An amazing raw ingredient found ...

What a find!!  Next thing you know, they'll be stocking Kryptonite!

When is Garbage, not Garbage?

       At the risk of giving away "trade secrets," I have a confession to make:  I love garbage. 

       Before I get any further, I must be clear:  I always try to start out an inspection by taking a peak at the facility's garbage bins.  So, its not that I really "love" what's thrown out, you know; it just makes my job so much more interesting!  In that sense, it's not really "dump stuff"-- its really useful.  You might say, "it's not really garbage!"

Let  me share 2 ways that garbage is useful to this Field Representative--
1.  Are employees eating their usually non-kosher lunches in dedicated areas?  It's really easy to find out-- just look in the trash bins!  If food wrappers and left-overs are just off the production area, not in the lunch room cans, then its quite likely that there may be some comingling at best, and cross-contamination at worst.
2.  Is the list of approved ingredients (otherwise known as "schedule A")  accurate?  Look at the garbage dumpsters, especially the recycling ones.  There, you'll often find the ready-to-be-donated cardboard boxes and 50-100 lb. bags, neatly emptied of product.  If there are any new items being used, not on the A-- the evidence is there.

A story to illustrate point number 2 should be helpful.  I recently found a box of a cube of baker's margarine outside a bakery.  The label on the box indicated it was a private label product that was not on the bakery's schedule A, and what's more, there was no kosher logo on the label.  Problem?  Maybe.  When I asked the new production manager and showed him the box in the dumpster, he denied the company even used it  (hey-- I wasn't born yesterday, you know--- there was flour all over the box!  The forman was located, and he sheepishly admitted that they had been running low and he had run out to pick up some extra.)  We eventually found another container in the warehouse of a similar product with the exact same type of inkjet time/date product number printed, only this other product had a kosher logo and was on the schedule A.  So-- it's likely this other product that was found in the dumpster is acceptable, too, but not certain, at least after the fact.  The jury is still out on this one (I'll let you know what happens when I find out), but in the meantime, I'm thankful for garbage for giving me the lead I needed to help this company correct a potentially disasterous error.

So in closing, have a "stinky" day (at least garbage-wise)-- it's showing your RFR you're in compliance!

Guided to help those in need, at a bottling plant!

One doesn't often notice that during the kosher auditing we do,  we may be directly involved in world events. 

I just returned from a major bottling plant, providing pure spring water.

When I wondered out loud to the QA manager why the 5 gallon line was down, he matter-of-factly answered that the plant simply didn't have enough workers.  Where are they, I asked-- and he just as matter-of-factly told me that they have been put all on the 1.5 liter line, running around the clock to provide clean, pure water for the stricken Japanese market.

Radiation from the nuclear crisis and damage from the massive earthquake has polluted local water supplies, and this plant is filling the need. 

In the small way we partner with this company, we are helping them,  through our certification, create a quality production facility which can meet world-shaking needs. 

I'm glad I get to share my expertise with companies such as these.

I dodged a mega-snowstorm.

Sheesh.

Thursday

Snow in the morning...then rain and snow in the afternoon. Snow accumulation of 10 to 16 inches at lower elevations and 11 to 17 inches above 4000 feet.

There is no rest for the weary in the West as storms will keep rolling ashore into the weekend with heavy rain and heavy mountain snow . . . The storms will continue to dump additional feet and yards of snow over the Sierra Nevada with snow levels fluctuating between 3,000 and 5,000 feet. -- Quotations from Accuweather and NOAA.

How could I know?
I planned to be tommorrow, Thursday, in Mt. Shasta, at 7,000 feet.
For some reason, I chose to go there yesterday, and all I got in Ashland, OR today, only 90 miles away from Mt. Shasta, are "sun breaks", which translated for you non-Westerners (or shall I say, non-Oregonians) means moments of sun punctuated by long periods of dreary, rainy stuff.

But, that's what traveling the route of an RFR is all about-- trying to make good decisions, and allowing the Almighty to guide me for His service.  It's all a metaphor.

I didn't go to Mt. Shasta and I'm not caught in the storm of the winter.  I did my inspection yesterday, and today-- in between the sunbreaks, I did a few more.  The plants were appreciative that I was there.  So was I.  But for many, many other reasons.