Several people have written to inquire about recent stories surrounding a wave of industrial accidents at food processing plants all over the U.S. {Zero Hedge Article} {Twitter Questions, Suspicions} {List from Western Standard}
Indeed, there has been a significant increase in fires and explosions from furnaces, industrial fryers, boilers and some other rather odd incidents with aircraft hitting food processing. The frequency even gathered attention from Fox News host Tucker Carlson. WATCH:
Addressing the lesser frequent impact incidents from airplanes etc. Keep in mind that major industrial food processing facilities are generally located around major transportation hubs – large arteries for commercial trucking and railway lines for inbound good deliveries. These are the same zoned commercial regions where you find small regional airports.
So, let’s put those airplane ‘accidents” aside for a moment and look at the bigger picture.
Yes, there has been an increase in industrial accidents at some major and regional food processing plants. However, this may be the cumulative effect of what CTH was warning about since early 2020 when the food processing supply chain was completely screwed up by govt intervention.
When the restaurant, hotel, cafeteria, school lunchroom, food trucks and hospitality venues were shut down by government COVID mitigation, they represented about 60% of all food consumption. That pushed everyone into the retail side, grocery stores and supermarkets for food purchases.
When 60% of the demand shifted into the system that represents the other 40% of total food delivery, the processing side of the total food supply chain went into maximum stress and overdrive. CTH warned about the limits and capacities of this sector and the potential future problems that would surface.
Commercial food operations, industrial kitchens and massive food processing organizations were forced to increase food production on a scale that is almost unimaginable. Empty store shelves were the immediate result of massive increases in demand. The entire supply chain was pushed beyond capacity and remained beyond operational capacity for well over 18 months.
Two shift processing operations added a third and fourth shift for workers. Unlimited overtime with everyone working round the clock was the outcome. The food processing and distribution supply chain went into 24/7 emergency operations to try and compensate for the extreme demand.
What we are seeing now is likely, in large part, a downstream consequence from industrial kitchens putting preventative maintenance on the side in order to keep the processing going.
Boilers never turned off, furnaces running 24/7, exhaust fans and industrial turbines running all day and night along with all the attached equipment. I suspect much of the equipment that keeps the industrial processing and kitchens operating were not given the appropriate amount of down-time and deep maintenance that would normally take place.
Think of it like your clothes dryer at home. Instead of running two loads of laundry a day, now you are operating that dryer 24/7 to keep up with the mounting piles of soiled linens. You generate several years’ worth of lint buildup in your exhaust vent each month you continue. If you pause to clean out the vent, the linens pile up. A similar scenario happens in industrial kitchens and food processing.
Suddenly, the 30-gal tub of oiled/soiled rags fills up faster, and the contract for pickup doesn’t compensate or arrive with a faster rotation schedule.
An old cloth filled with food grade mineral residue triggers a chemical reaction….
Industrial fryers that must be purged every 6-hr cycle of operation don’t get purged because the retention system for the old grease is full and not getting pumped as fast to keep up with the increased production cycles.
Stuff like this starts to happen when you run an industrial system beyond capacity. Perhaps the grease is loaded into buckets or drums as an offset, but that needs to be stored somewhere…. where they are not used to storing it… etc.
Industrial vents don’t get cleaned more frequently to keep up with the new 24/7 operation. Regular maintenance schedules are deferred for massive furnaces that need time to cool, clean and restart.
The same applies to boilers and HVAC systems that were not designed for the capacity now required. In short, there’s a whole lot of maintenance that gets put down the priority list when everyone in the organization is shouting to keep everything running.
I’m not trying to justify the issue, excuse or blame the facility. I’m just explaining how all kinds of industrial accidents can spike when the operational systems within a specific industry are running maximum throttle, month after month after month.
Then there’s the exhausted people; literally the workers who are physically and mentally drained from the overcapacity issues. And don’t think the regulatory agencies (USDA, health inspectors, etc) wouldn’t also tell their compliance officers to give the industry a little slack. I guarantee they did.
The added hours, the added shifts, the days off that can’t take place. All of that leads to short cuts and things left undone that would normally be done under regular operations. People burn out just like equipment, and tired people take shortcuts.
I’ll look closely to see if there is an uptick in workers comp claims within the industrial food processing sector, but I suspect there is. Heck, why wouldn’t there be? It would be natural to see more worker injuries along with industrial accidents under these conditions.
Does that explain all of the incidents? Maybe not, but the fact that U.S. food processing has been running beyond capacity, might put a better context on why that same specific segment of U.S. industrial output would be seeing more industrial accidents.
Another downstream consequence could be an uptick in food recalls as an outcome of increased bacteria within the food processing equipment, because the break-down-time, sanitation and hygiene might be impacted by excessive operational run times. There’s a myriad of issues from any industrial operation that goes from ordinary capacity to seriously over-stressed maximum capacity… and then remains in the emergency phase for months.
Like I said two years ago, the downstream ramifications of those decisions were going to be a major problem.
March 15, 2020 – […] “A government cannot just shut down 30 to 50 percent of the way civil society feeds themselves, without planning and advanced preparation for an alternative. Those who ARE the alternative, the processors and retail food grocers, need time to prepare themselves (and their entire logistical system) for the incredible impact. Without preparation this is a man-made crisis about to get a lot worse. (LINK)
FUBAR…
… or it could be something nefarious. Suspicious Cat always remains, well, suspicious.
