THE BIG CHILL

摘要

Record-keepers at Wells' Dairy Inc. say it takes 75,000 cows to produce the milk needed every day by the company's three plants in Le Mars, Iowa. It's a cinch that most of that goes to the South Ice Cream Plant, purported to be the largest free-standing ice cream manufacturing plant in the world. In fact, three large dairy farms in northwest Iowa commit their total output to Wells, with additional milk coming from as far away as California and New Mexico, says Bruce Noorgaard, lab technician and 33-year company veteran. It's a long way from the cornfield that occupied this site about a dozen years ago. The plant's receiving area can hold eight semi tanker trucks at once. All milk is sampled and must pass lab testing before it's offloaded and processed in one of four systems to create the mix needed to make a bewildering array of Blue Bunny-branded packaged ice cream and frozen novelties, along with contract-packed goods.