March 11, 2009

Well I think that two words really describe today’s events, and those are SWAG and Hairnets. This is mainly because we went to two companies that produce food products, LALA and Grupo Bimbo. I also woke up feeling not that great in the morning, and spent a lot of time in the bathroom during the morning.
LALA is the largest milk and milk product producer in Mexico. The facility that we were able to visit process and ships out of 600,000 liters of milk per day, and with combined with the other liquids and yogurts that are produced there this facility pumps out just a shade under a million liters per day of product. On top of that they make all of the packaging and bottling (cartons and such) at this plant. It was really incredible to see. During this tour I started feeling really sick and so my impression of the facility may be a bit tainted. One thing that is impressive with these companies are the caliber of employees that are showing us around, granted the companies are trying to put on the best face possible but everyone seems very educated. They also seem to try and find the most attractive people in the office to present to us. In preparing for the tour at LALA we had to put on lab coats and hairnets. Apparently in Mexico nobody that wears over a 40 size suit coat has ever visited because that is all they had. While size 40 works for most of the girls here, us guys were really struggling, me especially. It was like Chris Farley doing fat man in a little coat. The think that I love most about places like LALA is seeing how they coordinate all of the supply chains that are involved whether it be the PET’s for the plastic containers, the milk itself or the distribution channels that they use to sell the milk. It is all very impressive.
Bimbo was the next visit for the day. WOW is all that I can say. The facility that we went to is the 2nd largest producer of loaves of bread in the world. It was amazing. They had a warehouse full of ingredients, one of us asked how long the inventory lasted and they said, “Well we use a just in time inventory system so this warehouse will last about 2 days.” And believe me when I say that it was a large warehouse full of wheat, corn, syrup and other dry ingredients. This operation also makes all of the buns for the KFC’s in this region of Mexico. After all the bread is produced it is then sold to all the stores in the Jalisco region. The ingredients come in and within 2 days they are sitting on store shelves, that is very impressive. Again at this place we got tons of SWAG and had to wear hairnets. Walking through the factory smelled so good as well. It reminded me of going to 24 Hour fitness in SLC next to the Wonder Bread factory (In Mexico Bimbo makes Wonder Bread) only a million times better. Then we got to eat some bread that was fresh of out of the oven. Just ask Michelle about my deep disdain for wheat bread, but this wheat bread was very delicious. I think that the only way I will eat wheat bread is if it is still warm from the oven.
The evening time was a little bit more adventurous as far as experiencing Mexico. The Spanish track from my school has been studying at Tech de Monterrey since January and it was Eric Friedman’s birthday from that group. We met them at a restaurant called Casa Bariachi. This restaurant had traditional mariachis. (In English the word Mariachi means pants so tight I can see your bulge) For dinner I had a steak that I ordered to be medium done, but in Mexico that means ultra rare because the middle was not even warm, but it was still very tasty (yes I did eat it and that will come into play here in a second) After dinner was done the MC made a bunch of us gringos go on stage for a dancing competition. I was not drunk enough for this, (I only had 2 Pepsi’s in me) my classmates were as the Mexicans would say quite a bit “happier” than I was. So I go up on stage and they make me dance with a stranger, not even someone that I know from the Spanish track. So I proceed to dance, which really was me looking around and shuffling my feet a bit. After a second I felt a large rumbling in my stomach and all that I could think is that I am going to s!@# myself on stage because I ate a raw steak, Great Job Collin. Luckily the immodium that I took earlier that day kicked in and fought off the impending shart, but it was a close one. After this tremendous experience we ended the night at a Cuban bar smoking “illegal” Cuban Cigars (not me but my classmates). I put illegal in quotations because they were out for sale in the open and they advertised quality Cuban cigars. Well that was my night.