Valid points and interesting points. I can’t put it aside that it is weird for two planes to crash into food plants when they could have crashed near about anywhere. I simply do not trust my gummint.
As Sundance noted, these are located in industrial type areas near transportation hubs, including airports, and as an old USAF aircraft maintenance guy that has picked up and swept up and investigated his share of crashed aircraft, (non mea culpa), I can attest they are most prone to do so near an airfield as they are coming or going.
Landings and takeoffs, THATS usually when “things get hairy”.
“The fall isn’t what kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”
Just like life…
Given the high number of incidents it could be something that is insurance related. Given huge price increases it may be an excuse not to deliver prior agreements at a loss due to “Act of God”.
Or an “Act of Allah……………………”
Not too probable.
Putting a plant out I’d go with:
failure to maintain and clean;
unintentional mishap, intentional mishap (insurance fraud, contract avoidance, disgruntled employee).
The hungry Muslim…no.
Oddly the G men speak out about ransomware and such.
The kamikaze plane crash….no. Definitely pilot error.
this is also a valid cause. It is pretty common for companies, particularly those operating in negative margin to have a “fire” or some other incident that solves their financial problems.
It much more common that many people realize.
But the effort to get someone to volunteer to crash an aircraft into a facility with loss of life isn’t something we can accept as an example that is realistic.
a fire without loss of life without the necessity of aircraft crashes to cause destruction would be superior in many respects.
I don’t know of any particular terror group that comes to mind that has zeroed in on flying aircraft into critical food processing centers, but I don’t doubt that this would be something that terror groups haven’t considered either! I mean if you do want to do a long term impact on national security, you can either choose to make a “monument” strike…(twin towers, pentagon, etc)…which realistically has very little economic long term impact outside of the obvious terror effects on a population…or you can target critical infrastructure that does have a long term impact that does cause widespread disruptions that are difficult to both comprehend and also repair and get the food supply back to normalcy. It’s actually very strategic and less risky from a terror pov. Why attempt to destroy a major shipping port, when you can just release a bioweapon that goes pandemic and creates an immediate two year global stagnation and collapse? Why target a port that is well protected, when you can simply hit half a dozen major manufacturing or processing centers that are not protected and guarded at all and have the same effects?
in ww2, the allies effectively defeated nazi germany in a 3 month period. Most people that know the military details of these strategic bombing mission know what I am talking about. There were key critical war logistical targets taken out and destroyed with a great loss of allied lives. But it was successful. That period of strategic bombing altered the war effort by germany to such an extent, that the outcome of an attrition based result was undeniable: germany would lose the war without these resources. At that moment, the clock was winding down to zero. And that is the greatest lesson in that war. Germany was defeated by very intelligent strategic efforts to reduce its capability to be effective in both offensive and defensive capability.
I will turn you attentions to Ukraine now. the amount of weapons being sent to ukraine by the US will only suspend the outcomes for a short period of time. Russia will win this campaign. it has overwhelming resources and the most important aspect is that ukraine has not reached over the russian border to take out critical infrastructure and logistics. They just do not possess that capability. Conversely, russia has prosecuted its efforts effectively in nulling the most important logistical elements of the ukraine defenses. So this war is already over in the sense that the outcome will predicable and overwhelmingly that favors a russian outcome. Russia has 95 percent of more of it’s offense and defensive assets in reserve. I am not talking about moth ball junk either. The bulk of russian forces is at top readiness but not yet deployed. Most people need to realize this fact. Russia will take Ukraine. And the west is extending weapons to ukraine for one reason and one reason only:
to present a challenge to russia that it conceded to some energy provisos in the upcoming treaty/ceasefire.
russia IS NOT MOVED by these attempts to manipulate. it holds all the cards …and will continue to hold the max lever…it has the forces in overwhelming number and in effectiveness..and more importantly it holds the energy solution necessary for all of europe to actually continue as 1st world powers. Europe will eventually cave to these realities…for simple economic and geo political reasons. They cannot continue to fail economically supporting a war that is destined to achieve nothing but more economic misery …
someone needs to send a few nash equilibrium solutions to the EU and have them go back to school and understand the principles of war.
the days where one could win or lose and those were the only choices is over.
If ukraine has a place as a soverign country, it’s in their best interests to start having those treaty discussions and understand that they must concede some assets in order to end up on this side of the dirt.
valid points
The same might apply to the small aircraft industry which was stagnant for some time. Maintenance.
Most of the crashes I worked were due to pilot error of some kind.
How are the needed parts for repair being located if the supply chain is choked? Sundance has written about that issue too.
I’m with Suspicious Cat’s “something nefarious” way of thinking here.
ESP. RC…AV GAS is not something to be messed with…JUST getting a flame near the stuff causes combustion…
Something that is Kerosene based has a VERY LOW flash point!!!
In the Burley ID crash, I noted no fire, a testament to the combustion characteristics of JetA since the Caravan was equipped with a PT6A turboprop engine. I see the same thing in personal and business use with diesel, compared to gasoline.
OTOH, when I worked the cottonseed stacks and grain silos, whoa, talk about combustion potential. Much of my time was spent building ventilation and control systems to keep things cool and dry. Spontaneous combustion and static discharge was a constant risk.
