Yesterday, I had the chance to take a tour of a production facility for a potential client. Many seed-stage start-ups consist of a server rack and maybe a coffee maker, so it's fun to go to places that can make actual "things." Plus, how many of you went home and told your roommate/spouse/parent, "I toured a rendering facility"?
The facility was interesting. Mike and I got the full tour, and they thoughtfully provided us jackets to keep the smell off our clothes. I learned all about the meat and oil recycling process and how it goes from "wasted chicken at Costco" to biodiesel input and pet food. For those among you who don't know, I have a pretty keen sniffer (a by-product of an obsessively hygienic restaurateur mother). The tour was worth the stink, though because
1) Factories are cool!
2) Evaluating companies we may invest in means learning the technology.
3) It's funny to see your partner fighting nausea.
We stood next to barrels and barrels of fat trimmings, meat scraps, fish and chicken, all getting ready to be cooked up and broken down. The facility takes truckloads of meat-waste and renders it into usable product, and they only create about one trashcan of waste per week. We got to see the massive tanks of oils and the entire line that cooks and distills meat with a full narrative of how it breaks down. Red meat turn stringy and then brakes down into a high-protein, but the chicken fibers and hollow bones get ground into a sand-like substance that's less useful. Both end up smelling really, really weird, especially with the dampness and warmth of the air (they also take out, clean, and cool the water leftover in the scraps). Apparently, you have to keep the meat-meal dry, or all manner of cooties end up growing in it (E. coli, salmonella, weird mold). We saw the meat meal in a little room in great big piles, ready to shovel into containers headed for pet food facilities in the Philippines.
Publish Post
I like the philosophical cleanliness, but it's going to be rough if I work on site. Also, I'd struggle not to constantly announce "Soylent Green..is...PEOPLE"
3 years ago
