102 BULLETIN 98, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
WASTE IN PACKING SARDINES. 
ELIMINATION OF 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 overlabor. 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; (6) 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 afew 
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 
who 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 whose duty it is to fill the cans with oil and of 
those who handle the filled cans. 
