Jim Carper, Editor-in-Chief

Snoqualmie Ice Cream: Perfection in a pint

‘We make perfect ice cream,’ says the owner of Snoqualmie Ice Cream in Washington state. Organic milk and cream, innovative flavor combinations and homegrown herbs and fruits contribute to the products’ popularity.

James Carper

March 10, 2013

Fans can like the Facebook page of their favorite ice cream brand and Tweet all day long about its flavors. But sometimes, to really understand a company’s mission, you have to meet face-to-face with the owners and watch how they make ice cream. That’s the approach Snoqualmie Ice Cream owner Barry Bettinger takes with his distributors. He invites them to tour the fully sustainable manufacturing plant in Maltby, Wash., and make ice cream. Once the visitors see the passion of the company’s 12 employees and the integrity in manufacturing a super-premium organic ice cream (19% butterfat and 15% overrun), they “get it,” Bettinger said.

Three Twins Ice Cream aims for the top

Neal Gottlieb is taking aim at the top national brands of super-premium ice creams. He calls his organic products ‘inconceivably delicious.

James Carper

March 9, 2013

Cornell University has a world-renown dairy science department. But alumnus Neal Gottlieb, the founder of Three Twins Ice Cream, graduated from the College of Human Ecology with a degree in consumer economics and housing. He did enroll in a milk quality course — for a day. He dropped the class because it conflicted with his rowing schedule. As for Cornell’s famed creamery, Gottlieb admits he was not a huge consumer of its dairy products, but he fondly remembers the 99-cent ice cream sandwiches.

Innovations

New dairy products are re-shaping grocers' dairy aisles

New dairy products from Kraft and Land O'Lakes are more like ingredients than actual foods. So where do they belong?

James Carper

February 28, 2013

New dairy products, like cooking creams and seasoned butters, are causing grocers to re-think the dairy aisles. These foods do not fit neatly into established categories like fluid dairy products, butter or cheese.

Free-standing inserts

Muller Quaker features its new yogurts in this week's FSIs

The dairy partnership sells conventional and Greek yogurts.

James Carper

February 20, 2013

Muller Quaker Dairy and Nestle were active with free-standing inserts for the week beginning Feb. 17.

Rhino Foods is rolling in cookie dough

Rhino Foods measures everything it does. Employees work to a goal and are rewarded when they meet the targets. Management’s reward is a smooth-running organization that fulfills customers’ needs.

James Carper

February 15, 2013

A manufacturing facility is like a living organism. Think of production, purchasing, warehousing and quality assurance as cells. Each of these departments has a job to do that in some way touches the other functions. Each has to communicate with the others so that the whole enterprise runs smoothly.

Rhino Foods: Ice cream's trendsetter

Rhino Foods made a name for itself by developing cookie dough for Ben & Jerry’s. But that’s just part of what makes this Vermont dairy processor and baker noteworthy. The forward-thinking company is a trendsetter in employee relations, too.

James Carper

February 14, 2013

Would you loan $1,000 to an employee who encounters an unexpected financial crisis and needs to buy a new water heater? Instead of laying off employees, would you hire them out temporarily to another employer? Do you share your financial statements with all of your employees, not just with senior management?

New uses for familiar dairy products, cheese and butter

Processors create new usage occasions for cheese and butter.

James Carper

February 12, 2013

Rather than curse the younger generation who are in the dark about how to cook, it’s better to light a candle and show them how to “get ’er done.” That’s the approach taken by two dairy companies, Kraft Foods and Land O Lakes. Dairy Foods honored each with an Editors’ Choice award in our Best New Dairy Products of 2012 program.

Free-standing inserts

Party planning and a little 'monkey' business from Kraft in this week's FSIs

Dairy marketers gear up for the Super Bowl and promote a clean label in this week's free-standing inserts.

James Carper

January 23, 2013

With the Super Bowl approaching, dairy marketers are fine-tuning their pitches, offering cheese recipes that party hosts can serve during the "big game" in their free-standing inserts for the week beginning Jan. 20.

A look inside HP Hood's Sacramento plant

HP Hood fills 600 bottles a minute on its new aseptic line in its Sacramento, Calif., plant. The company processes dairy and nondairy beverages in aseptic and extended shelf life packages.

James Carper

January 18, 2013

Mike Hardy is showing me an aseptic filler. “There are only two speeds to this — 0 and 600 bottles a minute,” he says. I watch a blur of bottles enter one end of the machine from an overhead conveyor, whirl from carousel to carousel and exit the other end. In a matter of seconds, the bottles have been sterilized, filled and capped.

While many processors specialize, HP Hood does it all

While many processors specialize, HP Hood does it all: milk, ice cream, cheese, yogurt, other cultured foods and nondairy beverages.

James Carper

January 15, 2013

Hood is New England’s beloved dairy brand with roots that reach back to 1846 when Harvey Perley Hood founded the company in Derry, N.H. Today, HP Hood LLC, based in Lynnfield, Mass., near Boston, processes branded lines of milk, ice cream, cheese and other dairy products that rank among the best-sellers in the Northeast.