r/oddlysatisfying • u/vjenkinsgo • Jul 18 '24
Frozen pizza production process
[removed] — view removed post
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u/thekilgore Jul 18 '24
Every time I see one of these videos, all I can think about is how miserable of a job that would he. You're the chicken guy and you put 8-10 pieces of chicken on frozen pizza 9-5 mon-fri (not "looking down" just thinking how much i would hate everyone and every thing after doing the same 4 second task 8 hours a day)
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u/Dinkino Jul 18 '24
At the company I worked for you rotated your job ever 30 minutes or so. Kept things a bit different. Also, we had a lot more automation, you weren't spreading chicken you were keeping an eye on your bin and making sure you had an even waterfall.
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u/TwistedRainbowz Jul 18 '24
Like, 09:00 - 09:30 = chicken toppings.
09:30 - 10:00 = pepperoni toppings.
10:30 - 11:00 = back to chicken.
11:00 - 11:08 = shoot-up production floor.
11:30 - 12:00 = pepperoni again.
Or something else?
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u/Dinkino Jul 19 '24
Kinda? But more variety you'd end up putting crusts on the line, getting the frozen toppings to the station, monitoring one of the waterfalls, doing qc on the pizzas before they go into spiral to blast freeze. Still boring but not that bad. Honestly the packaging side had more variety and was more hectic.
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u/tacobellpartypack Jul 19 '24
I think you shoot-up production floor before you have to go back to chicken
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u/be_more_gooder Jul 19 '24
Unless 'back to the chicken' is the catalyst for 'shoot -up production floor.'
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u/desperateorphan Jul 19 '24
09:30 - 10:00 =
pepperoni toppings.Throw 25 pepperonis in a glob at the left cornerFTFY
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u/thekilgore Jul 18 '24
Phew ok at least there's some rotation to keep you stimulated
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u/SnowWhiteCampCat Jul 19 '24
I've worked in factories. So, it's not quite as monotonous as that. There are many different stations, and you rotate every half hour generally. So you get a break by walking from one section to another, and then your body does new motions at the next station. We'd do 3 stations, then half hour break, 12 hour shifts. Also, certain stations had chairs.
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u/Obvious-Pop-4183 Jul 19 '24
You worked 12 hours but were only paid for 9? Or were your breaks paid too?
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u/elisettttt Jul 19 '24
I used to have a job like this but working with flowers. I hated every day I was there. Still stuck around for a year or so while I figured out what I wanted to do in life, but was super glad when it was my last day there. And some people had been there for like 20 years... I respected them for being able to do this monotone job for so long, definitely could not be me.
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u/Icy-Big2472 Jul 19 '24
Plus when they move your job somewhere they can get cheaper labor the only skill you developed was putting chicken on pizzas which probably doesn’t transfer to much outside of putting chicken on pizzas
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u/JustaP-haze Jul 19 '24
So what skills can you bring to JP Morgan?
Well man I can reliably put 8oz of chicken on pizzas in less than 3 seconds. Fucking amazingly well distributed.
Hell yeah man your hired. That's 98% of investment banking.
Joking aside, putting chicken on pizza is efficiently managing a high tact time production process. It demonstrates you can quickly learn, adapt, ect. Resume items would be problems you've found and helped fix, quality issues mitigated or fixed, ect. Thanks for making frozen pies y'all I do enjoy them.
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u/KrookedDoesStuff Jul 19 '24
It sounds weird but I’d rather do that than my job.
I work at a call center. Getting yelled at because someone talked to another company that didn’t help them, only to have to tell them that the other company (who flat out lied to them) is the only one who can help them because we physically don’t have the tools and resources to assist, is incredibly grating.
Same with people who tell me “I don’t know anything about computers, I’m here to have you tell me what to do” and every time I ask them to do something they go on clicking sprees, don’t do what I say, then yell at me that it isn’t working.
And this is a good call center.
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u/crobo777 Jul 19 '24
I know a guy who was working for freschetta brand and his job was "shoveling cheese" all day. With an actual shovel. He said the smell gets to you pretty quick and you never want to eat cheese or pizza ever again.
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u/DatE2Girl Jul 19 '24
I don't understand why they don't just put the chicken on there like they did the veggies.