Still, relatively rare. As Jack Lemmon put it in ‘The China Sydrome’, the system works. Sure, stuff happens but industry is very robust. One big variable, one outlined in this thread, is the human factor. IDK, been out of it awhile now, don’t know the minds of those in it anymore. We were well trained, good apprenticeships, and I got the sense that most cared about doing a good job. Pie in the sky? Perhaps. Still, it was regular people, the grunts, who built America into the industrial power it was.
So the spooks ASK some volunteer to crash into a building knowing it’s a suicide mission or they intentionally make a plane crash precisely into a specific building and murder the pilot?
I don’t trust our government at all but that’s definitely tin foil hat territory.
Read up on “brain washing”.
Currently a lot of children are mutilating themselves to “transition”
If you read the story on the Heyburn Idaho plane crash into the food processing plant a few weeks ago, you will discover that it was nothing more than a tragic accident that took the life of a young UPS pilot. Just a few years before, the city council allowed the company to build a 60ft chimney directly inline with the approach of the airfield. Her parents are devastated and questioning why this was ever allowed. In addition, the flight conditions that morning were terrible. This accident should never have been included in the segment on Tucker’s broadcast. https://www.potatonewstoday.com/2022/04/20/idaho-ups-pilot-killed-instantly-after-her-plane-crashes-into-potato-processing-plant/
The Idaho plane crash seems like an accident that was a long time coming based in where the plant was located
Move the plant or move the damn runway
It’s very common to have industrial and commercial enterprises located in landing paths. They’re a good use of land that would otherwise put residences and schools at risk.
I happened to grow up next to an airport and when they lengthened the runways they bought up 100’s of homes and created a dead residential zone, later putting in some agriculture and water reclamation facilities. We missed having our house knocked down by one block.
Still, stuff happens. A Lear 35 the CANG was using as an electronic target aircraft developed a fire and went down in town, in part of the airport traffic pattern, spreading destruction over about 1/3 mile along one street, including homes and apartments. That was a good distance from the airport. Hard to plan for all contingencies.
Anybody who does trust the US government right now is either anti American or not very bright, since our own government is hell bent on destroying this great country. Where are you, Republicans?
When our family, friends and colleagues give us the cold shoulder for refusing poison death shots, we’re in a precarious position, indeed.
I asked her, an eleventh grader, about her materials and she told me she has 70 hours of flying under her belt. So, now I have wonder just WHO is flying the plane?
She could be in CAP. EAA. Any number of ways to get flight time. My experience is young people take their flying lessons and solo very seriously.
Adam’s invisible hand kept the machinery well oiled, until some idiots maimed it.
Can’t dispute the possibility, but those same idiots are still loose . . .
A company that can’t make products makes no money. So the “invisible hand” is the desire to keep operating hours high / unplanned outages low to maximize production, minimize costs, thereby maximizing profits. Preventative maintenance (to avoid an unplanned outage) costs money and time not producing, which are scarce in these times.
We are in a world where demand is SO high, companies are risking not just outages, but catastrophic failures, to keep production going. It’s still all about the money.
As I watched reserves develop into JIT, I figured at some point things would tip over. However, in a very competitive marketplace, JIT kept prices down and profits up and those of us who didn’t adopt, myself among them, were slowly pushed out, mostly since our customers were always shopping prices without other considerations. It really accelerated IME in the 90’s.
Eventually, if one wanted to stay US-focused in industry, one either had to develop a profitable niche or learn to live lean because profit margins were very thin. Big companies could do this a lot easier due to economies of scale but generally they were smart and went JIT and/or Asia. That left the little guys to fight over the scraps.
I wonder how many of the little guys in that realm were killed by the Covid operation or gave in to ‘the machine’ to survive. It was the final nail in my business. I still love building things for industry but don’t believe in this country or its people anymore. They taught me that by their actions. It is what it is.
And the grand irony of it all is one of the primary originators of JIT, Toyota, totally abandoned the concept as soon as supply chains started going wonky.
Interesting and good points.
I have friends that are in the welding industry, and theyre still working lots of overtime to catch up with the uptick in demand. So it makes sense that it would also affect other industries.
…..but it does get your conspiracy senses tingling.
This sounds the most plausible of explanations. And the most obvious. Mechanical failure and human error accounts for the vast majority of all incidents, regardless of what industry you are looking at.
I can trace every personal close call in my shop to either distraction or being in a hurry, human factors. The equipment was impressively safe and what’s left still is. Fortunately, with over 45 years around machines, still have all my body parts. Dodged a few loose crane loads though, that gets the blood flowing.
Sundance, are you sure these plants always had a downtime? The reason why I ask is my 20 year old, who has not enrolled in college and did not enlist as previously planned, just started a job at a non-food factory that produces roofing shingles and they never shut down, it is 24 hour operation.
Heck, I remember Corelle and their “transition ware” they used to offer in their outlets, it is whatever shade between beige and white that came out because they do not shut down to change between the colors, it just keeps going. I got some various pieces and used them as kids’ plates when they were young. I actually preferred these colors of ivory or bisque.
If it is not some conspiracy, then I would wonder if it’s a neglect of routine maintenance. Are there any investigations going on? I’d say if the explanation comes out weird, that’s when I would suspect some kind of sabotage.
