102 BULLETIN 908, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



WASTE IN PACKING SARDINES. 



ELIMINATION OP UNNECESSARY WASTE. 



Carelessness in attention to details which would eliminate waste 

 and wasteful methods are too common in the sardine industry. For 

 the most part, this is the result of a desire to turn out large quanti- 

 ties of goods and of a lack of control over labor. The owners and man- 

 agers of the canneries are often so negligent in enforcing regulations 

 governing employees that wasteful methods have developed from 

 careless operators, and the quality of the finished product has been 

 impaired. In regions where sardine canneries are numerous, uniform 

 rules and conditions of labor are badly needed. The standard for 

 discipline and the enforcement of rules can never be higher than that 

 permitted in the plant which is the most lax in these matters. On 

 the manufacturing side, the principal sources of loss in the industry 

 are the waste of fish and oil, in the case of the raw material, and rough 

 and inefficient handling of the equipment of the plants. These of 

 course are not found to the same degree throughout the industry. 



The waste of fish may be due to (a) cutting back fish of large size 

 to pack in quarter-size cans; (b) discarding on the flakes fish that are 

 suitable for packing; (c) using feedy fish; (d) using fish (britt) that 

 are too small for packing by the methods employed in the industry. 

 The waste in cutting back fish of large size to pack in small cans is very 

 generally found. That due to negligence on the part of women 

 packers in discarding fish that are suitable for packing can be cor- 

 rected by stricter discipline. 



Some concerns persistently accept feedy fish, which means that they 

 pack a great many broken and damaged fish to the detriment of 

 their own particular goods and of the sardine industry in general. 



The lack of cooperation among the packers permits different 

 standards in the quality of the output, and makes it difficult for a few 

 packers to maintain a standard of quality. On a hostile, competing 

 basis, fish that are refused at one cannery as unfit for packing are 

 frequently accepted by a competitor, who cares little for quality, or 

 w r ho may have different ideas as to what constitutes a certain standard. 

 Under such conditions the standard can never rise far above that 

 adopted by the packer who has no consideration for the quality of 

 his pack. 



The waste of oil through spilling from the cans after the fish have 

 been packed and oiled is found in varying degrees among the different 

 canneries, and is directly chargeable to the lack of strict supervision 

 of those employees w T hose duty it is to fill the cans with oil and of 

 those who handle the filled cans. 



