Business, Media, Uncategorized

Time to Make the Donuts

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January 8.  I am not willfully ignoring the events of yesterday or the day before that.  Or the day before that.  I don’t want us to become a source of dissension that could attract trolls.  And on a more personal note I need at least one place/forum separate from the insanities that are surrounding us on a daily basis.  If others disagree, I bow to the majority but will mostly likely be quiet.

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I saw a news story that some residents of the town of Haverhill, Massachusetts are upset at the smell emanating from the new Dunkin’ Donuts factory there in town.  They complain about the fried dough smell and that their homes and clothes reek of it.  Of course, quite a few others think it’s a nice smell.

It was a surprise to me that the donuts are made in a factory; while I never really thought about it, I assumed they were made in each Dunkin location:

Turns out it’s a little of both worlds.   Most Dunkins get frozen dough from various partner factories.  They thaw the dough, shape, fry, ice, etc. in the individual locations but there are also franchises that have the donuts made in their local factory.  Who knew?  Truly I do like the idea of the donuts being made right in my little store, but as long as they taste good when I get them in the drive-thru, I guess it doesn’t really matter to me.

However I do sincerely understand how the anti-smell folks in Havervill feel.  When I was working in the bakery, I came home every single day and took a hot shower before I did anything else.  I even convinced the owner to include me in the uniform rental (the other women in the bakery didn’t want this) so that I could leave the odor-drenched clothing at the bakery.  I could FEEL the bakery smell on my skin.  It wasn’t even that it was a bad smell just that it was so enveloping.  And, of course, I believe I told the pumpkin pie story more than once, but my aversion to that smell is just as strong now as it was back then. 

I guess that means I would be in the “ew, it stinks” camp if I lived near the factory.  But I’m not sure I’d be willing to complain about it out loud.

What kind of a factory would you prefer not to live near?

32 thoughts on “Time to Make the Donuts”

  2. I lived downwind from a meat packing plant and the waste lagoons that went with it untiI I was 18. Then, I moved to Moorhead, MN and Wessew’s sugar beet processing plant. Ish.

    I wonder if Northfield residents get tired of MaltoMeal odor wafting through town? What about Hershey, PA?

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  3. Paper mills provide jobs, but what a stench!
    Rendering plants provide an essential service. Ditto
    Is a feed-lot a factory? If so, those too.
    Oil refineries stink up the place.
    I currently reside about a mile from the largest Heinz Pickle factory in the USA. Some years ago, the cats were covered, so now there’s only an occasional vinegar smell. It’s not unpleasant any more.

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  4. We lived in Cloquet/Carlton for six years and the smell from the Potlach paper mill was sickening when the wind was blowing toward us. Much as living near the creosote plant in St. Louis Park back in the 1960s when we got to inhale those carcinogens regularly.

    The bigger question is whether moving away from the smell is worth the time, effort, and money. In both cases it wasn’t, because that was where the jobs were. Or with SLP, it was my parents’ hometown, and they wanted to be there, near their parents. But if the factory had stayed, and I lived there now, I’d probably move because of the cancer risk. We had no idea back then.

    Factory stench is good for some (a job) and bad for others, as David Alexander noted, so it comes down to where one’s breaking point is. In Owatonna these days, the most annoying smells come from the massive pig lots in the area and even some in Iowa. The manure smell is sickening some days, but never lasts, so it’ll never be the reason we leave the area.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    2. On our many trips to various destinations on the Iron Range we’d pass through Cloquet. For the most part, the smell from the Potlach paper mill would not be noticeable, but when it was, it was pretty obnoxious.

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  5. A paper mill or an oil refinery.

    I love the smells from the Malto-Meal factory (now it’s Post). It always smells like fresh baking. People comment on the “maple days,” when they’re making maple-flavored cereals. It’s nice to get out of the car downtown, and instead of smelling exhaust fumes or other industrial smells, you get to smell the heavenly scent of various cereals baking. I really notice the smells from Post at the Co-op. It’s nice to come out of the Co-op and have that baked goods scent to greet you.

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    2. A high school classmate of mine raised hogs on his family’s farm. His clothing always had that horrible scent. He endured ridicule by reminding us that that was the smell of money which was true. His family was very well off.

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  7. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    One of the worst smells I encountered was in Kansas where there were grain processing enterprises of some kind in many small towns. My uncle said it was soy beans. I found the smell revolting. Later, when I went to college, I thought it smelled a lot like the dorms where cannabis smoke was wafting through the building with incense to cover the odor. (It did not!).

    I have been to Hershey, PA and I found the chocolate smell enticing. I was only there for a week for a 4H Exchange trip, but I thought it was heavenly, somewhat like what Krista described on “Maple Day.” When I lived near Grand Rapids, MN (1977-79) where a large paper mill is located, it was not terribly smelly, and I do not know why that was the case. There was an occasional odor, but it was not overwhelming.

