line.

Ultimately, food borne illness is the result of someone not following a basic rule of prevention in the process involved from the food origin (such as the farmer or ingredient manufacturer) to the food production facility.    Testing for pathogens is not required by most food industry sectors, despite the availability of easy and fast testing methods.  After all, the test kits cost money and time costs money and if it is not required why should a company carry the burden of expense?  When the dust settles just ask the Peanut Corporation of America, Kelloggs, and the host of others involved in the recent recall what it would have cost them to test their product before it hits the food supply.  

Much like the way we learned in kindergarten we must start with the basics with all employees.  In my industry I always started with “Keep it clean, keep it cold, and keep it covered.”   We expanded from that point.  How we, as manufacturers, stay competitive while still maintaining a facility that makes safe food is a balancing act that is easily swayed by the pressures exerted by the economy.    The old rule in the food industry, which applies to most business, is that if you won’t supply what the customer wants at the price they want, someone else will.  Not the best business practice when shortcuts in food safety are what the competitor uses to keep costs lower.  It may not be a dangerous philosophy when applied to cell phone plans but it can be deadly when applied to food for our nation.

Walmart, How about Aquaponics?  Teach the “Walmartians”

Walmart is the retail leader in the United States and is taking over the world.  They have enacted amazing programs, started and stopped the business of many companies, and set new rules of engagement in mosts every consumer product categories.   Their dominance as the largest grocery retailer means they have great influence on the food supply in the United States.  They have forced companies to work on lower margins and hope for increased sales to provide the lowest possible prices to consumers.  

With great power, success, and money comes great responsibility (an adjustment in the actual quote that sounds very similar).  Also with it comes lots of meetings looking for ways to reduce the demonizing of their company by those less successful.   In the last couple years this has led them to enact new sustainability rhetoric that states simply that it wants three basic things:

“1.  To be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy;

  2. To create zero waste; and

  3. To sell products that sustain people and the environment.”

Okay Walmart, let’s put your money where your mouth is and stop making everyone else conform to what a bunch of people around a table in Bentonville brainstormed as a decision for all of its vendors and do something really special.  Yes, you are doing special things in your communities and around the country, but do something tangible in every store.  

What if Walmart really wanted to lead with an innovative idea that accomplished everything it set forth in its Global Sustainability Meetings and decided that each of their superstores would install a fully functional aquaponics system as an intergral part of their grocery store structure?  Some have just wondered why the Capitalistic Omnivore would write about aquaponics?  Aquaponics blends the successes of Hydroponics and aquaculture to produce vegetable crops from the fully functioning waste steam of fish (like Tilapia, bass, shrimp).  While the fish grow eat and do what fish do, the waste stream of nutrients feeds the vegetables through water flows to the roots of the plants.   

The mechanics of the system could rely on solar and wind energy (renewable), use the waste streams to feed plants and make natural mulch (earthworms would be a nice value add), and sell the products to sustain people and thereby help sustain the environment.  If Cabelas can afford to put in full size aquariums with game fish, your stores could add a potentially profit producing entity behind each garden center.

Could you imagine the teaching opportunity that Walmart could share with their communities.  How a new generation of small “Walmartians” could learn that fish and vegetables could actually be grown and sold fresh at your local Walmart?

Sure, you can buy the grow lights, books, and a variety of parts for installing your own home aquaponics system, but what if Walmart decided it wanted to make a giant leap above live lobster tanks and actually produce romaine lettuce, bok choy, and fresh Tilapia for its customers.  Now that would be truly innovative, green, sustainable and a step toward showing us that they are not just the retailing behemoth they have become but a company truly living by the standards they are trying to get everyone else to live by.  Talk about that around the table in Bentonville.

Want to ready more? www.aquaculturehub.org and www.backyardaquaponics.com are great places to see more information.

I am doing some research on urban farming as well as more on aquaponics.  I really like the story at www.growingpower.org  and how a former pro basketball player, Will Allen, can bring the love of agriculture to his city and help spawn an awakening in urban farming.  Will Allen does aquaponics!  You will see more on urban farming and aquaponics here as time moves forward.

MY FIRST TRIP TO A PIG FARM

Beak trimming, crowded conditions, tail cutting, teeth grinding, over feeding, cannibalism, disease, suffering, forced breeding have all been documented in farming operations that raise food animals.  The internet has brought home these practices to us on You Tube and other media sights.  Best practices at each style of farming operation have become necessary to produce food animals for the worlds’ population.  You may not like it, but it is what we do as the dominant species.

