It's the cream! ice cream plant produces all of Kemps' packaged products and more

Dairy Foods, Dec, 2002 by David Phillips

Marigold Foods-produced ice cream and frozen desserts are sold in just about all of the contiguous 48 states. And every bit of that product comes from the freezers at 406 N. Broadway in Rochester, Minn. The home of the world famous Mayo Clinic is also home to an 181,000 sq ft facility that uses a half-million lbs of cream each week to produce a staggering 928 stock keeping units of ice cream, sherbet and frozen yogurt.

About 60% of the output is sold under Marigold's flagship brand Kemps. The remainder is co-packed and private label. Novelties are manufactured by sister company Crowley Foods, Binghamton, N.Y., and several other co-packers, but warehoused at Rochester, where they are coordinated with other products for distribution.

"We do 183 different flavors in 12 different containers ranging from a pint to 3 gals, and we have 34 brands," says Plant Mgr. Mike Hanisch, as he grabs a squround of peach frozen yogurt off the line, scooping out a soft, sweet sample. "Is that good frozen yogurt, or what!"

Marigold was a pioneer in frozen yogurt, and despite a declining market for the category, the company still sells a lot of it. Success with both ice cream and frozen yogurt led to a $14 million expansion in Rochester in 1989.

"It was a monumental expansion," says Robert Williams, Marigold's v.p. of operations. "The plant was built sometime in the 1950s and had been making ice cream since the 1970s, but in 1989 it got a complete makeover."

Five lines, around the clock

Sited with a Marigold milk plant, the entire facility takes up two city blocks. The ice cream plant has five lines, which simultaneously run around the clock, five days a week to produce more than 30 million gals annually.

The plant has 12 raw milk tanks with a total capacity of 126,000 gals. There are 13 pasteurized tanks with a total capacity of 91,500 gals. Three sweetener tanks have a total capacity of 60,000 gals.

Pasteurization systems include a 1,000 gal Scherping vat pasteurizer, a 2,000 gal Feldmeyer vat pasteurizer, an Alfa Laval H-1 that processes 4,000 gals of ice cream mix per hour and an APV plate heat exchanger for cooling. A Gaulin homogenizer completes the systems.

A second-floor control room overlooks the processing and filling rooms that are separated by a glass partition.

Station #1 produces 5-quart and 4-quart palls using a Cherry Burrell three-barrel freezer and a Cherry Burrell single-barrel freezer. The station is outfitted with an APV S-430 ingredient filler and a Cardinal c-1 filler.

Station #2 produces 1/2-gal. squrounds, 1/2-gal. convocans, 1/2-gal and quart plastics. It uses three Hoyer single barrel freezers, a Hoyer 4000sc ingredient feeder, and one of four different fillers--a WCB RUF 152, a Sweetheart Flexefill, an Anderson 456 and a Burghoff nested.

Station #3 runs quart and 1/2-gal convocans, paper and plastic pints and 3-gal bulk tubs. A brand new Hoyer KF300 3-barrel rated at 2,400 gals per hour is teamed with a Cherry BurrellHCIF ingredient filler and the Burghoff nested pint filler and Anderson 456 or a brand new Sawvel 702-1A 3-gal filler.

Station #4 produces 1/2-gal rectangular tucktites, and 3-gal bulk tubs. Using a Cherry Burell 3-barrell, another APV S-430 and Anderson 588 filler.

Station #5 is used for 1/2-gal tuckties, 5-quart and 4-quart pails, and 6-quart bulk pails. Three Hoyer single barrels are tied to Hoyer 4000xc ingredient filler and one of three fillers the Anderson 588, the Cardinal or a Sawvel 701.

Product moves to the packaging room where most of it is wrapped in a secondary over-wrap and configured for pallitization.

Wrappers used are an Anderson 461, an Anderson 464, two Arpac 10824s and a brand new APM MRA-26. Overhead conveyers transport the product to the hardening rooms.

Squares go to a rollerbed hardening system, and rounds go to a TriTray blast freezer.

The Rochester plant has 30,000 sq feet of warehouse space, with a 4-tier pallet storage system. A full service laboratory staffed with three lab technicians who conduct milk supply and quality assurance testing. And product is shipped from a 4-bay loading dock.

It's the people!

"I've been in the business all my life," Hanisch says, noting that he's the son of a dairyman. Rejoined Marigold two years ago, coming from Kroger Dairy Operations, so he's no stranger to high-volume plants and highly scaled companies. At 36, he's one of the youngest plant managers at Marigold, and he's quick to credit his 135 Rochester co-workers for the plant's success.

"This plant is very lean on management," Hanisch says. "We have very good hourly employees. They have self-directed work teams, they have their own foremen and they direct the work themselves. My assistant Mike Mlenar is very knowledgeable and he's been in the dairy business his whole life."

Ice cream and frozen yogurt products have been key to Marigold's growth and continued success. The products feature unique flavor concepts, fantastic packaging and robust marketing support. And with the prodigious output of this workhouse of a plant in Rochester, Marigold helps keep freezers full from coast to coast.