It may be a coincidence, but it is said, there are no coincidences with God and this could be contributing to the birthing pangs of the End Times. There may be hard times ahead, yes, and so was the Great Depression, but back then, general society weren’t so outwardly immoral like today and trying to subject children to it. Our country and most of the Western World are crossing a line with God and it’s probably all a sign of the times. That and this in your face march toward One World Government, cashless society, practically forcing hasty new medical treatments, a great falling away from God, corruption and false teachings in the Church. Everything we were told is starting to come to fruition.
Maintenance and Reliability Engineer here. Mining sector but the theory works across all industries.
Every manufacturing plant has scheduled down time. The facility is built to meet a certain production capacity at a certain operational availability. Want more availability with less maintenance down?? You’ll have spend more money on better equipment and uptime maintenance practices, if it’s even possible.
One of the first things managers (the dumb ones any way) will cut when chasing more production is scheduled maintenance time. You might get away with it for a while. Possibly even long enough to boast some impressive metrics needed to climb the next rung on the corporate ladder. Usually leaving a ticking time bomb for the next guy.
Having “been there, done that” in various manufacturing facilities, although not FOOD processing, I agree with what you say, and as Sundance indicates, that same formula works with PEOPLE, and “overtime”.
You CAN boost production, “for awhile” by having employees work 12 hour shifts, but if you extend it too long, people get burned out; they get sick, and work anyway cause of the $, and they get tired and sloppy,..and accidents happen.
One of the six criteria found to be common to most industrial accidents, is people working under a deadline, or pressure to produce.
Yes, I hit the fan at about 63. Was a executive, sat at my desk crying for 10 minutes every morning from the stress. I could still do what I did, but it was much more wearing.
Your outboard fan bearing is at .8in/sec. ”How many days longer can we run it?”, the director asks. “I don’t know but I’m going watch from outside the fence”, the Reliability Engineer replies.
Lol, yup!
Hard to predict exactly where one is at on the P-F curve…but ya can definitely tell what direction is going and how fast it’s getting there.
I saw 3.70 ips on a 35,000lb fan rotor. The mud puddles around it where jumping 3′ into the air. All because some manager decided only the worn out wear liners would be replaced, instead of the whole set.
Yes. And I read recently that the USDA and the FDA, which are supposed to regulate and provide oversight to food plants, are so focused on pharmaceuticals and vaccines that they have totally neglected their mission to oversee our food manufacturing. FUBAR
Dan: you just reminded me that my friend’s husband works in a nearby electric generating power plant. Each May they shut down for a week for maintenance and performance standards testing.(In May 2020, they were using people form NY and NJ to perform these duties. I know I digress but my friend caught COVID from these individuals. ) Here is a map of all the power generating plants by type in the US. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-every-power-plant-in-the-united-states/ Will we be experiencing the same types of accidents at our electrical plants next??
I can see having to have scheduled maintenance from time to time, I’ll have to ask my son, but overall it’s a 24 hour operation.
Many industries are 24/7, it’s the nature of the beast for some, and the facilities are designed to roll in and out of production to facilitate maintenance.
Part of the reason I didn’t mind doing customer work in the middle of the night was, prior to running my own shop I’d worked in the cotton and oil processing industries, both at the time 3 shift 24/7 jobs. Middle of the night was just another part of the work day.
Units would be taken offline at specific intervals for specific blocks of time for repair and maintenance while overall production would continue.
Perhaps now, those extra units to facilitate such programs have been thinned and when excess capacity is called for there is not enough reserve to accommodate it and the maintenance schedule and management makes the decision to keep the maintenance scheduled units online.
When I did breakdown work, typically the equipment offline would run in the thousands to tens of thousands an hour to have down so getting it going was a priority. Breakdown was to be avoided if at all possible. Lack of maintenance generally evolves into breakdowns, though not always. Industry is pretty robust.
That robustness is being tested right now. If it goes sideways I know what to expect and have planned for it. I hope others have educated themselves and made their own plans.
I did a 3 week stint working at the Ben & Jerry’s Plant in Waterbury, VT. They are serious about cleanliness. Production runs for 72 hours, and then the whole line comes down. CIP, COP, walls, floors, and drains get cleaned. Takes about 8 hours and then they check it. If anything is found in the lines or a Lysteria check comes back positive, you break it all down and clean it again.
That’s nice to know about B&J’s plant. However, I will never buy any of their ice cream because of their politics.
In my career in industrial service and maintenance, we heard a familiar refrain from plant supervision when we suggested more maintenance.
“We are going to run it till it fails”
Would not surprise me at all what Sundance is suggesting.
I first learned that reality nearly 50 years ago working at my first industry job in a cottonseed plant. Nothing new. Whole work life was spent in industry or owning an industrial business. I have my opinion but TBH it’s not really worth sharing it anymore. I’ll do what I need to do to survive and don’t really care about other humans anymore. I learned that philosophy not from God but from them and they were excellent teachers. They made their choices in the name of greed and avarice at all levels of society. Money, money, money. America.
If you don’t care about other humans, then you are very selfish. Your teachers taught you well, sad to say.
How is the replacement part situation?
How experienced are the workers?
Have the work spaces been rearranged due to COVID mitigation?
Have ingredients been substituted, especially oils?
Unavailable.
Just got off the boat yesterday.
Probably, and in the least logical execution possible.
