Kathie Canning

When Lifeway Foods Inc. purchased the former Golden Guernsey fluid milk plant in Waukesha, Wis., at a bankruptcy auction in 2013, it faced an uphill battle in readying it for production of the company’s signature 32-ounce kefir line. Although the 157,000-square-foot, 60-plus-year-old facility had “good bones,” its former tenant had shut down very quickly with no exit plan.

The picture appears to be a little less than rosy for the refrigerated juices/drinks category. For the 52 weeks ending March 25, 2018, dollar sales in the category fell 1.1% to $6.6 billion, while unit sales declined by 2.1% to 2.2 billion, according to data from Chicago-based market research firm IRI.

Dairy processors understand that great-tasting, high-quality products are critical to success. But a number of attributes beyond those essentials (and, of course, price) increasingly are driving consumers' purchase decisions.

You won't find any fancy feeder hoppers or blenders in Praline's Inc.'s Wallingford, Conn., ice cream processing, distribution and headquarters facility. The company believes that the old-fashioned methods still yield the best-tasting ice cream. So plant employees start with a high-quality base, then mix in the variegates and inclusions by hand.

Compared to many other ice cream processors, Wallingford, Conn.-based Praline’s Inc. runs a rather small operation. The 34-year-old company got its start with a single Praline’s ice cream store in Wallingford; it later sold that shop through a franchise agreement to exit retail and enter the ice cream-making business full time.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 1,600 Americans get listeriosis each year, and about 260 of them die. The infection typically is caused by eating food contaminated with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes.

Up until recently, cottage cheese was arguably one of the most yawn-worthy subcategories within the cultured dairy segment. With so much other innovation in the cultured dairy space, consumers likely viewed the product as bland and boring, and retail sales data reflected that reality.

For 2018, the Breakthrough Award for Dairy Ingredient Innovation, a competition hosted by the Elmhurst, Ill.-based American Dairy Products Institute and Dairy Foods, goes to Caloris Engineering and Lone Star Dairy Products LLC.