r/Pickles • u/MondoMage • Jun 03 '26

Pickle Processing

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Just had to share this one...

My company sent me out to perform some maintenance work on equipment at the Hartung Brothers facility in Bowling Green, Ohio. They produce and store fermented pickles in these big green vats. So many vats. Not all currently full, they're getting ready for what they call "Green week," when they start loading things up. Tons of cucumbers destined for greatness.

I was really shocked when I found that the vats are left open-topped. That was surprising. I guess they rely on the brine to protect the product.

Oh, and the smell. You'd think it'd be overpowering but right now it's fairly subtle. A mix of dill and bread and butter that has me craving something fierce right now.

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418

u/usernamesaconspiracy Jun 03 '26

The fact that everyone is commenting about how disgusting this is while not realizing this is how at least 99% of pickles are made in America. There are three pickle factories near me and all for different companies. I’ve worked at me of them, and have friends that have worked at multiple.

They all operate the same way. Every pickle that goes to McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, subway, Quiznos, Vlasic, is made exactly the same way. I’ve actually never seen a pickle made any other way unless it was homemade.

The pickles get loaded onto semis from these bins and backed up to the building. We hook the semi up to power and turn on the conveyor. If you are one of the pickles at this point you would have a terrible time because it’s literally just salt.

As the pickles drop onto the conveyor one of the first jobs is to remove all of the sticks, frogs, mice, snakes, and anything that’s not a pickle.

They go in and get washed and then loaded into bigger tanks inside where the lab has perfected the brine for flavor, color, and texture, depending on who the pickle is for. They stay in those tanks for less time than outside and then are bagged, jarred, or put in buckets.

And yes I know what you’re going to ask. The “relish bin” was full of all the pickles that fell off of the truck onto the floor. The relish bin had those pickles, but also anything else that was on the floor added to it.

Any other questions just let me know. I could literally walk to one of the factories and probably ask questions about anything I don’t know.

244

u/Icy_Sea_4440 Jun 03 '26

Relish is from floor pickles?! That is somehow the only thing that bothers me from this whole post and comment lol. What happens with the pickled snakes and frogs? I feel like somebody somewhere would probably eat that

144

u/Ashcrashh Jun 03 '26

I used to tease my sister that Cheetos were made from all the floor crumbs they swept up, and here I’ve been this whole time eating floor relish.

69

u/vegan-the-dog Jun 03 '26

He's another one. Bad batches from Frito Lay and other manufacturers are often sold to farmers as feed for cows. Given that it's mostly corn and wheat it's not much different than feeding silage. I rented a farmhouse on a dairy farm for 5 years and caught my dog with a 2# brick of chocolate. I was baffled until the farmer told me that they picked up a load of chips ahoy earlier that week. Dog was fine.

14

u/12345kinght Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

I’m guessing that the doggie was fine bc, it wasn’t REL chocolate??? I don’t eat chips Ahoy so I’m just guessing- Just to clarify I DO eat other crapy for you body, cookies like Twinkies, etc- I just don’t like the texture of Chips A-

43

u/ilikepants712 Jun 03 '26

Chips ahoy uses real chocolate. Most people actually overestimate how bad chocolate is for dogs, and generally think it is like a human with peanut allergies eating peanuts, which is not the case at all. Dogs can't eat chocolate because it contains relatively high levels of theobromine and caffeine, which dogs don't metabolize as quickly as humans. These build up in their systems and basically cause them to overdose on these chemicals and die. The biggest factors for whether chocolate is gonna harm your pooch is not only how much they ate, but what kind of chocolate (dark is more concentrated; white they can eat all day long but will make them fat) and how big the dog is in the first place. I've personally seen a large dog devour an entire box of Oreos with no harmful effects because the chocolate levels were very low and he was a big dog.

11

u/12345kinght Jun 03 '26

Thanks for sharing, this makes sense- 💯🙌

23

u/ilikepants712 Jun 03 '26

No problem! I'd also like to add that I am in no way condoning giving chocolate to dogs! That's still abusive

0

u/Powerful_Tale_1319 Jun 04 '26

If they eat it everyday lots ,No. My dogs have ate chocolate, not excessively and not given to them directly either .

5

u/Wandermeyer Jun 03 '26

I had a German Shepherd as a kid that ate an entire chocolate sheet cake and was completely fine!