Undoubtedly. Getting oils and greases at all has been a nightmare for the last 18 months. Let alone getting the correct product. I spend half my day just trying to get lubricants. 2 years ago it was all keep fill that I never had to mess with.
This is what happens when a countryoutsources everything. The US doesn’t make much anymore. Multiple industries have been slowed down, jammed up,, etc.. waiting for parts, chips, etc. Etc. We don’t make anything anymore so we are at the mercy of others that do make them. I would argue that the shortages are deliberate.
I saw the writing on the wall in the 90’s when customers, corporations mostly, beat me up on price with the ‘We can get it in China for xxx’ stuff. No way could I compete using American-sourced materials and no way was I going to capitulate to Communists and the fascist American corporations that profited from that association. That had a cost and it was harsh. That’s what America really is. It’s war every day. Well, enjoy it, it’s here for everyone now.
Waited 4 months for a front drive shaft on my 2016 ram….can’t imagine it’s any better elsewhere
OEM suspension replacement parts on my 2010 MDX (springs, magnetic struts/shocks) were simply non-existent. As in you couldn’t buy them at any price. Indefinitely. So I went with aftermarket which have been fine. There are lots of fabricators that make custom drive shafts. Might have been an option for you.
General Mills……sound like a multi-national corporation thing to me. I believe they are on the build back better band wagon. Need to retrofit and convert to a bug harvesting plant. Insurance will pay for it now.
They will need to rebuild to handle the new product line. Soylent Green.
located near Logan’s Run…
Stay away from the Carousel!
It’s a complete coincidence! Just like how healthy Athletes in their prime and the top of their game suddenly have Heart Attacks after they get Covid-19 Vaccinated!
Joe Biden said so right after he tried to sniff the Easter Bunny for Children!
Totally, nothing to see here!
I saw a recent video yesterday of Biden with his raised right fist. It was shocking. The skin on his fist was almost purple from poor circulation/lacking oxygen. It looked to me as if he is being held together by spending time in an oxygen chamber when he goes to Delaware. Makes sense that there are no visitor logs that the secret service is willing to release. Nobody can see him when he is in the chamber!!
Sorry, I should have put this on the open thread.
I’m going with suspicious cat on this one. This is the nefarious actions of a corrupt system. There were two food plant accidents in 2020 and 19 in the 2021-2022 timeframe.
We were told there would be a pandemic during President Trump’s Admin and there was one. We were told there would be upcoming food shortages and we are seeing the stage being set for food shortages.
It’s all scripted. It’s all like a bad high school play. We are constantly being presented with hair pulling contests to distract us from what’s going on behind the curtain: Dem vs Repub, Race wars, LGB whatever, Russia, Russia, Russia, Putin is a genius spy trying to destroy America, Putin is a crazy madman with brain cancer, Will Smith face slap, et cetera. By the way, Russian soldiers being brutalized by Ukrainian soldiers was the top trending item on Twitter going into the Sunday night Oscars. It was quickly replaced with the face slap nonsense. Coincidence?
Here are a few questions to ponder: Why did Gov Gretchen Whitmer close off the seed section of Home Depot? Why did the FBI stage a fake kidnapping against her and not some other politician? Is it coincidence or a bad high school play?
Just because we are dealing with evil does not mean the evil is genius. It’s just evil.
Once you see the strings, it’s hard to unsee them.
Just my two cents which is now only worth 1 1/2 cents (also not a coincidence).
Yeah, I think they’re willing to make that a life for a life bargain too. They have plenty of soldiers to expend in the process. The ranks are deep.
Not to mention their enemy, us, well we’re inured to God and the high road, the peaceful road, the narrow road of rules that they, the enemy, came up with to benefit themselves. That’s chronicled daily in these pages.
Back when Trump wrote his first book I opined the best way to kill a corrupt government was to starve it economically then take out the humans. That was, what, 40 years ago.
What impelled that? The idiocy of the Carter era and the corruption at the state and local levels that impacted my life personally. It’s only gotten worse during the interceding decades. Sure, I tried the high road, public service, playing by the rules, all that bullsh*t, but we know how that goes.
We saw it with PDJT, how the machine manipulated him, ate him and spit him out and he was a savvy, smart, wealthy street fighter. In comparison, we’re nothing on that playing field. Chattel.
Expect the Communist’s soldiers to come for us under ‘color of law’. They will. Starve us economically, starve us physically, then kill us, and fellow citizens won’t give a crap when it’s someone else, we’ve seen that during the Covid bioweapon operation recently and also throughout history. That’s not an indictment, it’s human nature. Survival.
A life for a life. Expect it.
Love the reality of that post.
Sundance, Thank you for bringing some information about the needed downtime for machine maintenance.
With a line operation, missing the little things will cause major issues in time.
As another Treeper mentioned new managers may attempt to cut the budget from maintenance. Hope that they get promoted before the machinery breaks. The revised budget is short of funds. Have seen that happen multiple times. The one stuck holding the bag. Has to attempt to fix it.
The human element really is critical. Here’s some additional things the think about. People calling in sick using Covid as an excuse. Either I might have it or I was near someone who had it. Hi turnover, constantly training new people, and the people that do apply are underqualified. It’s an endless series of issues.
A guy I’ve read for years commented recently that he kept getting contacted to do work on food processing plants and said that a lot of those plants were wearing down and there was a deficit of people to maintain them. This dovetails in with what Sundance is saying.
