"Renderers take a potential hazard and turn it into something valuable"

How does this image grab you? An open dump truck pulls in to the back dock of your local grocery store. Workers toss in spoiled, stinking meat and trimmings that have been collected from the meat department because they are "inedible" for humans. The dump truck drives around southern Florida under the summer sun, flies buzzing at their leisure while the driver takes a coffee break before heading to the next pickup location. More rotten meat is tossed onto the truck, and more Florida sun beats down upon the stinking pile.

Cut to: You in your kitchen, pouring your pet's food from a bag with photos on it of delicious looking cuts of fresh meat. But where did the meat used to make that pet food actually come from? Yeppers, the dump truck. How do I know?

I came across this story over the weekend when the dump truck overturned and spilled the rotten meat onto the road:

It took hours for Collier County officials and Golden Gate firefighters to clean up the meat, hose down the road and brush the pavement with detergent.

[Note to self: see if they're hiring.]

“The smell was real bad,” Golden Gate fire Lt. John Handley said. “And it made a hazard because the oils in the meat seeped into the road and made it slick.”

[...]

“This is grocery store trimmings,” said Charlie Largay, president of the Miami-based Tallowmasters LLC, the owner of the overturned dump truck. “The material that is out of date or is trimmed off ... is just not thrown away into a dump. It’s recycled. It’s a high-protein product and it goes right back into animal feeds.”

[...]

“After it’s processed it comes out looking like cinnamon and it smells like dry dog food,” he said. “We sell it to the pet manufacturers for their dog food.”

Yum.

The article goes on to try and determine exactly who is responsible for overseeing what in the pet food industry but after getting the runaround, comes up with no definitive answers. Sound familiar? Read the complete article here.