Felt like this belonged here (Xpost /r/pics)

jmscharff2 · 4 days

let me tell ya about the guy who parked his circa whatever CRX in our spot and we quickly found out that 8 guys can move a car onto a lawn (and get it towed).

<3

etcet · 4 days

Is there ever a week when the CPD isn't being sued for something?

They should just put in cameras in squad cars and on uniforms and be done with it. This he said she said stuff is getting tiring. They got money for cameras on the street but not for preventing lawsuits?

wylm · 5 days

Yeah I don't know too much about that zoning or licensing stuff, all i know is that the city taxes/fees the hell out of businesses that don't have the leverage to tell the city to go pound sand and most regular folks don't know that.

wylm · 5 days

5K (actually about 6K) for a simple process like a belt roaster (like i said i mostly did nuts) is what I charged when I did this stuff awhile back. As the process gets more complicated to introduce a surrogate organism for knockdown testing, or monitoring time/temperature with calibrated devices, or if the process takes all day, the prices tend to go up. That being said a half-day job will only cost around 5K, and will probably consume of the the product that you are processing (has to be a regular run at minimum levels, you always validate for worse case scenario). The planning is always longer than the actual validation, but once you are validated that's it unless you change your materials, process or equipment.

Companies charge much more because what you are really paying for is for a qualified guy using calibrated instruments and controls to come and do the work, and if not everything is done exactly right then the validation is no good and you are releasing potentially harmful product. I had the power to bill the customers and I only charged what I felt was fair, while other will charge more because it is hard to quantify such things from a customer perspective. Most customers are so happy to get validated (there was a waiting list, I kid you not) that they do the shutupandtakemymoney approach.

Houseofbugs · 5 days

I'll keep an eye out

wylm · 5 days

Honestly you can take her example (vessel pasteurization, vat pasteurization as is commonly known in the dairy industry)and scale it down to a pot, then have some scientist come by do a time/temperature/kill study, say that in order for you to meet the USDA requirements for a successful "pasteurization step" you need to have your heat set at this level for this amount of time with only this about of product in the vessel. Now you have your validation done and any inspector will accept it. Then you need to get devices that monitor time and temperature, and paper to write down a log of your checks and you are done... that's it.

Validations for something that simple will only cost about $5k and are one time charges unless the process, equipment, or ingredients change.

The interesting thing about meats is that it is not a ingredient problem (E.coli is always gonna be found in the intestines of mammals) but a cooking problem, so the CCP for that instance is the restaurant cooking the raw product to an acceptable temperature to kill vegetative pathogens, so you're right, you need to choose your kitchens wisely. Raw produce is a whole different beast and currently the only way to get really safe veggies is irradiation or possibly bleach baths. The public is very misinformed about irradiation and bleach baths have to really well monitored so that they don't become the source of contamination.

I for one make my own salads, I don't trust uncooked veggies that are chopped from anywhere.

wylm · 5 days

the ford pinto ..

Profits > safety even after they found out that people were getting killed.

look up for ford pinto memo

wylm · 5 days

I hear that, I empathize for the small guy trying to currently make it in the food industry. 10 years ago it was much easier to start slinging food, 20 years ago it was laughably easy. Unfortunately Peanut Corp et. al. made people paranoid and they demanded "MOAR REGULATION !!!11" and that's what they got. We've had the FDA in here for "routine" swabbing more times in the last two years than in the previous 20. In the past auditors would just do an inspection and that's it, but now it has moved to auditing programs with the inspection as a side note.

I'll have to disagree that small businesses should be exempt from a good quality program, GFSI programs scale really well to smaller business, and with the right staff it is not hard to implement.

The basic rule to keep in mind if you want to satisfy ANY auditor is that if you can show you have control over your environment, process, people, and ingredients, then you'll never have a problem passing audits, no mater what your size or capital.

wylm · 5 days

I agree Chicago has some strange policies. We had a guy come in to test our scales and he didn't even have his own calibrated weights(!) and wanted to use ours for his test (lol). We told him to gtfo and come back when he was properly equipped to do his inspection, meanwhile we gave him the number to the calibration company that works with us along with our calibration records and that was that, never heard from him again.

