The Gifford’s Ice Cream processing plant is tucked into a hillside on Hathaway Street in Skowhegan, Maine. This unassuming little band box of a building gives no hint that inside, production workers are creating super premium ice cream that is sold in company-owned and independently owned scoop shops and by retailers from Maine to Maryland.

In Best practices for pumps and valves in dairy processing plants, manufacturers discuss how the equipment can be used most efficiently, how to choose the right equipment and whether to buy only OEM replacement parts. In this dairyfoods.com exclusive, we include responses from other manufacturers not included in the magazine article.