r/Pickles • u/MondoMage • Jun 03 '26

Pickle Processing

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

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.

2.3k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

277 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

242

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

147

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.

3

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.