It's a crazy business and it's not just Chicago (although Chicago taxes business that manufacture stuff like you wouldn't believe, there are taxes for just owning equipment and keeping it stored in the plant), the state, county, and feds always are buzzing around wanting money for this or that (but Chicago is by far the worst, I'm not surprised Chicago is losing manufacturing to the burbs).

I'm all for regulation in food to the extent that the government establishes the minimum required to make safe food and the industry stays well ahead of the curve (that's the way it is now). Regulation is a double sided sword in that th more you regulate the less people will want to inspect and fix things since the chance to fail is higher. the less you regulate the more trust you are putting in businesses whos main goal is profit.

wylm · 5 days

I agree but the requirements are still the same. You need to make safe product if you want to hand it out to the public, furthermore you need to prove that you can do so by establishing both procedures and documentation to that effect. For retail food establishments such as restaurants the requirements are different than places that manufacture foods in bulk for mass consumption, but it's still there.

It doesn't take much money to get a GMP, Sanitation, training, pest control and HACCP plan started. Hell one highly trained person can do that. The problem is that people think that they can just go and start handing out food to the public without any regard for safety.

I can't give names but a few years back a small artisan confection shop started up here in Chicago that wanted to make and sell high-end confections and what not. They literally had a kitchen and some people in it making stuff. They had good intentions but were not too well informed of how to make a lot of product safely, because these were chefs not microbiologists or process engineers. So my company and I worked with them to get a sanitation program together, get an allergen program together, training, corrective actions and internal auditing, HACCP and some other programs that don't immediately come to mind.

This company did their due diligence and never had ANY problems with the city, state, county or Feds. They currently make product and are doing well in Chicago.

It seems to me that a lot of people don't quite understand the treacherousness of the regulatory world, and do what amounts to representing themselves in a murder case instead of hiring a lawyer.

wylm · 5 days

To answer your question: no eating blueberries won't make you sick because they are not natural carriers of pathogens for humans, but because they grow in an uncontrolled area where animals come and go they can become contaminated with pathogens from either the ground (dirt), the air (bird droppings, water, urine) or direct contact from animals.

Adding raw blueberries to a dairy product is basically creating a growth medium for the organism; at the very least you are creating a medium where the organism can survive. Pathogens love milk and in fact milk is the choice growth medium for guess what? Salmonella. So here is the situation: you have a berry that comes from an uncontrolled outside environment, possibly casually rinsed, and now is being placed into a dairy product and then given to the public.

The only methods that I know of that will kill vegetative pathogens from dairy products while still maintaining the integrity of the product (taste color, texture) is flash pasteurization and irradiation.

The USDA will come down hard on a business that is selling dairy products to customers without a validated kill step (typically 6 log for salmonella, I forget what they want for listeria, I've been more involved in the nut industry as of late). I read the letter you posted and all the person needs to do is first stop asking the governor for help because he has no power over the USDA. Next she needs to have a study conducted by a accredited lab or scientist with the right qualifications that will validate that the procedure works and establish critical limits for the procedure. This is a must you NEED to have critical limits and a HACCP plan to go with it or you will never get off the ground with the USDA.

wylm · 6 days

Well I don't know much about costs, but i imagjne that to be legit they would need to spend time training you at least in sanitation, safty, and GMPs before letting you use the space, that takes time and resources but only needs to be done once a year or so.