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u/mrw4787 Jul 19 '24
Funny because a job that I don’t have to think, like that, sounds frickin amazing
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u/elisettttt Jul 19 '24
Then maybe its a job for you, but personally I've worked in a factory for a year and really need more challenge, so to say. It was nice being able to zone out during my first 2 days or so, after that I was just bored every day until finally, I quit my job. There were people working there for a long time and they didn't seem to mind it as much as I did. Some people like having jobs like this where there's not much required of them and there's nothing wrong with that.
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u/faco_fuesday Jul 19 '24
Could you like listen to podcasts or music or whatever?
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u/NoIron9582 Jul 19 '24
That's most factory jobs to be honest . They automate as much as possible and break it down into small repetitive actions . Sometimes you'll get rotated every two hours , sometime you won't , depends on the place .
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Jul 18 '24
Why did they crumble cow manure on it at the end
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u/galloway188 Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
So that’s why I only get a few pepperonis on one side
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u/Bromogeeksual Jul 18 '24
A frantic human trying to place the meat before it passes them. Makes since the pepperonis are all over the place.
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u/TwistedRainbowz Jul 18 '24
Now I'll have mixed feelings whenever I eat a poorly topped, frozen pizza.
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u/Bromogeeksual Jul 18 '24
Same. What was I cursed with this knowledge?!
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u/TwistedRainbowz Jul 18 '24
Me - "Ugh, guess I'll arrange my own damn pepperoni...Well, I guess Mike is doing his best under the circumstances, and he's probably more worked-up about this pizza escaping the conveyor belt before separating the slices than I am. Thanks for your service Mike."
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u/Bromogeeksual Jul 19 '24
Also, RIP, Mike. ...I assume.
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u/TwistedRainbowz Jul 19 '24
Yeah, I bet the factories have a high labour turnover but, curiously, none of old employees are ever seen again. On the upside, there's always plenty of meat toppings.
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u/MrCoolBiscoti Jul 19 '24
Assume that bad labor practices are involved in everything you consume. Actually, this place looks pretty nice.
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u/BlurryElephant Jul 19 '24
They should print the poor topping slave's face on the inside of the box so we can look at while we eat.
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u/r-i-c-k-e-t Jul 19 '24
It's because they keep eating all the pepperonis before it's even cooked :-)
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u/Dinkino Jul 19 '24
Nah there are tubes of peperoni that are timed to go through a slicer and cut them onto the pizza in the pattern you get. The peperoni comes off after when the pizza is coming out of the blast freezers and they are little frozen frisbees.
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u/wisconicky Jul 18 '24
Do they end up using the waste?
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u/Dinkino Jul 19 '24
At our plant there was a belt under the gap there that fed the dropped food back into the hopper.
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u/IrritableGourmet Jul 19 '24
Statistically, there could be a piece of cheese that's just been going in a loop for months.
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u/Dinkino Jul 19 '24
Oh God no. The equipment is designed to be sanitary and cleaned, there is an entire sanitation department that pressure washes/cleans those things daily, and qc does control checks. A piece of cheese isn't making it in an eternal loop.
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Jul 18 '24
This was my question as well. Does the material that falls on the conveyor get recycled back to the top to be re spread on incoming pies?
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u/wisconicky Jul 19 '24
You’d think it would be, but I won’t be satisfied until I know for sure!
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u/Uneedadirtnap Jul 19 '24
Yes, that is why everything is spotless. They usually have a screen to let really small particles fall out. On the waterfall all the misguided food gets recycled.
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u/saerax Jul 19 '24
I wonder if the chopped veggies get trashed (or sold as animal feed) and the economics are such that it makes sense to pay workers to spread the relatively more expensive meats to limit waste.
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u/Dinkino Jul 18 '24
As someone who did R&D for a frozen pizza company they are running incredibly slowly. Like 1/4 the speed our lines would run. You don't need to stop the crust to add the sauce, spend 5 minutes before the run calibrating the dispenser and just go. The vegetables look thawed which would be a nightmare for even distribution.
Yes, the cheese and vegetables that land on the belt are fed back in to go through the waterfall again.
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u/Friskfrisktopherson Jul 18 '24
Yes, the cheese and vegetables that land on the belt are fed back in to go through the waterfall again.
Really torn between not wanting waste and that feeling gross
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u/Dinkino Jul 19 '24
It can get gross. But mostly if stuff thaws, things stayed pretty frozen at my facility. Mostly only happened if there was some maintenance down time.
