4 ms·

There aren’t food prep areas when it comes to manufacturing at this scale. There are silos, storage tanks, essentially duct work to transport ingredients from b

by NaOH 2y ago

There aren’t food prep areas when it comes to manufacturing at this scale. There are silos, storage tanks, essentially duct work to transport ingredients from bulk storage to production, and large-scale machinery which is designed to minimize exposure to the environment and people while in use. That’s putting aside the equipment and facilities used to acquire ingredients or store products after production. Yes, all of this equipment is also designed to be cleaned and sanitized, but these are large surface areas covering large distances. And we’re talking about one little sesame seed which can’t be easily detected if it somehow makes its way into a product, unlike, say, the metal detectors all finished goods pass through to ensure no metal object found its way into something. Spending time in facilities like Bimbo operates will disavow someone of the idea that the work a company like that does is akin to what happens in restaurants or catering facilities. These are factories where product assembly happens to involve edible parts.

pfannkuchen 2y ago
Thank you for the mental image of a loaf of bread getting busted trying to smuggle a machine part out of the factory.
- throwup238 2y ago
  You joke but product theft is always a major concern.
- michaelt 2y ago
  The food industry has special industrial X-ray machines so that if the hamburger meat grinding machine has a blade snap off, you don't send a customer a hamburger with a blade in it.
isoprophlex 2y ago
> These are factories where product assembly happens to involve edible parts. And looking at the picture of the """bread""" at the start of the article, it shows. That's not bread, that's an industrial product.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Yes, almost all food these days is an "industrial product" at some point in the pipeline. That's the reality of living in an industrial society and not an agrarian one.
  - lukan 2y ago
    Not at all. Even in this industrial society it is possible to buy raw ingredients and cook yourself and many people do it. (and as far as I know, many studies imply that is healthier, than heavily processed food, filled with conservatives, additives and whatever)
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      >Even in this industrial society it is possible to buy raw ingredients and cook yourself and many people do it. Those raw ingredients are also "industrial products". Did you think that bag of flour you bought was hand-milled by someone after they hand-picked the wheat? It came from a factory, just like most store-bought bread.
      - lukan 2y ago
        Actually one can buy hand milled flour, but I do not think that makes sense. I am not against big machines (and milling has not been done by hand for centuries). I am against adding all kind of things into my food, that happened to not be proofen cancer inducing yet.
        alephnerd 2y ago
        It's almost impossible to find hand-milled flour in a store or online. You might be confusing "Stone Ground" flour which is ground using a machine [0] [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SolMVg3_Ac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SolMVg3_Ac
        2y ago
josefx 2y ago
> There are silos, storage tanks, essentially duct work to transport ingredients from bulk storage to production How hard would it be to just have a set of sesam free plumbing for specific products? I mean they also manage to keep a separate sewage line, right??
- michaelt 2y ago
  I don't know about Bimbo Breads specifically, but I do know a lot of manufacturing plants will produce several products on the same production line, in batches. A brewery that produces several types of beer would have separate fermentation tanks for each one - but might only have one bottling/canning line. I wouldn't be surprised if bread manufacturing was similar - you might produce 8 different types of bread, but only have one bagging machine. Of course the entire plant would be deep-cleaned once per day. But you'd be switching between products 8 times per day, so there's not time for an hour-long cleaning every time.
forgetfreeman 2y ago
So we're saying what, in an era of atomic scale manufacturing it isn't possible to design a manufacturing line that segregates macro-scale ingredients? I've spent time in pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. They don't routinely floof active ingredients between capsule lines. Corraling shit the size of a sesame seed is trivial in comparison. So yeah, this is still bullshit.
- shmeeed 2y ago
  Possible, yes. Economical, no.
  - forgetfreeman 2y ago
    Uneconomical to corral macroscopic ingredients several orders of magnitude larger than dust? I'm unconvinced although I'm certain that's the line of rhetoric being advanced by manufacturers.
- krisoft 2y ago
  > They don't routinely floof active ingredients between capsule lines But isn’t that what we read about regarding athletes being acused of cheating because of cross contamination in pharmaceutical manufacturing? “Generic Pharmaceuticals as a Source of Diuretic Contamination in Athletes Subject to Sport Drug Testing” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8635962/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8635962/
- jtbayly 2y ago
  I can’t wait until bread costs the same as drugs per gram. /s
  - forgetfreeman 2y ago
    I can't wait until a bread manufacturer tries to advance the argument that the same level of contamination mitigation infrastructure required to contain sub-micron active ingredient powder has to be brought to bear to keep sesame seeds from moving around at random.

