Field Trip
Had a 2-day field trip earlier this week, that makes a total of 6 factories I've visited so far. Every factory is so different... it's really quite interesting.
First up, our course coordinator thought it'll be brilliant to start scaring us off by visitng AFFCO, the meat slaughter house. Yup that sure was.... interesting to say the least. It didn't smell as bad as I thought... and the whole process involves A LOT of labour.. but it was really really efficient. I dared not look at the part where er... sheep was getting killed, coz everyone that walked out from there had blood all over. But from what I've heard, it's really humane!. Basically they shock the animal with electricity, and then their neck is basically being chopped.. off.. ok.. chopped half. Our lectuere said ideally they'll want to just have one clean cut on top of its head so the animal's brain and heart will stop at one go. But because it has to be halal certified, the animal has to be able to revive after 45sec if left alone or something.. so that's why thye had to do it in 2 steps. AFter that the animal is pretyt much skinned, had various parts removed, packaged... and well... all done. It's unbelievable how clean the factory is, ok.. excpet for the fresh blood etc..
After that we visited REMCO which is a little factory with... 10employees which produces the rennet for cheese manufacture. The factory is small, and basically consist of huge tanks and pipes. It's a bit difficult to see what goes on when all you can see if... well.. stainless steel.
We had dinner at Hawera, we had to visit 3 restaurants before we found a place to eat coz.. well.. the town is so small, most can't cater for 24 people in one go. We stayed at a really nice back packers... my classmates were getting high from playing 4 kings. Amazingly my lectuere/supervisor joined, and was really good at the game. After 12 we drifted into sleep.
2nd morning, we visited the Whareroa Fonterra site. It was HUGE, they process 1/4 of all fonterra's milk.... whcih si just insane if you ask me. They have HUGE spray dryer that's 5 stories tall, which process 20 tonnes of milk powder per hour? or per day? hm.. can't remember... but that's only the 3rd largest in the world. The first was in Christchurch, 2nd in..er... can't remember where. Isn't it amaizng how the 3 largest spraydryers in the world are all in NZ? no wonder we are such a dairy country. But the lady was tellign us that in Europe, when they have excess milk, they generally make it into cheese, that's why fonterra make it more into.. milk powder, just so the ocmpetition is less fierce.
Lastly we went to another Fonterra site.. this one specilise in producing lactose. At first I was very... doubtful why anyone woudl ever want lactose, but as it turns out, most of the pills are made out of lactose. The lady that showed us around were superly enthusiastic... it's sad to say under the conditions of HUGE machines operating and ear plugs, i really coudlnt' hear much what was goign on :P good thign our group isn't presenting on lactose (A)
So that was the trip in a nut shell...I'll add more stuff in when i have the time ^^
First up, our course coordinator thought it'll be brilliant to start scaring us off by visitng AFFCO, the meat slaughter house. Yup that sure was.... interesting to say the least. It didn't smell as bad as I thought... and the whole process involves A LOT of labour.. but it was really really efficient. I dared not look at the part where er... sheep was getting killed, coz everyone that walked out from there had blood all over. But from what I've heard, it's really humane!. Basically they shock the animal with electricity, and then their neck is basically being chopped.. off.. ok.. chopped half. Our lectuere said ideally they'll want to just have one clean cut on top of its head so the animal's brain and heart will stop at one go. But because it has to be halal certified, the animal has to be able to revive after 45sec if left alone or something.. so that's why thye had to do it in 2 steps. AFter that the animal is pretyt much skinned, had various parts removed, packaged... and well... all done. It's unbelievable how clean the factory is, ok.. excpet for the fresh blood etc..
After that we visited REMCO which is a little factory with... 10employees which produces the rennet for cheese manufacture. The factory is small, and basically consist of huge tanks and pipes. It's a bit difficult to see what goes on when all you can see if... well.. stainless steel.
We had dinner at Hawera, we had to visit 3 restaurants before we found a place to eat coz.. well.. the town is so small, most can't cater for 24 people in one go. We stayed at a really nice back packers... my classmates were getting high from playing 4 kings. Amazingly my lectuere/supervisor joined, and was really good at the game. After 12 we drifted into sleep.
2nd morning, we visited the Whareroa Fonterra site. It was HUGE, they process 1/4 of all fonterra's milk.... whcih si just insane if you ask me. They have HUGE spray dryer that's 5 stories tall, which process 20 tonnes of milk powder per hour? or per day? hm.. can't remember... but that's only the 3rd largest in the world. The first was in Christchurch, 2nd in..er... can't remember where. Isn't it amaizng how the 3 largest spraydryers in the world are all in NZ? no wonder we are such a dairy country. But the lady was tellign us that in Europe, when they have excess milk, they generally make it into cheese, that's why fonterra make it more into.. milk powder, just so the ocmpetition is less fierce.
Lastly we went to another Fonterra site.. this one specilise in producing lactose. At first I was very... doubtful why anyone woudl ever want lactose, but as it turns out, most of the pills are made out of lactose. The lady that showed us around were superly enthusiastic... it's sad to say under the conditions of HUGE machines operating and ear plugs, i really coudlnt' hear much what was goign on :P good thign our group isn't presenting on lactose (A)
So that was the trip in a nut shell...I'll add more stuff in when i have the time ^^
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home