13 replies to this topic

[The Food Scientist]

Happy Tuesday everyone!

 

Just thought of bringing up this topic and see what everyone does or did at a job. So almost everyone here works in the food industry and I am sure many of you did or do something unpleasant at work like tasting or smelling certain products as part of QA/QC guidelines.

 

In the past I worked at a soft drink company (carbonated beverages) and I would come at 5 or 4AM and taste the drink before the addition of CO2. Talk about flavoring liquid sugar early in the morning?

 

Currently as part of shelf life studies, I taste and smell expired juice products. Talk about fermented and spoiled juice! mmmm!

 

But hey we all still love what we do! Don't we?

 

Would anyone like to share any experiences? 

 

[SQFconsultant]

Interesting - a couple of items...

 

I worked as Quality Assurance Inspector for a large franchised hotel company and the only thing I hated to do was inspecting guest beds, having to check for taco beds, lifting up mattresses to see what was under them (oh the stories), pulling down the bedding, checking bedpads, ascertaining if they changed the sheets out, etc. Between the overwhelming odor of finding a 6-month old pizza between a mattress and box spring along with all sorts of bodily fluids it was so many times (at least weekly) downright disgusting and people wonder why I am super careful about where I stay now and what I check for.

 

Part of my work in inspecting the restaurants that were attached to the hotels was ensuring the "meat" was actually "meat" and especially checking certain types of restaurants for the use of cats and other things that should never find their way to a guests dinner plate.

 

I actually loved that work and even though we were on the road and in the air 90% of the time, it was really exciting - even with the bodily fluids and the occasional pizza and dead skinned cats in a walk-in refrigerator.

 

Let's see, as a former Chef turned food safety inspector with a specialty in seafood I got the fun job of smelling rotten fish, shrimp, scallops, clams, oysters, etc - we already knew they were rotten, what we were actually checking for was chemical additions and at the time there was no machine for this, so whenever we got the call to go and do a sniff test I got the job.

 

Unlike you, I am very happy I never had to taste or drink anything - of course I think I consumed cat meat in one restaurant when we stopped for lunch before the kitchen inspection... that day changed that real fast - I never had lunch first again.

[Simon]

Happy Wednesday!

 

Never had to do anything gross, thankfully, but my background is food packaging. 

 

Interesting to hear your stories though.

 

Regards,

Simon

[Angus86]

I worked in Quality at a brewery on 12 hour swing shifts. Beer tasting was of course a component of quality testing. It seems glamorous, but coming in at 6am and tasting 4 or 5 different beers (some malt liquors) got old very quickly! 

 

In my current job, our R&D department has worked with glutathione (when oxidized tastes like rotten eggs) and spiking beverages with fish oil to add omega 3s. Yum. 

[olenazh]

Interesting - a couple of items...

 

I worked as Quality Assurance Inspector for a large franchised hotel company and the only thing I hated to do was inspecting guest beds, having to check for taco beds, lifting up mattresses to see what was under them (oh the stories), pulling down the bedding, checking bedpads, ascertaining if they changed the sheets out, etc. Between the overwhelming odor of finding a 6-month old pizza between a mattress and box spring along with all sorts of bodily fluids it was so many times (at least weekly) downright disgusting and people wonder why I am super careful about where I stay now and what I check for.

 

Part of my work in inspecting the restaurants that were attached to the hotels was ensuring the "meat" was actually "meat" and especially checking certain types of restaurants for the use of cats and other things that should never find their way to a guests dinner plate.

 

I actually loved that work and even though we were on the road and in the air 90% of the time, it was really exciting - even with the bodily fluids and the occasional pizza and dead skinned cats in a walk-in refrigerator.

 

Let's see, as a former Chef turned food safety inspector with a specialty in seafood I got the fun job of smelling rotten fish, shrimp, scallops, clams, oysters, etc - we already knew they were rotten, what we were actually checking for was chemical additions and at the time there was no machine for this, so whenever we got the call to go and do a sniff test I got the job.

 

Unlike you, I am very happy I never had to taste or drink anything - of course I think I consumed cat meat in one restaurant when we stopped for lunch before the kitchen inspection... that day changed that real fast - I never had lunch first again.

Dead skinned cats in a refrigerator - that sounds like horror movie, not real life! Yuck! But who put those in a ref and for what purpose - that's interesting! I've heard of some traditions of eating dogs, but cats...

From my experience - nothing really excitingly disgusting. It's just I've remembered the rumors in Russia that sausages contained rats (that fell into grinders), toilet paper (as a meat substitute) and other "yummy" stuff. As having experience working at meat factories of different kind, I could state all those rumors're lie.

[The Food Scientist]

Interesting - a couple of items...

