About five miles southeast of downtown L.A., a cluster of four rendering companies transform leftover meat, bone scraps, and sometimes entire carcasses from chickens, pigs, and cows, into ingredients for new products.

The facilities are located in Vernon, or just outside the city’s limits. Under a local air quality rule, rendering plants that produce certain types of products are required to post signs notifying community members where to report associated odor issues. But an LAist review found that two of these companies were out of compliance in recent years, and a third company has changed its business operations and avoided the pollution rule.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) regulates air quality in the region. Public records and the agency’s website show it cited two of the rendering plants, Darling Ingredients, Inc. and Baker Commodities, Inc., for not having the required signage posted during inspections. Both have fixed the problems since then.

The other company, Coast Packing Co., altered its business model and is now exempt from the rule.

How rendering odors have impacted local residents

The city of Vernon is home to about 1,800 businesses. Fashion Nova, a fast-fashion company that largely found success through influencers on social media, and Tapatío hot sauce both have locations in the city. Overall, the businesses produce a wide range of products: food, steel, plastics, and apparel.

Vernon’s city limits are just five square miles, and it’s almost exclusively industrial with just 222 residents. It’s surrounded by densely populated cities, including Bell, Commerce, Huntington Park and Maywood, as well as the Boyle Heights neighborhood and unincorporated East L.A.

For decades, community members have grappled with odors emanating from the rendering companies. They’ve described the smells as “nauseating,” “rancid” and “putrid.” To escape the odors, neighbors told LAist they shut their windows and avoid going outdoors — especially in the summer, when the stench can intensify.

How the odor rule works

In 2017, AQMD adopted a rule that forces rendering plants to take steps to keep potential odors from seeping into the community. Under the rule, the plants must:

• Store animal matter within four hours of receiving it
• Repair broken concrete and asphalt to keep odor-causing bacteria from forming in dirty water
• Wash outgoing trucks. 

The rule also stipulates that rendering plants must post signs on their property, indicating where community members can report odor issues.

These signs must include AQMD’s complaint hotline, 1-800-CUT-SMOG (1-800-288-7664), along with the name of the rendering company. The signage must be placed within 50 feet of a facility’s main entrance, with large lettering that contrasts with the background.

The details of the sign rule violations

AQMD’s data portal shows that the agency issued a notice to Darling in October 2018, telling the company to post the required signage. The company came into compliance that same month.

The data portal also shows that Baker received two notices about the required signage, one in 2018 and another in 2020.

In an email, AQMD spokesperson Nahal Mogharabi said air quality officials observed that Baker’s sign “was placed more than 50 feet from the main entrance of the facility” during an unannounced inspection in September 2018. The company’s guard shack also obstructed the sign from public view. AQMD confirmed that the sign was moved to comply with the rule by December of that year.

During another inspection in February 2020, inspectors noticed that Baker’s sign contained new “extraneous information,” which interfered with the public's ability to read the hotline phone number, Mogharabi added. Air quality officials issued a second notice. Baker made the required changes within two months of the notice from air regulators, and voluntarily added a translation for Spanish speakers.

In visits to each location, LAist found Coast is the only rendering plant in the area without the signage.

Chavis Ferguson, vice president of operations at Coast, said he had no comment. A spokesperson for Darling said they were not available by deadline. Baker, which is suing AQMD for shutting it down, declined multiple interview requests.

In an emailed statement, spokesperson Jimmy Andreoli II said Baker is “dedicated to finding sustainable ways to support California’s food production and restaurant industries with continued strict adherence to local, state, and federal environmental laws.”

Why one rendering company isn’t subject to the odor rule

Founded in 1922, Coast is located along the L.A. River next to the shuttered Farmer John slaughterhouse and rendering plant building — famous for large murals of pigs grazing on an idyllic farm.

The company is currently exempt from the rule’s signage requirements, according to AQMD spokesperson Connie Mejia.

The signage requirements, she explained, only apply to facilities engaged in inedible rendering, which produce ingredients for products that are not for human consumption. This includes fertilizer, soap, and pet food.

When the rule was adopted in 2017, Mejia added, Coast performed this type of rendering and was subject to the rule. But they’ve changed their work flow since then. Right now, Coast processes animal tissue into products like lard. That work isn’t subject to the rule. Mejia said it’s “not as odorous.”

If Coast resumes inedible rendering — the smellier type of rendering — the signage requirements “will become effective,” she wrote. Coast still holds a license to conduct that work, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Why the signage matters

Joseph Lyou, president and CEO of the L.A.-based nonprofit the Coalition for Clean Air, is a former AQMD governing board member and voted in support of the odor mitigation rule back in 2017.

“All you have to do is drive around [Vernon] on a bad day, and you will find absolutely disgusting odors from these facilities,” he said.

Lyou noted that people who live in the surrounding neighborhoods are predominantly working-class Latinos.

“The idea [behind the rule] was that the South Coast Air Quality Management District has the authority — and the responsibility — of providing some protection to this community,” he said.

We shared our findings with Julia Stein, deputy director at UCLA’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. She said the rule’s signage requirement is essential.

“When [community members] notice really strong odors coming from the facility, [the signage] is how they understand that there is actually a regulator that's involved,” said Stein, who previously worked as an attorney advising clients on regulatory compliance. “Without that signage there, folks might be experiencing those problems, but not understand that they have some sort of recourse.”

On top of the unpleasant odors, Stein added, these types of facilities often emit hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, which “can cause pretty significant health impacts.” Associated problems include skin and eye irritation, difficulty breathing, “and, potentially, even interfering with brain function,” she said.