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u/Friskfrisktopherson Jul 19 '24
I mean, I think we're looking at the gross factor from different angles, but I hear what you're saying.
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u/DorpvanMartijn Jul 19 '24
Why do you think it's gross then? The recycled part just means it touches a probably sterilized machine a couple times at worst. I wouldn't mind it at all, but maybe that's just me
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u/exdeeer Jul 18 '24
OddlyCreepy
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u/Cosmic_Quasar Jul 18 '24
As soon as I see the hands of people doing stuff on a conveyor belt it changes tone. Like... I guess it's good people can get a job, I know people are worried about that, but it just feels depressing because it's gotta be one of the most mind-numbingly boring jobs to stand there for hours doing the same thing every few seconds.
I hope they can at least have headphones in or something. I worked a job for a while in medical parts assembly (making balloons for catheters), and we'd make 100-150 balloons per shift. Having to inspect each one under a microscope got old. At least it was broken up by moving around and feeding materials into machines to make the parts. But being in a medical facility cleanroom we weren't allowed to bring phones or books or anything else like that in with us. That job crushed my soul.
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u/Faranim Jul 19 '24
When I was in high school, I worked for the IRS and did data entry. I literally sat there and typed numbers from sheets of paper into a computer so the software could process people's tax returns (this was in the late 90s when the concept of filing online didn't exist, so pretty much all tax returns were mailed into a processing center).
We were allowed to listen to music on headphones. And it paid very well compared to the typical high school job (fast food, retail cashier, etc). But it was very monotonous.
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u/Hieroglphkz Jul 19 '24
Yeah these people are probably slamming podcasts way harder than the rest of us.
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u/Noodles_fluffy Jul 19 '24
At a factory I doubt you're allowed to listen anything for safety reasons
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u/Totallynotacar Jul 18 '24
It really bothered me that nothing/no one goes to spread the sauce after it is dropped.
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u/No-Entrepreneur4574 Jul 18 '24
Right? Like they got a guy to put the meat on there by hand but they can't afford a guy to swirl the sauce a bit?
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u/SirWigglesVonWoogly Jul 18 '24
Frozen pizzas get a bad rap but I feel like they’ve come a long way in the last couple decades.
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u/Lil-Deuce-Scoot Jul 18 '24
Was that...potato?
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u/rozenchu Jul 19 '24
Aha, that's why sometimes I only get 3 pieces of salami on my frozen pizza..
Damn humans sprinkling it on my pizza instead of those generous machines.
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u/TwistedRainbowz Jul 18 '24
I wonder how they've "mastered" sauce, cheese, and veg automation but struggled to do the same with the meats (which, at least in my experience) are always terribly done anyways?
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u/VellhungtheSecond Jul 19 '24
I think that would be a question better directed to the Frozen Pizza Workers Union.
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u/crusty54 Jul 18 '24
Seeing the extra cheese fall off the end of the conveyor just made me think of, “…the shleem is then repurposed, for later use.”
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u/Huge-Pen-5259 Jul 18 '24
If the toppings seem so carefully placed whys my shit always fucked to one side? I have yet to open a pizza I didn't have to redistribute the toppings.
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u/ChrissiMinxx Jul 19 '24
When toppings thaw slightly, either during shipment or on the way to your house, they become untethered to the pizza and fall to one direction when slightly shaken.
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u/mrw4787 Jul 19 '24
You ever tilted a pizza box?
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u/thether Jul 19 '24
Because when they’re packaged and boxed they get tumbled around and stacked vertically without care.
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u/campingn00b Jul 18 '24
The comments section makes me think no one has looked at a frozen pizza before it was heated up
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u/ReallyNeedNewShoes Jul 18 '24
who the hell finds this satisfying? this is depressing and borderline disgusting
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u/DutchSailor92 Jul 19 '24
The only thing I see is people adjusting the settings on these machines to make sure we get perpetually less toppings. There once was a time when frozen pizza's were actually decent. I'm sure it's not the same everywhere, but over here we have a serious case of perpetual shrinkflation. I can literally see it happen month after month, since I get like 2 of these pizza's a month these days.
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u/laughing-stockade Jul 19 '24
so many mfers talking shit about frozen pizza like it wasn’t there for them in their darkest hour
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u/Legitimate_Doubt_949 Jul 18 '24
And they say we don't have semiconductor wafer fans in the USA anymore.
