April 30, 1996: Country Fresh Dairy and D&W Commissary

Left early for our first tour at Country Fresh Dairy.  It started in 1946. It's #1 seller was vanilla ice cream.   The #2 flavor was butter pecan.   The flavor, 'Moosetracks' was the most expensive to produce.    About 60 truckloads of merchandise went out per day.    They made cheese, ice cream, sour cream, yogurt, and ice.   It was machine, not labor efficient.

The 2nd stop was to the D and W Commissary.  They made all subs, soups, and potato salads for all of the D and W delis.   They also did the catering for conferences.   The actual days for making the products were Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Tuesdays and Thursdays were devoted to set up.

The bus got stuck in the mud, so we had to wait an hour for a tow truck to come and dig the bus out.    Meanwhile, we stayed in the lunchroom of the commissary.   We cancelled the D and W Floral Central tour due to the bus incident, so I didn't have to do the thank you on behalf of the Food Marketing program at WMU.

The 3rd stop was to the D and W Brenton Meadows store.   This store was gorgeous.   Everything from the store to the backroom was neat and orderly.
They posted the department goals and sales every hour on a bulletin board.   We had a lovely lunch courtesy of the deli.

Our last stop was to Brooks Beverages in Holland.  They've been around 62 years and made 7-Up, A and W, Dr. Pepper, Snapple, Lipton tea, Gerber, Amway, and Meijer brands.   This plant ran 7 days a week with 6 switches of products made a day.    They used the perpetual inventory system.   The pop can bottoms were made first, filled with liquid, and then the top was put on.  All materials were sent to Brooks beverages and then packaging was finalized.

After the tours, we watched the movie, 'Tommy Boy' on the bus on our way back to the hotel.   Took a nap and then went swimming in the pool.  Met a guy from Saginaw who had a daughter named Amy.    Also, met a woman who planned to move to Atlanta, Georgia.
Had a nice chat with them, as well as my roommate, Fontrise Charles.  She said a kid she knew worked for Keebler for 8 months and put 50,000 miles on his car.

April 29, 1996: Gerber Baby Food & Bil Mar Tours

I stayed over at Tamara Ohs house last night so that I didn't have to get up so early for the Food Industry trip.   We left at 7 a.m. from Lawson Ice Arena.
Our first stop was in Fremont at the Gerber Baby Food.   The presenters did an excellent job at covering the various product lines of the company. It has been around since 1928.   The idea for strained foods for a baby came from the busy mother, Dorothy Gerber.  The 5 original products were peas, spinach, carrots, prunes, and vegetable soup.   They had companies in other countries such as Lima, Peru.   'Ensure' had been on the market for 10 years.   This was one of their competitors.   

The 2nd stop was to the Bil Mar Food plant in Holland, Michigan.   The original plant was almost completely burned in 1984.  There were 3 phases in its production:  Phase 1 (Slaughter), Phase 2 (Processing turkey and deli items), and Phase 3 (sliced for environmental room/beef or pork.
The first shift was 10-3 p.m. with on sight sanitation.   We had to wear white coats, slippers over our shoes and hair nets.   This factory was so gross.  We saw the feathers being taken off the chickens.  We saw all of the different parts being chopped off.  There were alot of workers at this plant.  About 1.2 million hot dogs were made per day.   After being slaughtered, they must get to 40 degrees by 6 hours.  Sara Lee owned this company, as well as 'Coach' purses.   We stayed at the Holiday Inn on 28th St. near Woodland Mall.

I went shopping with Sieuw Ping and Suk Kien at the Woodland Mall.