# Fish sauce factory....worst manufacturing job? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-sauce-factory-worst-manufacturing-job/757830 "2016-06-19T21:12:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Stana\_Claus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stana_claus/32/13874_2.png) [@Stana\_Claus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stana_Claus)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-sauce-factory-worst-manufacturing-job/757830/21 "2016-06-20T13:48:13Z")
While working my way through college oh so many years ago, I had a job sampling waste water discharges for environmental compliance checking. I visited many sewage treatment plants, paper mills, rendering plants, and chemical plants, but by far and away the worst stink I have ever encountered was the Cozy Kitten cat food plant in Pascagoula Mississippi on a hot summer’s day. Think railroad cars packed full of fish heads, shrimp hulls, and the assorted other refuse from a variety of seafood processors all along the Gulf Coast sitting on a railroad siding in the hot sun waiting (sometimes for days at a time) to be brought into the plant for processing. When the wind was right, it totally overpowered the smell of the paper mill next door! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-sauce-factory-worst-manufacturing-job/757830/22 "2016-06-20T14:55:12Z")
I can relate. I grew up in [this town.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwb4bBlWuAM) Heh, fun to watch that video again after all these years. The Spreckels is no longer there, but that Swirly stand is. 😃 Oh, I should add that the aroma is also no longer there. (I can confirm it was BAD!) The local explanation was that Spreckels had a few acre feedlot where they fattened cattle on the waste from their sugar processing. The waste from the cattle was even worse than typical cattle manure smell - apparently the added sugar in their diet gave their manure an added odor of death rot. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-sauce-factory-worst-manufacturing-job/757830/23 "2016-06-20T15:12:21Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > I hear paper mills are pretty bad. Paper mills alone don’t smell, but they often have a pulp mill nearby as well and those can smell. I used to live a few hundred meters from a smallish paper mill but there was no pulp mill and thus no smell whatsoever. Worked there a few summers as well, I can’t remember any part of the mill smelling especially bad. Hot and humid and noisy yes, smelly no - nice place to work really. Had a meat processing plant along my paper route on the other hand and that smelled really bad, even in winter. There was a fairly sizable suburb right next to it and the smell was bad there as well, I kept on wondering whether they get used to it and how bad it gets in the summer. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-sauce-factory-worst-manufacturing-job/757830/24 "2016-06-20T16:53:14Z")
As noted here on the SDMB a few years back, [tanning leather](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=591495) is a pretty horrid job. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-sauce-factory-worst-manufacturing-job/757830/25 "2016-06-21T03:26:18Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > I remember reading a story a couple of years back about the residents living near a Sriracha manufacturing plant. They claimed the couldn’t go outside with out their eyes stinging. Can only imagine how bad it must have been in the plant itself. The job was tolerable because the air was rapidly vented outside. The neighbors didn’t like it all that much, however. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-sauce-factory-worst-manufacturing-job/757830/26 "2016-06-21T03:27:41Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > As a 16 year old I worked in a small town butcher and baker. I helped out in the slaughterhouse and was no stranger to carrying severed cows heads (they are disturbingly heavy), cleaning stomachs with a brush and hosepipe ready for tripes, cutting out and skinning tongues and manhandling large dumpsters full of entrails for the rendering lorry to tip out and carry away. > > Sounds hideous but it was actually an excellent and very well run establishment and a great introduction to the realities of nose-to-tail butchering. > > As for Fish Sauce, I like it too and I love the fact that the recipe appears to be > > 1. smash up whole fish > 2. leave in barrel in a hot place to ferment > 3. Enjoy! Did they use the heads for headcheese? I’m not trying to be funny; this is a serious question. My brother says that cheek meat tacos are some of the best food he’s ever eaten. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-sauce-factory-worst-manufacturing-job/757830/27 "2016-06-21T06:47:52Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Did they use the heads for headcheese? I’m not trying to be funny; this is a serious question. > > My brother says that cheek meat tacos are some of the best food he’s ever eaten. Not the cow heads no, they were used for tongue and the cheeks and other offcuts ground up for dog meat. The pig heads were used for brawn which I suspect is the same thing as “headcheese” (I’m not familiar with that term though) ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-sauce-factory-worst-manufacturing-job/757830/28 "2016-06-21T11:16:17Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Driving from Pittsburgh to Ocean City, Maryland I remember traffic slowdowns in a town that had a poultry processing plant. The aroma was not good, and there was residential housing nearby. I used to deliver pizza in Longmont, CO and the worst runs were the ones that went south of the turkey processing plant. It was like running a gauntlet. What a nauseating reek. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fish-sauce-factory-worst-manufacturing-job/757830.md?page=1)