The Rendering Industry

Every summer through most of the 1980s, an awful smell wafted its way across the west side of Bridgeport, Connecticut--a stench ultimately traced to the premises of Herman Isaacs, Inc. Once you knew how the long-established company did business, it wasn't surprising to learn that its operations stunk to high heaven. Isaacs, now closed, was a meat rendering plant; it bought spoiled meat scraps, animal carcasses, and other "offal" and transformed this waste product into an inoffensive, high-protein base for such products as designer soaps, medicines, candy (yes, candy) and a whole lot of other things you'd never suspect had meat in them.

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