Great plains builder: to keep pace with growing sales, Anderson Erickson restructures its plants and adds 25,000 sq. ft - Anderson Erickson Dairy Co - includes related articles - 1993 Processor of the Year - Cover Story

Dairy Foods, Nov, 1993 by Jack Mans

* PERSONNEL

V.P. Production: Frank McDowell Plant Mgr.: Norm Dostal Asst. Plant Mgr.: Greg Wilkinson No. of employees: 150

* RECEIVING & STORAGE

Milk receiving: 1.1 million lbs. per day Bays: 2 Raw silos: 5 with total capacity of 155,000 gal. Pasteurized silos: 5 with total capacity of 135,000 gal. Pasteurized vats: 5 with total capacity of 7,000 gal. Dressing tank: 1 @ 2,000 gal. Blend tanks: 8 with total capacity of 36,000 gal. Concentrate tank: 1 @ 12,000 gal. Whey: 1 @ 5,000 gal.

* MILK PROCESSING

HTST: 2 -- 1 @ 50,000 lbs. per hr.; 1 @ 30,000 lbs. per hr.

Separators: 2 --

1 @ 50,000 lbs. per hr.; 1 @ 30,000 lbs. per

hr.

Homogenizers: 2 -- 1 @ 50,000lb. per hr.; 1 @ 30,000 lbs. per

hr.

Automatic standardizing systems: 1

* COTTAGE CHEESE & CULTURED PRODUCT PROCESSING

Cottage cheese vats: 7 with total capacity of 11,800 gal. Yogurt process tanks: 2 with total capacity of 6,400 gal. Yogurt blend tanks: 3 with total capacity of 1,400 gal.

PACKAGING

Milk: Carton fillers: 4 N-7-- 4- and 8-oz.; 4 lanes; 240 per min. total. N-5-- 4- and 8-oz.; 2 lanes; 150 per min. total. Q-12-- Half-pints, one-third-quarts, pints and quarts; 2 lanes; 200 per min. total. H-90-- Half-gallons with spouts; 1 lane; 80 per min. Plastic jug fillers: 2 Gallons; 30 valves; 112 per min. Half-gallons: 26 valves; 75 per min. Dual-head bag filler: 1

Cottage Cheese: Manually filled

Yogurt, sour cream, dips: Piston filler: 1; 6-, 8- and 16-ox.; 4-lane; 150 per min.

* OTHER SYSTEMS

CIP Units: 4 -- 2 for raw, 2 for pasteurized Blowmolders: 4 -- 1 6-head and 2 4-head units for gallons; 1 8-head unit for half-gallons Refrigeration: 650 tons Boilers: 2 @ 300 HP each

New ice cream plant maximizes productivity

Anderson Erickson Dairy first ventured into the ice cream business in 1986, when it acquired a local mix company on the other side of Des Moines. Since then, this plant not only has produced the finished ice cream for AE, but it continues to supply ice cream mixes and frozen yogurt mixes to restaurants and to many of the leading fast food chains, including McDonald's, Dairy Queen, Hardee's and others.

With AE's ice cream sales increasing and even more growth on the horizon, AE moved ice cream production into a new facility in January, while continuing mix production in the original plant. As noted in the accompanying feature, AE plans to consolidate mix production into its main plant by 1999, but will continue to produce ice cream in this new facility.

COMPUTER-CONTROLLED MIX PRODUCTION

The mix plant has its own milk receiving station, where it receives 100,000 lbs. of milk per day directly from area farms, and 50,000 lbs. of cream per week from AE's milk plant.

The heart of the mix operation is a computer-controlled batching system that holds the 35 different mix formulas in memory. Product is made in an 800-gal. kettle mounted on load cells.

To start the process, the operator enters the name of the product and pushes a button. The computer adds liquid ingredients to the tank by weight. After mixing, the liquid mixture is pumped into a separate blender where dry ingredients are added manually in accord with the formula. Mix then is pumped back into the batch tank where the computer verifies that the total weight corresponds to the formula. After pasteurizing and homogenizing, the product is pumped into surge tanks for filling. The system operates at 1,000-gal.-per-hour and currently produces 40,000 gal. of mixes per week.