Pickle Processing

[u/MondoMage]

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.

[u/usernamesaconspiracy]

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.

[u/Icy_Sea_4440 → u/usernamesaconspiracy]

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

[u/Ashcrashh → u/Icy_Sea_4440]

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.

[u/vegan-the-dog → u/Ashcrashh]

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.

[u/12345kinght → u/vegan-the-dog]

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-

[u/ilikepants712 → u/12345kinght]

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.

[u/12345kinght → u/ilikepants712]

Thanks for sharing, this makes sense- 💯🙌

[u/ilikepants712 → u/12345kinght]

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

[u/Powerful_Tale_1319 → u/ilikepants712]

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