 

I worked as Quality Assurance Inspector for a large franchised hotel company and the only thing I hated to do was inspecting guest beds, having to check for taco beds, lifting up mattresses to see what was under them (oh the stories), pulling down the bedding, checking bedpads, ascertaining if they changed the sheets out, etc. Between the overwhelming odor of finding a 6-month old pizza between a mattress and box spring along with all sorts of bodily fluids it was so many times (at least weekly) downright disgusting and people wonder why I am super careful about where I stay now and what I check for.

 

Part of my work in inspecting the restaurants that were attached to the hotels was ensuring the "meat" was actually "meat" and especially checking certain types of restaurants for the use of cats and other things that should never find their way to a guests dinner plate.

 

I actually loved that work and even though we were on the road and in the air 90% of the time, it was really exciting - even with the bodily fluids and the occasional pizza and dead skinned cats in a walk-in refrigerator.

 

Let's see, as a former Chef turned food safety inspector with a specialty in seafood I got the fun job of smelling rotten fish, shrimp, scallops, clams, oysters, etc - we already knew they were rotten, what we were actually checking for was chemical additions and at the time there was no machine for this, so whenever we got the call to go and do a sniff test I got the job.

 

Unlike you, I am very happy I never had to taste or drink anything - of course I think I consumed cat meat in one restaurant when we stopped for lunch before the kitchen inspection... that day changed that real fast - I never had lunch first again.

 

Umm what? Dead skinned cats in refrigerators ?    I can't imagine the horror.. 

[SQFconsultant]

Dead skinned cats in a refrigerator - that sounds like horror movie, not real life! Yuck! But who put those in a ref and for what purpose - that's interesting! I've heard of some traditions of eating dogs, but cats...

From my experience - nothing really excitingly disgusting. It's just I've remembered the rumors in Russia that sausages contained rats (that fell into grinders), toilet paper (as a meat substitute) and other "yummy" stuff. As having experience working at meat factories of different kind, I could state all those rumors're lie.

 

Not real life, I differ - I saw cat and dog meat being used by several restaurants in my travels along with horse meat.  Open air markets in sections of China sell live dogs to be killed and eaten.  This restaurant in Saddle Brook, New Jersey would give the stray cats out back small food and milk and then slowly cage them in and then kill them and put them on boards and hang them in the walk-in.   I had lunch, it was good and then inspected the kitchen, opened the walk-in and there they were.  This was also about the time that the owner asked me how I like my chicken chow mein - yup.

 

I am happy to say that I no longer eat any flesh, turned into a vegetarian and no longer have nightmares of cattle screaming as they are being led into slaughter.

[MsMars]

Organoleptic tests on raw ground meat.  Only method available for heating before tasting was a microwave.  Yum. 

 

Edit: And yes, some of the studies were for shelf life.  So rancidity was a factor. 

Edited by MsMars, 26 August 2020 - 01:55 PM.

[The Food Scientist]

Organoleptic tests on raw ground meat.  Only method available for heating before tasting was a microwave.  Yum. 

 

Microwave heated raw meat? YUM indeed. I thought I had it bad with fermented juice!

[zoelawton]

I'm QC of an egg packing facility. We pack several million eggs a week - and i have to quality test the product in many ways, including eating boiled eggs. 

 

The skin on my fingers actually peels because i peel the shells off of that many boiled eggs. 

 

The eggs are laid out flock by flock by flock and we have to eat one, then another, then another, then another and so on. 

 

This may not be gross to some, but i hate eggs. Especially hard boiled eggs without salt! 

 

Gip city. 

[The Food Scientist]

I'm QC of an egg packing facility. We pack several million eggs a week - and i have to quality test the product in many ways, including eating boiled eggs. 

 

The skin on my fingers actually peels because i peel the shells off of that many boiled eggs. 

 

The eggs are laid out flock by flock by flock and we have to eat one, then another, then another, then another and so on. 

 

This may not be gross to some, but i hate eggs. Especially hard boiled eggs without salt! 

 

Gip city. 

 

I mean I don't hate hard boiled eggs but can't imagine eating those daily. AND without salt AND pepper! LOL lucky you

[Jim E.]

I can only think of one nasty part of our operation, that is water sensory testing!  Our product passes through a number of water systems and to ensure good quality tasting finished product we have to complete smell tests on the water systems daily. Sometimes the smell get real off if systems have not been properly turned over.

[Spidey]

I work for a flavor company, I'm over both QA and R&D.  We taste everything in ice cream, which sounds glamorous, right?  Yea, I'm definitely lactose intolerant as a result of getting paid to eat ice cream.

[olenazh]

Yes, as it comes to ice cream, there's some stuff not very pleasant to me (unlike Asian people): sensory evaluation of weird flavors like cheese ice cream, red bean, black sesame, corn and others very favorite at Asian society but unfamiliar to Russian cuisine