My first real understanding of farming operations involving animals was a visit to a large privately held pig farm in Texas.  This was not a state of the art facility, but a farm that one could smell on a clear day for miles.  Its stench, I would soon find out, was the resulting combination of dirt, water, pig excrement, and rotting pig carcasses.

 Imagine an arena surrounded by low roof metal structures with what looked like pipe pens under each structure.  The arena was a muddy mess the size of half a football field.  Through it walked the largest pig I had every seen.  It walked slowly and purposefully through the muck that sucked at each foot he put down.  I was sure it had somehow been bred with a bull from another species to create such a monster.  He seemed to be walking among other pigs with an air of nobility, and control.  If there were such thing as a pig alpha male, this was it.  Please don’t ask me how I was able to discern it was a male considering I had never sexed pigs before.  Trust me, he was a he.

The owner was a very large man, and yes as a young man myself with a vivid and sometimes irreverent sense of humor I saw the parallel.  My father in law and I were there to purchase a few pigs for my father in law’s entrance into the pig industry.  He wanted to add them to his farm.  He already had cows, and geese.  He felt it was time to add pigs.  At this point all I wanted was some clean air.  I knew we had to do our best not to show disgust by covering our noses, after all farmers support farmers and what we smell as putrid is the smell of money to the farmer.

We walked closer to the pig arena getting close to one of the metal structures that appeared to house mothers and their babies.  The mothers were large and seemed to move only with gargantuan effort.  As a mother lumbered amongst her young, she laid down three quarters of the way slowly until gravity took over and she fell the last 10-12 inches at a rate of descent that one of her young could not calculate.  The baby pig was immediately engulfed under the mass of mama and disappeared from sight.  A muffled squeal was heard for only a moment as if someone had stepped on a squeeze toy and expelled all  the air.  The mother adjusted herself but appeared to be oblivious to the squishing of her young and found a bit of discomfort  with the small bump she appeared to lay on.  The other piglets had quickly found refuge under a 4” steel pipe that appeared to have been placed strategically for just an event like the one I had just witnessed.  Once mother had stopped moving the piglets ran back out from under the pipe to take their places at the table of mama teets.  Squealing, snorting, sucking, followed by the low guttural moans of eating satisfaction could be heard.

The owner cursed a bit knowing that he had lost a bit of profit under the mother.  Looking more closely I noticed a 55 gallon metal drum placed just outside of each pen.  As my father in law negotiated for his new financial venture, I walked closer to the barrel.  Flies seemed to be swarming just above the opening of the barrel.  They paid no attention to me, but were only interested in the inside of the barrel.  An odor that seemed to rise from the barrel and overtake the general smell was that of rotting flesh.  These barrels, one could only surmise all contained the same cargo, were surrounding the arena and served as rancid incense to the olfactory experience around us.   When I looked over the edge I saw that the barrel was ¾ full with rotting pink baby pigs.  Apparently the owner lost a lot of the piglets to careless maternal instincts and slow piglets.

At the conclusion of my father in laws business with the large pig operator, we got back in the truck and with the windows down for the 30 mile drive home to cleanse odors from our clothing and nostrils, we talked about what we saw.  After everything we saw that day, I decided one thing.  Some of you may think I decided never to eat pig products again.  You would be wrong.  I simply decided never to become a pig farmer.

Shrinkage and Waste- A Food Manufacturer’s Loss-

Free money!

My first boss is a truly intelligent man who focused on waste in a manufacturing facility with laser eyes.  He demanded quality, but he also despised waste at all levels.  We use to joke that he could find and identify ants carrying grains of sugar out of the facility.  That is the level of focus a food manufacturer should give shinkage and waste.  Here is a list of items I have compiled over the years that may be of some interest to you as a food manufacturer.  It does not contain everything you can find in your facility, but it does give you time to think.

1.        Are you depositing your product at the correct weight? One ounce of product at 50 cents a lb is only around 3 cents.  What plant can’t afford 3 cents over.  Multiply that 3 cents by 1 million units and you just gave away $30,000!

2.       Empty those bags of ingredients.  With sugar costing 56 cents a pound, a 1-2 ounce loss in a bag on 50,000 bags used is $1750-$3,000.

3.       Learn to use clean rinses from liquid products by adjusting water in a recipe- recovering the 1-2 ounces of residual product in a bucket or liquid bag can pay back. 

4.       Don’t put your cardboard with your wet trash- sell it to a mill.  Contracts with trash haulers can save the $95-$175 per ton trash haul and actually pay you back for your recyclable cardboard.

