The casual website customer to Athens, Tenn., will surely haven’t any idea that milk objects generated under are delivered all through USA. Additionally householders of this village, located within the southeast fringe of the state, probably don’t perceive that Mayfield Dairy merchandise Farms makes ice cream for numerous different companies to supply in supermarkets all through the nation.
Mayfield’s milk plant, located merely north of midtown Athens, is a stretching facility. Car drivers of milk vessels sign up at one construction previous to dumping on the plant. On one facet of Madison Technique, uncooked milk is refined proper into white milk, scrumptious chocolate milk, buttermilk in addition to numerous different liquid objects. In another space of the plant, a number of of the 200-plus staff likewise produce an enormous array of ice cream objects, various from 14-ounce containers to 3-gallon foodservice bathtubs.
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All through Madison Technique, a blow-molding process is incessantly making Mayfield’s well-known sensible, nontransparent yellow containers that preserve the milk’s high quality by shutting out the UV gentle that damages down vitamins in addition to impacts milk’s choice.
Mayfield Dairy merchandise Farms is simply one of many operating units of Dean Meals Co. The Dallas-based agency is the second-largest cpu on the Dairy merchandise 100, this publication’s yearly place of milks doing group in The USA and Canada. Enterprise income in 2014 amounted to $9.5 billion. Nonetheless decided by crops, Dean Meals is the largest. It has 67 facilities making liquid milk, ice cream in addition to cultured objects.
The Mayfield division gives 9 Southeastern states. It likewise runs a milk plant in Braselton, Ga., in addition to an ice cream plant in Birmingham, Ala. Mary Williams is primary supervisor of the Mayfield division. Scott Watson is the plant supervisor of the Athens process.
They in addition to the 205 manufacturing staff in Athens have their job appropriate them. That’s as a consequence of the truth that Mayfield only recently landed ice cream group in Florida in addition to Louisiana as a result of no Dean division was providing these states with ice cream. That brand-new group maintains the fridges freezer spinning, as does the co-manufacturing contract with Boardwalk Frozen Offers with to generate Baskin-Robbins’ 14-ounce containers price grocery store all through the USA. (The Birmingham plant produces Baskin-Robbins foodservice bathtubs for inside story shops in 43 nations.)
On the liquid facet, Mayfield containers Dean’s DairyPure white milk in addition to TruMoo scrumptious chocolate milk objects. These are co-branded with Mayfield’s title.
Table of Contents
Blow-molding plastic milk containers
Mayfield generates its very personal half-gallon in addition to gallon containers. It has 6 influence molders of differing capabilities, from four-head to eight-head equipments. Mayfield containers its milk in sensible yellow containers, which safeguards milk from destruction by ultraviolet gentle. The instruments likewise makes containers in “natural” plastic for private tag customers. In addition to creating containers for this plant, Mayfield is making plastic containers for sibling crops in Braselton in addition to Birmingham.
As a result of the fillers can fill containers sooner than the blow molding gear could make them, Mayfield must preserve a gentle provide readily available. Baggage of 48 gallon jugs in addition to 108 half-gallon jugs are staged on this room. Totally automated baggers wrap the bottles in plastic. Likewise, totally automated de-baggers take away the plastic and place the bottles again on the conveyor system that provides the fillers.
The dairy additionally bottles milk in plastic pints and half-pint bottles. (A big buyer is McDonald’s eating places, which buys white and chocolate milk within the half-pint dimension.) Bottles arrive from suppliers and are fed right into a hopper after which onto conveyors. The bottles undergo a labeling machine and a shrink tunnel. An unscrambler places the bottles in single file order and so they then transfer to an accumulation desk and file up an elevator to the filling room. A efficiency enchancment workforce checked out methods to enhance this course of and tweaked the gear to make the bottles circulate extra easily via the system. One other enchancment eradicated jams on the elevator.
Receiving milk, orange juice, sugar
Mayfield receives 25 to twenty-eight milk tankers a day, day-after-day of the week, from 7:30 to three:30. Tankers from close by farms pull right into a constructing throughout the road from the plant earlier than they off-load the milk. Tankers are weighed on a truck scale and Mayfield attracts samples. If the milk passes organoleptic and antibiotic assessments, the vehicles proceed to the four-bay receiving space on the plant. After unloading, the vehicles are washed and despatched again on the street. Mayfield additionally takes in orange juice focus at this receiving space; one other a part of the plant accepts deliveries of liquid sugars.
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At one other receiving space of the plant, empty milk instances return from clients. Two strains of conveyors feed the instances into an ultrasonic case washer. The ultrasonic motion knocks the grime off the instances, that are then washed, sanitized and stacked. Later, these clear instances might be crammed with product and staged within the cooler. Within the cooler, there are two palletizers staging the instances for supply.
The plant in Athens has capability to retailer 275,000 gallons of uncooked milk. It has 4 10,000-gallon pasteurized tanks and two 15,000-gallon tanks. As well as, the plant shops cream in 4 5,000-gallon tanks. Resulting from the truth that Mayfield additionally makes ice cream right here, it often has to purchase further cream. One supply is Knoxville milk processor Weigel’s (which was featured within the April 2012 problem).
The processing rooms have three excessive temperature/quick time pasteurizers for milk and one for ice cream. It has three separators, which vary in capability from 4,000 to 9,500 gallons per hour. Buttermilk is a well-liked beverage within the Southeast, and Mayfield is as much as the duty of supplying its clients with the classy drink. There are sufficient vats to make nearly 15,000 gallons of buttermilk per day. The tangy dairy beverage can also be used to bake buttermilk biscuits. The Cracker Barrel restaurant chain is a buyer, shopping for buttermilk in half-gallons for use in its biscuit recipes.
The filling room was abuzz throughout Dairy Meals’ go to. Mayfield has 9 fillers, together with a 24-valve unit for plastic half-gallons, a 30-valve unit for plastic gallons and a 36-valve unit for plastic 8-ounce and pints bottles. There are three half-pint fillers that may additionally accommodate 4-ounce paper containers. Mayfield places labels on the entrance and facet of its branded gallons. Gallons made for different clients obtain solely a entrance label.
Report charges of manufacturing, by machine, are famous on plaques put in across the plant. The boards observe the machine, the throughput achieved and the workforce members working the filler and its help gear on the time.
Mayfield makes ice cream, too
As famous above, not many fluid milk crops additionally make ice cream. In addition to making a full vary of ice cream merchandise (from premium to gentle to no sugar added), Mayfield additionally makes frozen yogurt and a frozen dairy dessert known as Snow Cream.
Ice cream manufacturing begins at 6:30 a.m. An operator within the management room dials within the combine. Dry substances and packaging come from a 30,000-square-foot off-site warehouse.
Milk, cream, condensed milk, sugars and powders are blended in any of the three 2,000-gallon batch tanks. After the powders are totally hydrated, the combo is pumped to the pasteurizer after which to the flavour vats, the place colours and flavors are added. Sure flavors circulate from giant pressurized totes. Mayfield used to pour flavors by hand from gallon jugs however the totes permits for extra exact dosing. Mayfield makes use of a liquid chocolate that “explodes” into chips when it hits the chilly ice cream combine, mentioned Scottie Mayfield, a grandson of the founder and the corporate’s chairman emeritus.
On the day of our go to, operators had been filling 48-ounce scrounds (which obtain an internal seal), 56-ounce bricks and 3-gallon tubs. The plant additionally fills 14-ounce paper containers for Baskin-Robbins. Novelties are produced within the Alabama plant.
Mayfield makes the 3-gallon paper tubs utilized by foodservice accounts. It used to make use of a metallic ring to carry the highest and backside of the can in place. For security causes (lower fingers), the dairy modified to metal-less cans. As a substitute of a metallic ring, the cans are held collectively by a plastic rim on the highest and a food-grade glue on the underside.
As soon as stuffed, the packages have codes printed on the container. They cross via a imaginative and prescient system to guarantee that the lid and the cup match. Then they cross via metallic detectors and checkweighers.
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Then the packages are conveyed to the hardening room. Mayfield has two strategies to get the ice cream to a rock-hard state. One is a blast freezer (the dairy has two models) and the opposite a plate hardener. Within the frozen warehouse, one-rim and two-rim cranes decide pallets for supply to clients. The client base is rising. Within the final 12 months, Mayfield added grocery store clients in Florida and Louisiana. These had been important acquisitions; no Dean division had been serving these states with ice cream.
Along with ensuring the gear runs correctly, Watson retains watch on meals security and worker security. Within the on-site high quality management lab, the technicians are testing each contemporary and frozen completed merchandise. The lab assessments samples all through the day to guarantee consistency. The lab can also be performing assessments for butterfat, solids and brix. Then there are assessments for coliform, direct micro rely (DMC) and psychrotrophic organisms. Watson additionally mentioned there are hanging drop, phosphatase and allergen verifications assessments. For packaging, there are die checks on half-pint cartons of faculty milk and replenish weights. Technicians lower open ice cream packages to search for correct distribution of inclusions and variegates. There are additionally style assessments and different organoleptic examinations.
Relying on the take a look at, close to infra-red lab gear can present the leads to seconds. However when they should, lab technicians can conduct the slower Babcock assessments that each meals science main realized in school.
Common communications
Plant managers maintain usually scheduled every day and weekly conferences to establish points and upcoming manufacturing wants. Line workers undergo month-to-month coaching on plant security and meals security, and are examined with paper or on-line assessments to gauge their comprehension. Every division (corresponding to receiving, processing or filling) tracks key efficiency indicators. The outcomes are displayed on white boards outdoors the supervisor’s workplace. These written in inexperienced are outcomes that meet or exceed targets. These written in purple point out enchancment is required.
4 communication stations, consisting of flat-panel televisions, are arrange in worker break rooms all through the plant. Watson can push out messages of curiosity to workers, as can the company workplace.
Each the fluid facet and the ice cream facet of the plant have earned Stage 3 certification within the Protected High quality Meals initiative. As well as, the federal Meals and Drug Administration inspects the plant, as does the Tennessee Division of Agriculture. Dean Meals has its personal high quality audits of its 60-some processing crops. This intramural competitors retains every plant supervisor striving to enhance.
Mayfield’s Birmingham plant obtained the Dean Meals CEO High quality Award for ice cream in 2013 and 2014. Standards embrace SQF scores, coaching participation and client criticism enchancment. The judging committee additionally considers high quality improvements, greatest practices and firm tradition. Eddie Allen is the plant supervisor in Birmingham.
In asserting the award in Might, Dean CEO Gregg Tanner mentioned, “Dean Foods holds its plants to very high standards, making for particularly stiff competition surrounding this award. We are delighted with Mayfield’s excellence in protecting quality from farm to table, and we’re proud to hold them up as an example for the second year in a row.”
Mayfield has been making dairy merchandise since 1923. At the moment, solely residents of McMinn County, Tennessee loved them. At the moment, customers throughout the US and all through the world benefit from the dairy meals and drinks made in Athens, Birmingham and Braselton.
At-A-Look
Mayfield Dairy Farms, Athens, Tenn.
- Interstate Milk Shippers plant 47-131
- Uncooked milk rating 90; enforcement rating 97 (July 2015).
- 12 months constructed: 1950
- Merchandise made: milk, buttermilk, orange juice, teas, lemonades, ice cream, frozen yogurt
- Manufacturing workers: 205 within the milk and ice cream crops
- Pasteurization: high-temperature/quick time
- Milk fillers and codecs: 9 fillers, together with two 24-valve models – one for plastic half-gallons and one other one for plastic quarts; a 30-valve unit and a 28-valve unit for plastic gallons, 36-valve unit for plastic 8-ounce and pints containers. There are three half-pint fillers that may additionally accommodate 4-ounce bins and a dispenser bag filler.
- Ice cream fillers and codecs: 7 fillers, 14-ounce and 16-ounce containers, two 48-ounce scround fillers, 56-ounce bricks, 4 quart pails, 3-gallon foodservice tubs, quarts and half gallon spherical plastic
- Blow molding: 6 influence molders with 4, six in addition to eight heads
- Uncooked milk storage skill: 275,000 gallons
- Pasteurized milk storage skill: 90,000 gallons
- Stockroom: 30,000 square-foot offsite middle
Footage by Vito Palmisano
