Ice cream companies live and die by their flavors. At Blue Bell Creameries, a product development team considers as many as 300 ideas every year before whittling them down to five to be launched in grocery and foodservice channels.
Anderson Erickson Dairy’s goal is to have 98% of production meet the end-of-code date. The Iowa dairy places the bar high, but that is part of the company’s self-proclaimed “ridiculously high standards” to assure that consumers have a great brand experience.
Over the last 100 years, Velvet Ice Cream, a self-styled ‘small batch’ producer, built a reputation for making premium products by using only the best flavorings, nuts, fruits, ribbons and inclusions.
Joseph Gallo Farms is using speed, eco-friendly practices and quality to compete with the giant cheesemakers and the small artisan operations on the West Coast.
At Joseph Gallo Farms, nothing goes to waste. Whey becomes a revenue stream. Process water is recycled for irrigation and manure is converted to gas to power generators.
Joseph Gallo Farms might just be the very model of a modern major cheesemaker. It’s all about use and re-use. Nothing goes to waste at this central California cheesemaking and dairy farming business. What little waste there is is re-purposed into salable ingredients, energy or gray water.
Robotic automation equipment is common in the auto industry, but the wet conditions in dairy plants have created a need for equipment standards to comply with strict food safety and hygiene rules. Here is what we have done so far.
Traditional applications for robot-based automation in food processing have been basic pick-and-place packing operations. On the processing side, dairy plants contain many applications that are repetitive or labor-intensive. These are perfect candidates for robot-based automation.
The fluid milk processor from Kent, Wash., was one of 12 dairy processors nominated for the Dairy Foods’ Plant of the Year. Visitors to dairyfoods.com in the month of June made their selections, casting more than 2,900 votes. Smith Brothers Farms, a 90-year-old independent processor and home delivery company, received the most votes.
A European yogurt maker saw potential in the United States and a U.S. food and beverage company wanted to be in the dairy business. When Theo Müller hitched itself to PepsiCo’s distribution juggernaut, the Muller Quaker Dairy brand became an overnight sensation.
When an ice cream processor tells me, “We do things a little differently than most,” I think to myself, “That’s what they all say.” True, most dairies do create unique recipes and flavors, but it still comes down to processing, filling and packaging, and how many variations on those themes can there be?