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  8. i have a sound thing. i cant sit next to someone chewing ice. if someone is carrying sheets of styrofoam the squeaking makes my teeth hurst and sends my shoulders through my ears. a factory where pallets got crunched to similate ice crunching or where styrofoam was being stacked and unstacked to make it squeak would have me gone before you could say jack robinson. i find it funny how that smell of paper mills, slaughterhouse, sugar beets is so terrible but after being in that enviornment for 30 minutes you dont smell it any more. does that happen with dead bodies and rotting food too? i mean do you get used to it? i cant stay around the sound issues long enough to find out if they lessen after 30 minutes. id be inside out gurgling gibberish like a crazy man

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    1. During my four years at SIU, I worked 15 hours a week at a small house that was an endocrinology research lab. We had thousands of white mice in the lab, and they had a strong unpleasant smell. But as tim says, you got used to it and didn’t smell it after a while.

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  9. I’ve commented to the guys cleaning out the septic tank if they were one of those people that couldn’t smell. He said smelled like money to him.
    I had a Hog farmer tell me that too.

    Any animal will smell if they are not properly ventilated or if there are too many in one place. You all know how bad cat urine can be.

    When I was milking cows, I always smelled like a barn. Or iodine which is used for sanitizing and teat dipping. (as a sanitizer and sealer/preventative.) I know it’s not terrible, it’s just a noticeable smell.

    A hog barn should not smell that bad as long as it’s properly ventilated.
    It’s pumping out the pits and applying the manure on or in the fields is what stinks. And for those few days or weeks it is really unfortunate to be downwind.

    I cannot imagine rendering plants or the operators who drove the trucks. When they would come and pick up a dead cow from our place, I never knew how they did it. Can you get used to that? You must, but I don’t know how they do.

    One of my favorite stories: one of the Townboard duties is to pick up dead deer if they are in the road or shoulder. For a few years I would call our son and tell him to bring the truck and meet me wherever.
    Sometimes it was the middle of summer and the neighbors didn’t know that there was a dead deer in the ditch until they could smell it. So it’s August, and we are picking up one of those deer. And he says to me “I don’t wanna do this anymore“.
    No, I don’t either.

    When the deer are alive they belong to the DNR. When they’re dead they belong to the Township

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  10. In Basel I lived in a building that was across the street from a local brewery. Occasionally it would smell bad, but most days you’d not notice it. Now that I think about it, what a strange place to build a brewery: one block from a children’s hospital, and one block from the Rhine in a mostly residential neighborhood of single family homes.

    Likewise, in Hellerup (a northerly suburb of Copenhagen), the Tuborg brewery is located in a pretty upscale neighborhood of single family mansions, many of which housed diplomatic families from all over the world. I lived in Hellerup for about a year, and occasionally the smell from the brewery would be pretty offensive.

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    1. Is it possible that the placement of those facilities in those particular locations was done “prior to” zoning ordinances being put into effect? In 1980 & 81 I resided in a neighborhood of Jersey City, NJ, that had a lot of light industry in large buildings that predated zoning laws there.

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      1. I was in Basel in 1961, and the The Tuborg brewery was built in Hellerup in 1873, so you’re most likely right that both breweries predate zoning laws.

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  11. Have to read more later – Yes, meat packing plant not far from the first house I remember – my dad worked there one summer, and had to strip down when he came in the door.

    We now live just blocks from Watkins spice factory in Winona… on some of our walks, the smell of cinnamon, etc… not a bad deal!

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  12. I think I have related this before, but my Grade 3 class field trip was to the John Morrell meat packing plant in Sioux Falls. Although only May, it was 100° out. We rode over in unairconditioned buses. The outside smell was awful, but not too much worse than the smell of butchered animals inside. We walked over catwalks with conveyer belts of massive Internal organs traveling past. As we left the building we were each handed a cold weiner to eat. Our sack lunches had cooked inside the buses, but we ate them anyway. Our teachers dabbed perfume on us.

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  13. Doing chores tonight I forgot how stinky the chickens heated water bucket gets. It’s not bad until I swish out the last bit at the bottom and dump it into another bucket to take outside. Boy, that last bit, where all the crud sinks and gets warmed up HOO BOY does that stink.

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  14. OT spent three hours this morning in the eye clinic dealing with my fading eyesight. Then walked across the lobby to spend 90 minutes dealing with my fading hearing. My world is growing slowly darker from glaucoma. When do I quit driving? Then what do I do? I have made the decision to have the MRI but not have a full anesthesia. They say they can sedate me enough to get me through it while awake. Meditation while it happens I think will Get me through it too, I think. I am going to try hearing aids for a trial period. Tests indicate they should do me some good. Assuming I want to be in contact with this world.
    Clyde
    Driving through Cloquet today is nothing to what it was 70 years ago. And International Falls.

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    1. When I had my MRI I went through one of my favorite movies line by line in my head. MRI was done before I got the end. (To Catch a Thief. Nothing better than Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.) I guess that’s sorta like meditation?

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