I vote for ‘something nefarious’
This link: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220414005731/en/CF-Industries-Union-Pacific-Curtails-Fertilizer-Shipments-Delaying-Deliveries-and-Preventing-New-Rail-Orders-from-Being-Taken
Suggests that fertilizer deliveries just before planting season are arbitrarily being cut back. Reason given? Congestion on the railways. Really? The company in this article complains they are one of only 30 companies to get this treatment.
Then this link: https://www.icis.com/explore/cn/resources/news/2022/04/15/10754695/focus-up-rail-restrictions-include-chems-a-step-avoided-by-bnsf
highlight complaints that railway restrictions have been limited primarily to energy and food related industries.
There’s your smoking gun..
Good share (the second link) as I had not come across it. Thanks!
The explanations of faulty equipment/wiring could very well be due to longer run times and less maintenance. At the same time, it’s not difficult to imagine scenarios where the faults were arranged.
In addition most if not all of these plants are run by controllers -think Rockwell Automation – Allen-Bradley). As with all software, they can be hacked. Not saying either hardware or software WERE manipulated but in today’s world one should keep an open mind.
PLC’s run the world.
These incidents are currently under investigations.
Once the investigations are completed and the factual reports submitted a much clearer picture of these events should emerge.
Speculation is not investigation.
Great write-up and salient points in this article!
Not if the FBI is “investigating!”
HACCP it ,
Hazard analysis and critical control points, or HACCP, is a systematic preventive approach to food safety from biological, chemical, and physical hazards in production processes that can cause the finished product to be unsafe and designs measures to reduce these risks to a safe level
Maybe the FBI warning is just a diversion intended to keep people from blaming their own government for causing this mess in the first place?
The FBI currently IS our government.
Another thing that is happening in the food industry is all the chickens that are being killed because of the Avian Flu. I am in PA and our order of chicks that were being hatched for us for this Monday, was cancelled. They were still in the shell and they won’t hatch them for us. Our local Tractor Supply won’t sell their chicks unless you give them your name and address so that you can be on a list of those that purchased them. No name or address, no chicks.
Avian flu is here in AZ too. It’s also killing hawks, eagles, owls and other birds. There’s also a virus killing off rabbits. I put my bird bath away until warmer weather when it’s said that these viruses tend to be less prevalent.
We’ve experienced the same thing throughout the Covid operation. The ’emergency’ providing a conduit for arbitrary and capricious ‘rules’ that of course high road rule followers will follow, either because that’s who they are or because ‘respect my authoritah!’ fear grips them and they obey out of fear of economic or physical loss.
Your example is a wonderful one. Humans have choices. You could’ve had your chicks. Humans did that. If we don’t like ‘the rules’, we can start our own parallel society and economy.
That’s nothing new, criminals and criminal governments have been doing it for centuries. We called them ‘criminals’ because they didn’t follow the rules that were laid out for us. Think about that. Look around at what’s going on in the world. Read the examples here daily of ‘rules for thee and rules for me’. That’s reality.
Work with like-minded humans and get those chicks. Do what you need to do. Expect the enemy to use all methods of attack and control, including biological. Remember when biological warfare was a war crime? Now it’s normalized. See who did that? Humans. Not some computer somewhere. Humans. They are the disease. We are the cure.
Don’t know where in PA you are but you might want to look at localharvest.org or even Craigslist for chicks. LocalHarvest is a directory of farmers and I’ve gotten poultry, food, and local honey from listings near me. And these days, the quality on Craigslist is not that much different than box stores.
I am an industrial maintenance consultant. The industry, including food production, has suffered many things, but two not mentioned. The almost constant shut downs and restarts for processes designed to run continuously affects maintenance. Plus there has been an influx of new and untrained people.
Good point. Bringing up a plant from cold start takes careful execution.
Adding to this stress, many of their experienced workers were laid off because of vax mandates. Plus, as Sundance has said, the best workers, the highly productive Doers, tend to be the same people who think for themselves and refuse the vax. And vax side effects would be taking their toll on remaining workers, including the alzheimers-like effects reported by researchers.
In some ways I felt a lot better after reading Sundance’s explanations. Of course they make sense.
Nevertheless we now know for a fact that our entire Govt. is at war with We the People and there is absolutely NOTHING they won’t do to hurt and destroy us.
This situation is probably a combination of both truths.
I think it is an inside job by agents of the globalist cabal in D.C.
The thing to do now, is identify remaining critical points , monitor them and hopefully nab the government agents doing this to us.
I’ll throw this into the mix for consideration:
https://www.wired.com/story/pipedream-ics-malware/
On Wednesday, the Department of Energy, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the NSA, and the FBI jointly released an advisory about a new hacker toolset potentially capable of meddling with a wide range of industrial control system equipment. More than any previous industrial control system hacking toolkit, the malware contains an array of components designed to disrupt or take control of the functioning of devices, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that are sold by Schneider Electric and OMRON and are designed to serve as the interface between traditional computers and the actuators and sensors in industrial environments. Another component of the malware is designed to target Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) servers—the computers that communicate with those controllers.
Where there is smoke there is usually fire.
Thanks sundance for this clearly reasoned and presented analysis.
And yes, we welcome suspicious cat to the investigations.
