Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with factory

Meat Processing and the Chemicals that Go into the Meat

watercarrier — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:00:46 -0800

In factory farming, what are the chemicals - additives, preservatives and colorings that are added to poultry? I'm looking for all the processing chemicals that are used in meat butchering and marketing, specifically poultry.

What are the chemicals that the carcasses are sprayed with after killing? What are the chemicals that are injected into the meat to plump them up?

Inherited an acre of land. What should we do with it?

omegar — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:30:09 -0800

Inherited an acre of land. What should we do with it? Is there any way to make it profitable, and to help the comunity around it by creating at least some jobs? Or should we just sell?

My wife and I just inherited an acre of land. It is in Mexico (somewhere around here); it is near a highway, two hours from Mexico City. It has all utilities (plus two wells). It is in a residential/farming/other uses area. In the past it had been used to raise rabbits, deer and chickens, but that did not work out because of negligence by the caretakers, we were told. It was also used to grow onions, cucumbers, apples, bananas, pears, radish, apples, watermelons, mangos and lemons, all in a small scale (non profitable, but good). Then it was transformed into a private weekend getaway house with lots of garden (and a small river, did I mention a small river goes through the property?) Right now it has some living quarters, a small pool and some abandoned amenities (a tennis court, a jogging track) all of which needs urgent fixing and mending or could be torn down without spending too much.

So, the thing is we are wondering what to do with it. We don't want to go live there full time but it is near enough that we can go every weekend or so. We can pay for someone to manage the property and all aother expenses (assume money is no object). So far we have come up with the following solutions:
We could just sell the land, but in its current state we will wind up not getting what it's worth.
We could section it and build really nice little houses with a common pool (4 houses or so) and sell them for profit but, where's the good for the local community in that?
We could start producing something. The climate is really good and everything grows. What could we possibly produce that is not very time consuming for us and can at least not loose money in medium to long term?
We could start a small factory. Again, assuming money is of no object, what could we build? (It must require simple labor as local people are probably not trained to even use a computer)

Only four no-no's:
The thing we grow or build or wahtever cannot be loud. No loud machines, a tractor is ok.
We do not want to pollute anything. Not the river, not the land, nothing, so it must be clean.
Nothing illegal (no drugs).
Nothing to do with tourism, the area has all needed hotels already.

Any help would be greately appreciated.

It's like The Old Spaghetti Factory with a goatee.

designbot — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:10:17 -0800

What is the deal with Spaghetti Warehouse & The Old Spaghetti Factory? I went to my first Spaghetti Warehouse yesterday. The similarities to Old Spaghetti Factory were overwhelming. It looks like someone (maybe Robert Hawk or Charles Tandy?) visited an Old Spaghetti Factory on the West Coast, said "hey, what a great idea," went back to Dallas, and built an exact cargo-cult duplicate from memory. Old Spaghetti Factory was founded in 1969, and Spaghetti Warehouse in 1972, so it must have happened not long after Old Spaghetti Factory opened.

The two companies don't appear to be related at all, but the resemblances are too numerous and too exact to be coincidental. For instance:

The name: Where does spaghetti goes after it leaves the Old Spaghetti Factory? The Spaghetti Warehouse, of course. (In Canada, it's apparently called The Old Spaghetti Warehouse.)

The business strategy: The Old Spaghetti Factory:
Dussin pioneered the concept of developing restaurant properties in places others considered unworkable. These diamond-in-the-rough locations often are unique and distinctive—even historic—buildings in older warehouse districts where rents are low. As the restaurant's popularity grows, the area begins to improve. Other stores and businesses move in, bringing more people to the area. The Old Spaghetti Factory's traffic goes up, but the rents stay low.
Spaghetti Warehouse:
Based in Garland, Texas, the company typically establishes outlets in abandoned factories and warehouses in the downtowns of large metropolitan areas, using any tax assistance for developing an urban downtown property to pay for the facility's conversion to a restaurant.

The decor: Both restaurants feature a pseudo-Victorian mismatched aesthetic, with dark wood paneling, and elaborate glass lighting fixtures. Spaghetti Warehouse is done a bit more on-the-cheap, and features more random bric-a-brac. Most tellingly, both restaurants commonly feature seating inside a converted San Francisco trolley car in the middle of the dining area. Considering that one restaurant is from Portland and one from Dallas, it would be remarkable indeed if they both happened to come up with this bizarre idea independently.

The food: At both restaurants, entrees cost around $8, and include salad and unlimited bread. A small loaf of sourdough bread is brought out before the meal on a small cutting tray, with a serrated knife and a cup of garlic butter. The available entrees are very similar. After your meal at the Factory, you get a cup of vanilla, chocolate, or spumoni ice cream. When kids are done eating at the Warehouse, they can choose from a cup of chocolate or vanilla.