5.       Cleaning secondary containers and primary containers properly and avoiding things going down the drain.  The loss of the product down the drain and the BOD and TSS charges from waste water treatment can be reduced.  Don’t know what BOD and TSS are in the food industry?  Keep growing and you will!

6.       Control disposables like gloves, earplugs, hairnets, and aprons.  Teach employees how to use them properly to avoid early retirement of these supplies into trash cans.  The company I once worked for could save $15,000 a year simply by making sure employees only used one set of earplugs throughout the day and only replace them if they became damaged.

7.       Control soap usage levels.  Soap usage levels should be properly defined by your supplier.  More is not better, it is wasteful.

8.       Install VFD’s  and soft starts on electric motors that do not need to run full throttle.  Simply by changing a sprocket size and adding a Variable Frequency Drive to a conveyor can pay for the VFD in less than a year and put less stress on the motor. 

FREEBIE NOTE:  Has your facility undergone an electrical audit?  There are companies that will do free audits with the hopes of getting more business.  There are also college and university programs that would like you to allow them to audit your facility as part of a class assignment.  There is no excuse for not having an audit.

9.        Are your lighting fixtures efficient?  Lighting has come a long way and you need to check your fixtures.  Adding  motion control for on and off are also great value adds or just teaching employees how to turn off lights.

 10.   Are your recycling everything you can- Buckets, plastic jugs, metals, and even scrap food can be sold or at least given away to avoid hauling and trash handling. 

11.   Are you buying the right package?  A #10 can of pineapple is much more difficult to handle in terms of space, and container cost than a comparble bag in box.  The employee cuts and metal contamination will also be reduced.

12.   Have you found a way to use your out of spec product?  Bread companies have found that croutons, bread pudding, and bread crumbs are excellent ways to recover baked bread.  Ice Cream companies have used “rerun” for years to make richer tasting chocolate ice creams.  What product are you now throwing away that is still edible and recoverable according to FDA standards?

FREEBIE NOTE:  Money is available in most areas from your electrical service providers to help cover the cost of lighting retrofits or even VFD additions.  Some will pay only a portion, but many will pay almost 100% of the cost.  Ask your provider!

13.   Ammonia refrigeration is a great saver versus freon and liquid nitrogen-  Ammonia refrigeration is an excellent long term money saver compared to freon and liquid nitrogen.  We were able to help a company drop the 9 cent per lb of product cost of nitrogen to 3 cents per lb product cost on 3 million plus lbs of product.  Initial investment in equipment is higher, but the long term return is excellent. 

14.   Ammonia and Freon type refrigeration systems must run efficiently and you can regain some energy efficiency through heat recovery.  Too many times refrigeration systems are overlooked and years of basic PM’s are not completed properly despite Process Safety Management rules.  Poor insulation, too much oil in your system, and incorrect pressure adjustments will result in loss.  You could also find ways to use “hot gas” to preheat your facilities hot water.

15.   As a small manufacturer are you in a purchasing cooperative-  Imagine you and small manufacturers like you pulling your buying power together to get better prices.  It works and there are companies that can help you do just that.  This will save money by allowing you to get out of the grips of small distributors with high margins.

16.   Water costs money so do not waste it!  Add flow controls to hoses and teach employees how to use them.  C.I.P. systems can be set to use the right amount of water with the right amount of soap.

17.   Ask your packaging suppliers if there are ways they can help you reduce waste.- Some suppliers may offer packaging in larger bulk packs you can use such as gaylord style boxes or pallet stacking corrugated units.  This could decrease the waste handling in your facility.

18.   Don’t replace parts when you can rebuild them.- There are times when a mechanic may find it easier to buy a brand new air cylinder rather than put a rebuild kit in an used unit.  You have to be careful with this one because you need a competent maintenance leader to make the determination of whether rebuilding  is better but it can many times save on maintenance expenses.

19.   Are you using more packaging than you need  and the right package?  If your primary pack is over sized or packing boxes are too big that wasted space could be costing you in real dollars or in unnecessary damage during shipping.

20.   Have you identified labor saving tools?  Can you find a way to turn a two person job into a one person job at the same production speed or maybe add a small piece of equipment that will give you a fast ROI?

21.   Are you losing product due to poor production planning?  Are you producing more than you need or providing customers with product that is not selling in the alloted time?  You don’t want to miss a sale, but throwing food away is wasteful and costly.

This is list 1 and I will soon post a list 2.  Hopefully this will get you thinking about waste and shrinkage in your facility.

Do you have some other areas of waste and shrinkage reduction you would like to share? 

Please comment.

Do you want more information or an on site evaluation of a waste problem, email me at jsearles63@gmail.com .