There are causes to nearly all effects.
And evil in the world.
Imagine the depravity of the evil ones plotting food shortages.
This is what happens when democrats attempt central planning.
Very good article. The guy who commented on insurance fraud may have part of the answer too. I appreciate all the response from the people who work in maintenance roles. While I am not one myself, I had much contact with that profession and their comments resonated with what I heard.
The hiring of illegals who do not speak English could also be fueling these accidents. There sure are a lot of them.
Cyber attacks on food plants??
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/fbi-warns-imminent-cyber-attacks-food-plants-after-mysterious-rash-fires
I remain suspicious, but I can vouch for working so hard and long and being exhausted to the point of making mistakes that will literally get me killed. When the Azure Standard headquarters fire burned them down, I was sure it was sabotage. Turns out, according to the fire marshal, the fire started in a corn tote that was in a cooler temporarily due to over supply. Just like fresh bales of hay can catch fire due to the moisture content and dust, the tote caught fire. No sabotage.
The law of unintended consequences is playing out across the food chain.
On another note, industrial food production brings with it many unintended consequences. The Avian Bird Flu, for instance, can wipe out an entire chicken production operation. etc.
Thank you Sundance. I appreciate you writing about this.
A report from the airplane crash near Atlanta. Ga.
“According to witnesses, they believe the plane was having trouble gaining altitude. They could hear that there was engine trouble,” he continued. “Suddenly the plane veered to the right and immediately came straight down and crashed into the lot behind us. This is the General Mills plant that produces cereal here in our area. The plane went down in an isolated area here on the lot behind us in an area where they store tractor-trailers. The plane came down into four, what appear to be empty, trailers.”
This is being counted as if it is a destroyed plant.
Communists and anarchists of the early 20th Century were infamous for their acts of sabotage . . . .
Given recent events and societal unrest and upcoming elections, I would expect a proliferation of sabotage and death by both factions and by the money controlling the government to achieve their own goals, paramount of which is securing the election for their regime. What we call ‘Communists’ and ‘Fascists’ and ‘anarchists’ can merely be their operatives doing their jobs. I call them ‘mercenaries’ and expect their operations to proliferate in the coming months.
Destroy an industrial plant and kill a few people, it shocks people for a day or two, then they settle back in their barcaloungers, stick their face in their phone or TV and let the propaganda wash over them and it all goes away, meanwhile another production link in the chain is damaged or destroyed.
Expect it.
All of the above COULD have happened. But 20 plant destructions in FIVE MONTHS??? I think not.
Sundance if you take these “accidents” into context with the other things going on. The agenda to stop people eating meat, paying farmers to retire or making them sign contracts saying they won’t farm again, using PCR tests to diagnose “bird flu”, thus killing millions of chickens/ducks, etc. This is not plants over extended. They had the Russian people starving when the Bolshevik revolution was on by destroying crops, etc. This is another attack. Remember the woman saying we don’t want people to know what we are doing until we are ready to spring the trap. This is an extension of the war the government has initiated on its people.
If it talks and walks like a duck.
All valid points.
Massive production pressure.
Deferred cleaning and PM are certainly contributing.
Refusal to pay for incremental labor for non production activities (above).
And viola now Quntico talking foreign ransomware. Russians, Prussians, Persians….oh my.
fnnny how this “deferred maintenance/wheels are falling off” excuse only affects the food production industry.
trial balloon?
have we seen a similar general affect in the pharma production plants? in the oil related (plastics) production industries? not so much.
suspicious cat indeed
Sundance, If we follow your theory, then we would expect some sort of list of people who were killed. If you’re operating like you say, then there’s going to be crews working. But, if you go over the list of accidents, there’s hardly any injuries. A few went to the hospital with minor injuries. A lot of the articles say no injuries. So far I’ve only found one fatality. Also, from what I could find, most of these fires started after 5PM and late at night. I find all of that extremely odd and very improbable.
Then you read this regarding the Nestle Jonesboro plant fire, “Ryan White, an employee for Nestle, said he is counting his blessings after being released from his 12-hour shift at the production line six hours early. He said, “If we would’ve stayed, we would’ve been right in the line of that fire.” “
https://uncoverdc.com/2022/04/22/food-shortages-and-food-processing-plant-fires-whats-going-on/
I can see some of the fires causing little to no injuries but 99% of them? And the majority being after 5PM (so far I’ve only found 2 that were during the work day)? It all remains very suspicious.
Other than the plane crash, there’s probably a cyber war goin on:
FBI Warns of Targeted Cyber Attacks On Food Plants After Mysterious Rash Of Fires
23 Apr 2022
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/fbi-warns-imminent-cyber-attacks-food-plants-after-mysterious-rash-fires
Russia’s Largest Chemical Plant Engulfed In Flames Hours After Mystery Fire At Military Research Facility – 22 Apr 2022
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/large-deadly-fire-breaks-out-russian-defense-research-facility
A deadly fire in Russia on Thursday destroyed the building of a top-secret military research institute working to develop Russia’s newest ballistic missiles.
How is that done? By remotely gaining control of industrial systems and, for example, commanding them to do things that cause them to seriously overheat. For example, Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges were sabotaged by commanding them to over-RPM.