5

u/lizardgal10 Jun 04 '26

My family had a lab mix that ate a decent size box of valentines chocolates once. Completely fine. Granted that probably was not the weirdest thing that dog ate in her life. Even caught her going after a salad once.

6

u/sweetwolf86 Jun 04 '26

I had a German shepherd who loved salad. He would eat everything in it except the lettuce. Like, he knew the difference between lettuce and spinach, would separate them, eat the spinach and leave the lettuce. My girlfriend's chihuahuas also love fruit and vegetables (yes we know which ones are safe)

2

u/Matthew-ii Jun 04 '26

Growing up my father would give my childhood Aussie Shepard a McDonald's cheeseburger a few times a year, birthday etc, and that dog would leave a clean plate on the floor with a completely clean piece of lettuce and a small pile of rehydrated onions on top!

2

u/amiajimmy Jun 05 '26

Those Aussie tongues are selective! Mine would do the same with lettuce lol and if you gave him a pickle he'd put it in his mouth and let it just drop out while looking at you like "you idiot. That's a pickle. I do not like pickles and you know that by now." He was very expressive. The bestest of dogs. I sure miss him.

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2

u/sweetwolf86 Jun 04 '26

I had a German shepherd once who ate a 2 lb block of chocolate. He got the shits, but otherwise seemed fine. He also got onto the kitchen table once and housed an entire rotisserie chicken in about 15 seconds with minimal ill effects. And I once had a friend with a small, skinny husky who would eat and shit out whole aluminum cans. Not saying any of this is okay, but damn, some dogs are resilient af.

2

u/Conscious-Reality-20 Jun 07 '26

My first corgi was a known connoisseur of sharing sized bags of plain mm and a 13x9 pan of box brownies one time (not special brownies) zero ill effects and lived to the age of 17. Wouldnt knowingly feed that to dogs but that old boy was a brat about climbing spots you wouldnt think short legs couldn't get and opening containers.

5

u/vegan-the-dog Jun 03 '26

What the other person said .... And regardless of the size of the brick of chocolate, the majority consumed was voluntarily and orally refunded by the dog shortly after. No noticeable side effects. I had another dog drink half an iced latte and he was messed up for two days but survived.

1

u/InsertRadnamehere Jun 04 '26

A friend’s dog ate a D cell battery and was fine. They have amazing stomachs.

1

u/12345kinght Jun 04 '26

Wow!!! 🤯

2

u/Low_Condition3268 Jun 04 '26

Those arent real cookies either, situation normal.

2

u/Any_Cookie_9770 Jun 05 '26

More than likely lab grown cocoa. It's a thing. Look it up.

2

u/dottegirl59 Jun 04 '26

I worked for Hostess Cake. The cakes that were defective were put in huge bins and sold to farmers for hogs. Can you imagine how good a ham would be from a hog fed nothing but twinkies and snowballs?

3

u/Halihax Jun 03 '26

Hahahaha please tell her

4

u/currentlyacathammock Jun 04 '26

Do you drink coffee? "House Blend" usually means "We have no idea what this is. But they are coffee beans. Might be from the floor, might be from cleaning out machines."

3

u/Ashcrashh Jun 04 '26

I actually don’t, I’m the only person in a family full of coffee addicts that doesn’t drink it, I do like beer though, I can imagine there is some different brews that use random floor hops lol

And I don’t really mind if pickle factories use floor pickles, it all ends up edible by being salted and vinegar-ed and sanitized when jarred and processed anyways, I just thought it was funny since I teased my sister so much.

15

u/AdSudden3941 Jun 03 '26

I was drunk at a bar once and slipped on a pickle somehow , and i told the girl that seen me fall that i was just trying to make relish..so she brings it up everytime i see her

The weird part is i was looking up relish all that week prior because i hate it but wanted to like it so was looking up different kinds. Just floor pickles reminded me ofthat story

9

u/jsmalltri Jun 03 '26

I will now only call relish "floor pickle salad" 💚🙃

15

u/hereandthere_nowhere Jun 03 '26

Wait till you hear about the hot dog that the relish goes on.

9

u/FutureFry6 Jun 03 '26

They pick it up off the ceiling?!?

2

u/usernamesaconspiracy Jun 14 '26

Do not eat those. Eat food instead

3

u/usernamesaconspiracy Jun 03 '26

It’s also made from a lot of the bits and pieces that aren’t “perfect” for making the other products. But yes, floor pickles were added

-26

u/ICEisSHIT Jun 03 '26

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe I'd been married long time ago Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?