I now remember the state inspector telling.me.that one of the vendors wanted to make blueberry ice cream by adding raw (!) Blueberries to ice cream, mixing and serving. The usda (as you could have guessed) would have none of it and then all a sudden the USDA was being unfair and whatever, killing small startups trying to be more earthy by not allowing them to do a very dumb thing without pasturization. But that's how it is and once again it was poor planning and understanding of CFRs that did this vendor in.

wylm · 6 days

I'm talking about food safety regulation not buisness licenses. And no, I'm not talking out my ass in that respect. I get paid very well to understand food safety, best practices, and CFRs.

wylm · 6 days

I use casual language because what I say should be based on rational thought and the the merits of my argument not the language used to make my argument. Language is a mere vessel for communication, I can be eloquent, but I choose not to, my job pays me to do that not the internet.

wylm · 6 days

it's my job to deal with regulatory people from all places, Feds the city and the state. It's not hard but you need a plan if you don't have one then this kind of stuff happens. I read their deposition to the city, and I think the auditor was a bit hard on them but that's why you have someone with the right background riding along with the audit.

wylm · 6 days

I just re-read this article and it only reaffirms that this chick thought she could just open up a food manufacturing site and start whipping out product...

That was poor planning on her part, she should have hired a food safety and regulatory consultant before she opened her doors. There are plenty of them around and they all would have told her that the type of business she would be running needs a lot of control in order to satisfy inspectors. The consultant would setup her shop to pass inspections and be there when the inspector arrives. My plant has two dedicated folks to deal with inspections (I am one of them) and that is the nature of the food industry, if you go in unprepared with solid programs and knowledgeable folks to handle the auditors and paperwork, this is the likely outcome.

Gotta plan stuff like this out ... once of prevention and all that.

wylm · 6 days

I cant even begin to describe how dangerous having multiple people using a shared kitchen that makes RTE (ready to eat food).

City health inspections are laughably easy to pass, you want a real inspection try SQF or BRC. I can tell you that if she had a clean place and had a HACCP plan, as well as a sanitation program, pest control program, Allergen program, training program, and internal auditing/inspections (among others ... GFSI is pretty badass), these "regulatory burdens" (lol, really? you want people to die?) would be a non issue.

Instead the lady went and opened a uncontrolled environment for making food for the general public, and got busted by the loosest agency for public health for not meeting minimum requirements for making safe food.

I had a state inspector in our plant and I was talking to him about this, and he was laughing at all the butthurt people were expressing about the "unfairness" that the city and state were doling out to some fly-by-night operation with poor planning but lots of hipster love. You can't have it both ways is the simple rule. All the big guys have to prove that what they make is a safe product and the little guys do too.

So I'm glad it got shut down, and I see it as our systems for food safety at least somewhat working. That was a accident waiting to happen.

davidsimon · 7 days

You're holding it wrong ... Didn't you listen to iOverlord Jobs?

epchris · 7 days

damn, I go down that road every morning (east) to get to LSD for work. That intersection isn't that bad, but it's easy to open it up and get in trouble on Lawrence. I always ride 5 over the speed limit on that road, left turners are a hazard on Lawrence.

Its the beginning of the "regular" riding season so cars are not "used" to us being around. Take it easy for the next few weeks.

nubzzz1836 · 8 days

I tend to avoid big group rides going down the street (I have a big "riding space bubble" as it were) but I'm down for meeting before and after.

TheSnoopiest · 12 days

Not sure what the best way would be but here are some suggestions:

Take some language classes at a college or university (I know UIC offers some Polish Language classes)

Buy Rosetta Stone or equivalent

Post a request for tutoring on CraigsList and see who responds.

TheSnoopiest · 12 days

You do understand that Chicago has one of the largest Polish populations in the US right? I suppose you must be either Trolling (1/10 btw) or not from around here.

Lyzdog · 12 days

Why on earth do you think we would pay for it? You can't sue the city if your business is vandalized or burglarized, so why is this any different?

No we won't pay a dime for this, there is no legal precedent to base that argument on.

I'd simply take a picture of the machine, record the time and date, park and be on my way.

raorin · 14 days

I used to gauge how good a computer was by how fast it can process the doom.wad

YourUncleMarshall · 14 days

I think in depth movies on the first few books would suffice and then you can wrap up the last few books in a movie or two.

Before you torch me, I really really like SK (esp his short stories) but the tower series seemed to have a parabolic arc and kinda fizzled at the end (although I did like the last book), but the first few books were awesome.

Deathgripsugar

TROPHY CASE

Deathgripsugar

TROPHY CASE

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