How secure is our stuff? Not very when this is the case for DHS:
‘Hack DHS’ bug hunters find 122 security flaws in DHS systems
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hack-dhs-bug-hunters-find-122-security-flaws-in-dhs-systems/
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today revealed that bug bounty hunters enrolled in its ‘Hack DHS’ bug bounty program have found 122 security vulnerabilities in external DHS systems, 27 of them rated critical severity.
DHS awarded a total of $125,600 to over 450 vetted security researchers and ethical hackers, with rewards of up to $5,000 per bug, depending on the flaw’s severity.
I’m going with the history of the leftists these past 6 years and as we have seen, EVERYTHING they do has been planned to harm, weaken this country.
So I’m sticking with PURE EVIL as my suspicious cat.
Funny how I haven’t heard about the “exhausted workers” excuse. Maybe because that’s the reason for adding shifts. It’s a OSHA rules and regulations kind of setup. I’ve heard there’s a big influx of cheap labor too. There’s also a huge difference between your household washer and dryer machines and industrial grade machinery designed to work 24/7 production cycles. Companies that run industrial grade machinery know and follow maintenance cycles that keep those expensive machinery from breaking down. That is if they want to stay in business.
I personally don’t see a question that asks whether this might be “nefarious” or not. I see this going right in line with the mass murder and maiming operation that is being conducted for the last two years. I don’t see airplanes flying directly into food processing plants as being some form of accidental happenstance. I see it being right in line with a plan to destroy a countries people. Cutting off its supply of fertilizer to reduce crop production. Cutting its production of oil-gas-natural gas to go from energy independence to shortages, brownouts is right in line with a plan to destroy a country and its people.
George Soros and Bill Gates buying up most of the countries farming, cattle feed lots, and silos was also right in line with that plan too. My, my, and they do evidently trust their plan that they’ve steadily been carrying out too, don’t they? Remember and repeat it to you they will. Trust the plan! Trust the plan! But just don’t overtly tell the people you want dead about what the plan actually entails. Oh no! Don’t do that. Do it subtly. Do it sublimely. Don’t let people tell other people through any social media platform either; nobody will ever see your posts. But then that too is just part of the plan as well. That’s okay though, because people already know about it. They were told a long time ago about these days . . .
“The Ten Horns that you saw are Ten Kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority as kings with the Beast for one hour. These have one mind, and they give their power and authority to the Beast.” ~ APOKALYPSIS 17.12-13
“The Beast and the Ten Horns you saw will hate the Harlot. They will make her desolate and stripped bare; consume her flesh and burn her with fire.” ~ APOKALYPSIS 17.16
“For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose, this one purpose to give their Kingdoms to the Beast until the Words of God are fulfilled.” ~ APOKALYPSIS 17.17
20 Years In Industrial Maintenance (Electrical).Experience Was That We Were The Last In The Pecking Order.Not Enough Time To Do Proper Repairs.”Patching”Things Was What Went On.We Had About 50% Down Time.Plant Finally Shut Down Production In 2020.After Close To 100 Years Operating
I do have to say after being on this website for a few months a very BIG THANK YOU!
Logical, informative, witty and insightful, I can’t imagine understanding the politics today without it.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to meet Sundance on this side of the veil, but if not, on the other.
You are in my prayers.
Keep the Lord’s day holy!
More and more illegals work in these kind of food processing jobs – they speak and read little english, and aren’t just driven by management to meet production quotas, they are whipped. Chamber of Commerce, Club for Growth, and establishment Republicans are happy.
Cheap foreign replacement workers. Same old story.
A D.C. resident who walks around and follows D.C. life shares daily vlogs of it; one lately, in the past couple weeks, included a stop at what he called a ‘landmark’ marketplace where one buys food and can also get prepared food to go, his favorite.
I screen captured something simple, his pan of the meat case. Snapshots of various cuts of meat and their prices. What shocked me wasn’t the length and breadth of supply, I figured D.C. would take care of their own, but rather how inexpensive the meat was compared to prices I’ve been reading from Treepers and seeing locally. I figured D.C. prices at a ‘landmark’ would be sky high. Nope, wrong. Interesting. I won’t clutter the thread with pictures but I have quite a number of them.
Food for thee and food for me. America.
Interesting.
Privileged to be sure, but wonder if it’s in part to hide reality from denizens there?
Or simply make it easier for them to deny the reality the rest of us are protesting?
Maybe all the most competent people were fired owing to vx hesitancy.
Love Suspicious Cat!
Those eyes say it all.
My first thought was ‘heart attacks’.
Excellent analysis.
I ran a food service kitchen for 30 years and this is exactly what I would expect operating under these conditions.
Hammer, meet nail.
Here’s why I don’t buy that. Retail distribution centers are running the same way, exhausted, undertrained and understaffed, and their BOOM ROOMS ARE EMPTY!! Where are the analogous accidents and fires due to improperly handled Hazmat substances?
I don’t know much about these systems, but what you say makes sense. Why is it just food processing plants that are affected, and why are so many almost completely destroyed?
Things like hazmat and safety (well safety you can see) in general tend to focused on more than anything else.
Maintenance, however, always gets pushed off especially on stuff that runs all the time. Trying to get tge powers that be to understand that planned downtime is a lot less expensive than unplanned downtime. Most managers do not have a real understanding of how things work.
Makes sense. But the timing of it – over a dozen accidents in one month – right after Biden warns of food shortages just seems uncanny