by NaOH 2y ago

pfannkuchen 2y ago

Thank you for the mental image of a loaf of bread getting busted trying to smuggle a machine part out of the factory.

throwup238 2y ago
You joke but product theft is always a major concern.
michaelt 2y ago
The food industry has special industrial X-ray machines so that if the hamburger meat grinding machine has a blade snap off, you don't send a customer a hamburger with a blade in it.

isoprophlex 2y ago

> These are factories where product assembly happens to involve edible parts. And looking at the picture of the """bread""" at the start of the article, it shows. That's not bread, that's an industrial product.

shiroiushi 2y ago
Yes, almost all food these days is an "industrial product" at some point in the pipeline. That's the reality of living in an industrial society and not an agrarian one.
- lukan 2y ago
  Not at all. Even in this industrial society it is possible to buy raw ingredients and cook yourself and many people do it. (and as far as I know, many studies imply that is healthier, than heavily processed food, filled with conservatives, additives and whatever)
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >Even in this industrial society it is possible to buy raw ingredients and cook yourself and many people do it. Those raw ingredients are also "industrial products". Did you think that bag of flour you bought was hand-milled by someone after they hand-picked the wheat? It came from a factory, just like most store-bought bread.
    - lukan 2y ago
      Actually one can buy hand milled flour, but I do not think that makes sense. I am not against big machines (and milling has not been done by hand for centuries). I am against adding all kind of things into my food, that happened to not be proofen cancer inducing yet.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        It's almost impossible to find hand-milled flour in a store or online. You might be confusing "Stone Ground" flour which is ground using a machine [0] [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SolMVg3_Ac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SolMVg3_Ac
        2y ago

josefx 2y ago

> There are silos, storage tanks, essentially duct work to transport ingredients from bulk storage to production How hard would it be to just have a set of sesam free plumbing for specific products? I mean they also manage to keep a separate sewage line, right??

michaelt 2y ago
I don't know about Bimbo Breads specifically, but I do know a lot of manufacturing plants will produce several products on the same production line, in batches. A brewery that produces several types of beer would have separate fermentation tanks for each one - but might only have one bottling/canning line. I wouldn't be surprised if bread manufacturing was similar - you might produce 8 different types of bread, but only have one bagging machine. Of course the entire plant would be deep-cleaned once per day. But you'd be switching between products 8 times per day, so there's not time for an hour-long cleaning every time.

forgetfreeman 2y ago

So we're saying what, in an era of atomic scale manufacturing it isn't possible to design a manufacturing line that segregates macro-scale ingredients? I've spent time in pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. They don't routinely floof active ingredients between capsule lines. Corraling shit the size of a sesame seed is trivial in comparison. So yeah, this is still bullshit.

shmeeed 2y ago
Possible, yes. Economical, no.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  Uneconomical to corral macroscopic ingredients several orders of magnitude larger than dust? I'm unconvinced although I'm certain that's the line of rhetoric being advanced by manufacturers.
krisoft 2y ago
> They don't routinely floof active ingredients between capsule lines But isn’t that what we read about regarding athletes being acused of cheating because of cross contamination in pharmaceutical manufacturing? “Generic Pharmaceuticals as a Source of Diuretic Contamination in Athletes Subject to Sport Drug Testing” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8635962/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8635962/
jtbayly 2y ago
I can’t wait until bread costs the same as drugs per gram. /s
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  I can't wait until a bread manufacturer tries to advance the argument that the same level of contamination mitigation infrastructure required to contain sub-micron active ingredient powder has to be brought to bear to keep sesame seeds from moving around at random.