-April 18,2024-
The world’s largest ice cream maker – Unilever has just announced they would spin off their ice cream business, creating a separate entity who will retain famous brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Popsicle and Breyers.
So here’s the scoop! Now that new entity has made a deal in Tulare to store and distribute their frozen products to outlets all over the West Coast moving this part of their business from Nevada, says Rod Noll,VP US Cold Storage.
Noll says a previously announced construction of a new 204,000sf cold storage facility in Tulare is now underway and a portion will be ready this fall for the new ice cream user.
The 8.56 million-cubic-foot refrigerated addition is at the Tulare North warehouse in Tulare, on Walnut. This $75.7 million expansion includes some of the industry’s latest storage and retrieval automation and brings the operation’s total space to more than 24.7 million cubic feet, the largest single footprint in the company network. Even before the current expansion, US Cold Storage has 588,500sq ft. in Tulare.It also has a on-site solar farm and plans for a second one.
“I am thrilled for our fifth strategic expansion in Tulare,” says Noll, USCS Senior Vice President, Western Region.
The” expansion reflects the continued growth of some of our major customers who are broadening their manufacturing capabilities.”
Some months ago Noll also announced ” Specifically, we have a consumer packaged goods customer relocating its business to northern California and to this facility.”
With the local news this week, we now know who this packaged goods company is, although we don’t know details of their planned operations. The new spinoff company, as yet unnamed, will retain their famous ice cream brands like Ben and Jerrys,the nation’s largest ice cream company in sales. The iconic brand offers such flavors as Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia.The company was launched in 1978 by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who were friends since their childhood from Merrick, New York. In 2000, Ben & Jerry’s was sold to the multinational conglomerate Unilever but continues to operate as an independent subsidiary.
Other well-known company brands of frozen desserts include Breyers, Magnum, Popsicle ,Yasso, Good Humor, Fudgesickle, Klondike ,Grom, Talente, Nogger and GB Glace. Unilever ice cream business has had sales of nearly $9 billion.
In the Unilever announcement of the spin off late last month,a company spokesperson said the ice cream business is “in the process of moving to a separate head office in Amsterdam.” Complaints were heard that consumers were switching to lower cost brands, and ice cream was a “troubled category”
The giant British company has many divisions, selling everything from Dove soap and Vaseline to Coleman’s Mustard.
Chill Out
The new Tulare cold storage will be chilly indeed.
There will be two new refrigerated rooms capable of storage down to -20F degrees. Officials expect by this November to complete a conventional storage space spanning 3.08 million cubic feet. A second, 5.48 million-cubic- foot room is scheduled to open in February 2025. That space will feature very narrow aisle (VNA) storage serviced by a warehouse guidance system and semi-automated, turret-style storage and retrieval forklifts.
Besides the Unilever deal, US Cold Storage will be adding more product from a number of local customers who already use the big facility. Noll says “Saputo Cheese manufacturing is expanding as well as Dreyer’s Ice Cream. Both have been long standing customers” says Noll.
Production of dairy products is big business in Tulare where seven of the 10 top companies in town by employment
are dairy-related led by Saputo Cheese.
Ice Cream Consumption
USDA says in 2021,U.S. residents consumed 20.3 pounds of frozen dairy products per capita, nearly 6 pounds less than in 2000. Per capita consumption of frozen dairy products has been declining since the 1990s, dipping to its lowest point in 2021.
But in 2022, per capita consumption increased by 1.3% compared to the previous year. The growing consumer preference for premium ice creams and international flavors has notably boosted per capita ice cream consumption in the United States over recent decades.