yet alone the workforce required for them.
Watching those 'Greg Wallace grins round a factory' programmes seems to indicate that a lot of operations are run by a handful of folk maintaining a large number of machines. It all looks hugely expensive to set up, but machines don't need a canteen or holiday pay. They do need a few engineers though and a good pipeline for spare parts, which employs people.
My amazement at this kind of thing is more down to quality control... how so much food gets processed for so many, so quickly, with such high standards (in terms of hygiene and lack of broken glass, botulism or iron filings) is astounding. Of course, what we don't know about won't hurt us, most of the time.
So for example, could Sainsbury’s jam be made in the same factory as say, Hartleys?
My understanding is absolutely, unless they're very big and very busy all the time already. I don't imagine Heinz do any own brand stuff, but who knows. Anything is better than downtime in most operations though, so if the processing power is there, why not sell it? Of course if supermarkets make margins too slim, extra maintenance costs outweigh any gain... it's like the way supermarkets treat staff. All smiley-smiley when the doodah hits the thingy, but as soon as things settle down, trim conditions hard "to improve job security and customer satisfaction" until they end up in the doodah again and have to do the smiley-smiley thing again for a while.
When it comes to variations in taste and quality... I only have to draw on my own cooking for experience. I can get very different results with the same ingredients if I'm not careful, and if I try to cut corners or substitute ingredients to save money or a trip to the shops things can get worse (or at least different) very quickly.
Asda's baked beans are a million times better than Heniz's
Well, sweeter maybe, last time I had any. But you're thinking about Baked Beans wrong... there are no bad beans, just beans enjoyed at the wrong time with the wrong accompaniment.
Actually that's not true. Asda Smart Price beans are the only beans I've ever thrown away, and I have pretty low standards. I haven't tried anybody else's bargain basement beans, but Aldi's own brand are pretty good and the same kind of price. However I was brought up on Beans Meanz Heinz, so it's hard not to indulge in blue beanery from time to time. I have a 4-pack of Branston in tomorrow's Iceland delivery though. I am a bean tart; no loyalty whatsoever.
La, la, la, la, la, can't hear you with my fingers in my ears. Ignorance is sometimes bliss.... especially when contemplating the 12.5kg bag of meal worms, made in China, that I bought for the birds recently. Imagine the factory conditions there... and what they were fed on, and....
I need to get out of this thread quickly so I can put my fingers back in my ears.
