Chicken Licken...

During my school days, I used to love the 'lawatan sambil belajar' trips we had once in a blue moon. This past 1 week, I had an overdose of them, as I have mentioned in the previous posts. Anyway, we had the opportunity to visit the Farm's Best factory, where they slaugther and process chicken. According to them, they supply chicken to all the fast food chains in Malaysia except KFC, which is supplied by Ayamas. They apparently marinate the chicken for McD, Nandos, Marrybrown etc. We were given lab coats, shower caps and Phua Chu Kang boots to wear before being allowed to tour the factory. We started at the "clean" area, as we had to follow the protocol and not pollute the chicken with our presence. The first thing I saw when I entered were tons of chicken hanging upside down, stripped of feathers moving on a conveyer thingy right above us. Some chicken juice dripped on us, while we tried to keep to the peripheries. A lot of stuff were automated, though a lot of manual work was also needed. The chicken would pass through cutting machines and the drumsticks, wings or other parts would just drop off into some collecting bin. Later, these parts are packed up according to weight and are later frozen or transported to be sold. Others are then sent to the other parts of the factory to be marinated specifically according to the various fast food chains. The carcasses, with some meat left behind are later sent to another section where it is processed into a bunch of play-doh/plasticene looking thingy which is later molded into nuggets, sausages, burgers etc. Now we know what these stuff are actually made of. We were then taken to the freezers, which were set at -35 degrees celcius. The guy took us all into it, just to let us feel how it was like to be frozen. Anyway, the last bit was the slaugthering, i.e the "dirty" area. There were trucks of chicken, being sprayed by something from above, all lined up and ready for the slaughter house. The chicken were all very solemn, as though they knew it would be their last bath. They were later hung upside down on the conveyer thingy and that was when they started shrieking and clucking in fear. It was not a very pleasant sight. They were later dipped into hot water and transported to the next room, where they were slaugthered according to the halal guidelines. Later, they were dipped into more hot water and the feathers removed before being transported to the room where we first started, to be chopped up into pieces. This whole slaugthering process was rather gross. Made me wonder if I should go vegetarian. We were later brought back to the briefing room where we were served lunch - beehoon and nuggets processed in the factory . After observing the entire process previously, it was rather hard to swallow the nuggets and all... :P Anyway, we did get some freebies... :D

# scribbled by j e l l i o ` at 6/11/2005 01:19:00 PM
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