The locations: The states where Spaghetti Warehouse is located form almost an inverse map of the states where the Old Spaghetti Factory is located. It looks like they've expanded up to each other's borders, and there are now a few cities (like Atlanta) which have both chains.

This can't just be a coincidence. Does anybody have the inside scoop on how these bizzaro restaurant chains have co-existed for so long, or who ripped off who? Are they both copying some prototypical Old Spaghetti Dough Processing Facility in San Francisco?

Bonus question: Does anyone remember an 80's/early 90's comedy in which a guy was planning to start a restaurant chain called McRonald's (or McBonald's) which was basically an exact rip-off of McDonald's?

How do factories deal with eggs?

BuddhaInABucket — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:48:59 -0800

How do factories that make processed foods deal with eggs? I can't think of any way a machine would be able to open up an egg and get the insides out without getting shell everywhere, but there must be a way. Google-fu is failing me. Pics/video of an egg machine operating would be swell!

Dave Chappelle's next marathon gig?

fac21 — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:32:49 -0800

How can I find out if and when Dave Chappelle plans on doing another marathon stand-up gig at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood? Are these secret shows, or are they advertised publicly?

Auto: I need to replace my brakes on my 2005 Audi A4. Do I have any other options than factory brakes from the dealership? Are there brakes on the market that perform at or above what I would expect from factory brakes?

Mr_Crazyhorse — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 11:46:22 -0800

Auto: I need to replace my brakes on my 2005 Audi A4. Do I have any other options than factory brakes from the dealership? Are there brakes on the market that perform at or above what I would expect from factory brakes?

Factory-themed OS 9 game?

Johnny Assay — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 20:56:30 -0800

Back in my OS 9 days, I played a game in which you controlled a factory. Raw materials would come out of a pipe somewhere, and you had to control the conveyor belts, chutes, and other machines in the factory to make a certain quota of items by the end of the day. Incorrectly made items, of course, were deducted from your score. Can anyone else remember this game, and (even better) tell me where to find it?

Please god let me print some barcodes!

JonnyRotten — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 15:14:18 -0800

Barcode woes in a manufacturing environment. I am trying to get a Pocket PC device to scan in barcodes and reprint them on a networked printer. Lots more details inside. I am in charge of a huge new project that needs done yesterday in my company. Basically what we are trying to do is have someone be able to carry around a Pocket PC device, and go to a press, scan in the barcodes from the labels that they need printed, then have the barcodes they scan print to a printer in our label room so our Label Person can scan the new "temporary mask card" into our labeling software and have our label printers print out however many labels are needed.

We shelled out money for a package that is supposed to do this great called Pocket Labelview, but in my opinion its crap. I've spent hours on tech support with them trying to get their software to work properly, but it doesn't even support tabbing through fields, so the person scanning will have to manually click each field before scanning which I feel will bog down the process too much (thats if we can even get their product to work correctly, which is the bigger issue right now)

Does anyone know of a web implementation that is somewhat easy, and reliable that will transform input into barcodes. I can make mask cards for the press that will scan as text and numbers and (normally) tab between fields fine. If I could do this in pocketIE somehow that would really be the shit! If it would take multiple fields then give me a page with the barcodes on it, that I could just send to the printer, that would be fine. It really doesn't have to be fancy, just relieable.. But the clutch thing is that it needs to work on pocket PC.

I want to visit a very interesting factory and be astounded by how it works.

redteam — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 09:43:28 -0800

I want to visit a very interesting factory and be astounded by how it works. A friend and I really want to visit an interesting factory with lots of complex and interesting machinery and processes. We basically want to be astounded by the behind-the-scenes activity of some kind of manufacturing process. Once we decide on which kind of factory would be the most interesting to visit, we would contact someone there and arrange a tour or anything they could offer. Has anyone done anything like this before? Which are the most interesting manufacturing processes to watch? What's a good way to convince someone at the factory to let you come inside? Should we pretend that we're students? Please recommend any kind of factory or operation. I live in Los Angeles, if you can name any specific things or places around here, please go right ahead, otherwise, any recommendation will do.

These are not the gummy bears you're looking for.

Kickstart70 — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 21:20:06 -0800

How does one get a food item made/packaged/produced? I have an idea for a niche food item. Mostly this is just idle chatter, but I do wonder how I'd go about getting it made. Certainly it's nothing worth starting up a factory and self-producing it, like a good many niche products, so some company out there has to be doing that.

What would a company like that be called? What steps would someone have to take to make a product and sell it?

Disclaimer: I'm in Canada, so American FDA rules won't apply, unless I was to sell it to Americans, I'd guess.

manufacturer reconditioned...

flummox — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:22:50 -0800

I am currently shopping for a scanner and cordless power tools. I am considering factory reconditioned models. What are peoples experiences, good and bad, with this?

Intel Fab-4 - what does it mean?

Kwantsar — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 22:49:51 -0800

fab-4 - what does it mean? Is that where Intel made the 4004?