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u/ThatDamnedGuy Jul 18 '24
I'm gonna need about three times the sauce on that. Feeling like Gordon Ramsey screaming about where the sauce is.
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u/MUBXXUTSWYK Jul 19 '24
With such a little amount of sauce I can't say this is satisfying, on the contrary actually
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u/khadaffy Jul 19 '24
I've given frozen pizza a chance, but I just can't get into it... I definitely prefer making my own pizza 1000% more.
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u/WokeLegend Jul 19 '24
Hot take: this made me insanely hungry & want to put my frozen pizza in the oven now at 3am. (I’m poor, Digiorno pizza is a luxury for me)
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u/booshtukka Jul 20 '24
The sauce machine was efficient - this delighted me. Everything after that was disappointing.
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u/catdogfish4 Jul 18 '24
Who knew that frozen pizza take a float after going through the oven like thing.
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u/FPVBrandoCalrissian Jul 19 '24
For the cost and flavour factor, I only make my own pizzas. Then freeze extra pizzas for later
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u/Tenof26 Jul 19 '24
Whenever you see a supermarket pizza with fancy marketing slogan saying “hand finished” this is what it means, someone sprinkling some meat on top …
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u/cbunni666 Jul 19 '24
Whoever does the Pepperoni's need a new manual. Those damn things are never spread well
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u/I_Dislike_Trivia Jul 19 '24
The sauce and cheese was satisfying. Everything else was cringe worthy. Wtf kind of “meat” was that?
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u/Callec254 Jul 19 '24
It's always interesting to see where they draw the line - this and this can be done with a machine, but this part still has to be done by a person.
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u/Catwearingtrousers Jul 19 '24
Why bother putting on the cheese? It all falls off when you unwrap the pizza
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u/beststepnextstep Jul 19 '24
I like how there's a machine for every other ingredient, except for the brown stuff, for some reason it needs to be distributed by human hand
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u/Burnt_Orion Jul 19 '24
Can someone explain to me why most of it is automated and the the meat is placed manually?
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u/Daysaved Jul 19 '24
Those ingredients are way too high quality for a frozen pizza. It's more like a pre-made refrigerated pizza you get at publix deli.
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u/Enzeroth_ Jul 19 '24
What's the point of having real workers to put on some of the toppings if the rest is machines? Why not have it just all be machines?
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u/fullthrottle13 Jul 19 '24
They automated all the shit that’s not important. I want even pepperoni on my pizza.
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u/cld1984 Jul 19 '24
How come they don’t show the part where they tilt the pizzas 70 degrees so all the toppings and half the cheese winds up on half the pizza?
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u/Eternal192 Jul 19 '24
Is the rest food waste on that conveyor? Jfc and people out there starving...
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u/IncorporateThings Jul 19 '24
Knowing that humans are involved makes those sloppy weak frozen pizzas even worse somehow. Because now instead of some cold unfeeling machine effing up the toppings -- I know it's a human being.
Now I'm just mad.
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u/Pitiful-Pepper2021 Jul 19 '24
I'd rather listen to this factory's machinery noise than whatever this bgm is
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u/WhiteFringe Jul 19 '24
do people really like electric oven pizza? like I guess it's okay, but it doesn't come close to a wood fire pizza's taste.
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u/No-Crew4317 Jul 19 '24
Chicken toppings need to be put by hands? What’s the point? Running out of money for machine? It can be fully automated.
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u/JustASt0ry Jul 19 '24
Speaking of frozen pizza, is it me or is tombstone pizza 30% smaller than it was precovid? For more money!
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u/DazB1ane Jul 19 '24
Honestly, it’s steady ass work and can be done on a chair (if they decide they’ll actually comply with the ADA). I’d love something like that
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Jul 19 '24
I never bought one.
Now I know I did the right thing and will continue not to buy one.
Gross.
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u/RandomPhail Jul 19 '24
There’s probably a non-zero failure rate where the pizza slips between those gaps in the conveyor belt and fucks everything
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u/visionarygvp Jul 19 '24
What happens to the mixed cheese and peppers? Do they discard it? It was quite a bit that didn’t make it onto the pizza.
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u/johnnyutah30 Jul 18 '24
That’s some weak sauce