“Baker Commodities, Inc. has operated in the City of Vernon for more than 50 years. Not only have we benefited from lower operating costs compared to other cities, but we have access to the best of services offered by any city including fire, police & city support departments. Baker Commodities has many divisions around the country but we believe the City of Vernon is superior to any other city we do business in. ”

James A. Andreoli, Jr.
Senior Executive Vice President
Baker Commodities

Vernon, due to its historic role as a meat packing center, has long been home to a variety of animal waste processing and rendering industries. Rendering, for those who don’t know, is a process that converts waste animal tissue into stable, value-added materials such as lard, tallow or bone meal. Rendering can refer to any processing of animal byproducts into more useful materials, or more narrowly to the rendering of whole animal fatty tissue into purified fats.

After 1919, when Vernon returned to being exclusively industrial (after a short flirtation with sports and entertainment), two giant stockyards opened, and meat packing quickly became Vernon’s signature industry. In fact, twenty-seven slaughterhouses lined Vernon Avenue from Soto Street to Downey Road until the late 1960’s. Today, Vernon is still home to a wide variety of meat processing plants. Its exclusively industrial nature is perfect for businesses that sometimes produce offensive odors and require lots of space and special municipal services.

Although the term “green” is relatively new, many Vernon animal waste companies have been operating environmentally friendly “green” businesses for years. For the past century, City of Vernon businesses in the animal waste sector have been significantly reducing the volume of waste going into landfills. Vernon firms that are still performing this valuable “green” service include West Coast Rendering, Darling International and Baker Commodities.

Links: