US ice cream maker Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream Holdings has announced the completion of a $100m expansion of its Bakersfield plant, the company’s largest of seven ice cream manufacturing facilities.
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The plant will now make more than 100 different Dreyer’s and Nestle ice cream products and frozen snacks, including the new Dreyer’s Slow Churned Light ice cream and Dreyer’s Dibs, a new bite-sized chocolate-coated ice cream snack available in grocery stores for the first time this month, the company said.
Dreyer’s has recently hired an additional 230 employees, mostly ice cream makers, warehouse workers and maintenance personnel, to help staff the new 650,000 square-foot facility. A total of 730 employees work at the Bakersfield plant and the company announced it plans to add another 100 employees over the next two years.
In addition to adding six new ice cream manufacturing lines to its previous 19, Dreyer’s has also built a 120,000 square-foot, -20 degree Fahrenheit ice cream warehouse, and 20-door distribution centre. The five-story warehouse is used to freeze and temporarily store freshly made ice cream before it is loaded onto freezer trucks and shipped to grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores, and restaurants across the country. Dreyer’s expects the Bakersfield plant to dish out nearly 70 million gallons of ice cream and 100 million dozens of frozen snacks a year.
The plant, which has tripled in size and boasts the square footage of 13 football fields, is also the new home of Dreyer’s state-of-the-art technical centre. Its 43 food scientists and staff work to create new products, flavours and breakthrough innovations in ice cream, like the proprietary technology behind Slow Churned Light ice cream, which enables Dreyer’s to create an ice cream, which, with only half the fat, tastes as rich and creamy as regular.
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By GlobalData“Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream started out as a little ice cream shop on Grand Avenue in Oakland, California, in 1928,” said T Gary Rogers, Dreyer’s chairman and CEO. “Today, our Dreyer’s, Edy’s, Haagen-Dazs and Nestle ice creams are sold everywhere in the United States. Our Bakersfield Operations Center is a true showcase of the innovation we are bringing to the ice cream industry. Our employees in Bakersfield and across the country are dedicated to delighting consumers. We’re thankful to have the opportunity to continue to offer America the best in ice cream products. Our consumers are passionate about ice cream, and so are we.”
