Alright, well I suppose I’ve left you all hanging long enough. Scott and I did indeed go on…

Our group left base camp the following day at 2 a.m. With four people per team, each climber was tied to the next and the only lights were those on our helmets. Scott and I made up the lead rope team and were the first team to ascend the peak in 2004! After eight hours and conquering a 70-degree wall of ice, we were two of only four climbers from our original group to reach the top of Mt. Rainier!

At 10:30 a.m., we began the steep descent – that was the most difficult part of our climb because the weather was pretty bad and we couldn’t see 30 feet in front of us.

I think we could have been more physically prepared than we were, but there is simply no way to prepare for the mental aspects of they type of challenged.  If either of us had gone alone, we probably would have turned back. Teamwork was the key to reaching the top and I am glad Scott was on my team! Needless to say, we were both pretty proud. We even went on another adventure, maybe Scott will share that experience with you…

Eddie

Eddie here. You usually hear about how Mayfield products are made from me, but I’ve got something a little different for you this month. Don’t worry, that inside look into life as a plant manager is not lost forever, I just wanted to give you a glimpse into my life as a…

I was inspired by a book called Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer about his climb up Mt. Everest. Yes, inspired to climb a mountain and not inspired to avoid climbing a mountain! So, with that inspiration, I set out to climb Mt. Rainier. At 14,411 feet, Mt. Rainier is the tallest peak in Washington and the most heavily glaciated peak in the contiguous United States. Yeah, and pretty dangerous, too!

Well, I wasn’t going to do this alone, so I shared my goal with Scott Watson and got him suckered into it. We have more in common than just both being plant managers for Mayfield! We began by training in December 2003 by running, weight training and taking long hikes in the Smoky Mountains carrying 45-pound backpacks!

It was on May 12 that we arrived in Washington. The next day, along with 12 other climbers, we began our hike at 5,000 feet. With a deep snow and a 30-degree pitch up the mountain, the journey of 4.5 miles took six hours. When we reached the base camp at 10,000 feet, 11 climbers decided to continue the climb. Stay tuned to see if Scott and I were among them…

Eddie

                         ME                                       SCOTT

As you can imagine in the ice cream plants our equipment is a far cry from the ice cream maker you used on your Grandmother's front porch, but the basic concept is not much different.

The picture you see is of a state-of-the-art ice cream freezer. This particular model has the capability of making 800 gallons of ice cream per hour and is in line with two other freezers of the same capacity which gives us 2,400 gallons per hour capability. Of course we do not need such a high volume piece of equipment for our smaller items such as novelties. We use freezers that have capacity of 250 to 300 gallons for smaller products.

As I mentioned earlier the concept from "front porch" to "plant floor" is not much different. As you did at your Granny's house (Granny was the term for my Grandmother Betty Conway. Making ice cream on her porch is one of many fond memories.) you put together the ingredients; milk or condensed milk, cream, sugar, secret recipe stuff, etc, then you put it in a metal cylinder, inserted the paddle in the metal cylinder, then set the metal cylinder in the bucket and applied the ice and rock salt to the outside. We were a little on the poor side so the first one I remember had a crank which we got to turn by hand. The ice and rock salt took the heat away from the mixture and the paddle ever so slowly pulled "ice cream" from the side of the cylinder until it was at the perfect texture for your family's taste.

In the "plant floor" version we begin with our ingredients but they are brought together in a mix using very sophisticated equipment to insure that the mixes are always consistent with the formulas. Our "secret recipe" stuff may include flavors, colors, even stabilization systems to help protect our products during distribution, which included the trip from the grocery to your freezer at home. Once our mix is perfect we introduce it into the barrel (cylinder) of our "mechanical freezer", no hand cranking here, and instead of ice and rock salt, liquid ammonia removes the heat from the mix and out comes ice cream. Now there are some differences. We inject what we refer to as overrun, industry lingo for air, into the mixture that will help us create the texture that we want for our ice cream. The mechanical freezers have the capability of storing individual recipes for our products so we know that these textures will be the same for our products every time. Remember, to Mayfield consistency is Elvis (The King). To have great ice cream you have to begin with a great mix and then you have to use a great freezer. They are the heart of our operations. Our mechanical freezers measure the smallest of details about what is going on inside the barrels (cylinders) and how the dashers (paddles) are working the mix to insure we have the smallest ice crystals possible when ice cream is discharged, most of the time at 21 degrees Fahrenheit. The smaller the crystals the more "Ice Creamier" the product.

How does the good stuff such as pecans, tracks from moose and turtles, delicious ribbons, etc. get into the ice cream you ask. That will be for our next installment.

Please ask us any questions that you have.

Thanks.

Eddie

Hello. My name is Eddie Allen and I am the Plant Manager at the Mayfield Ice Cream operation in beautiful Homewood (Birmingham), Alabama. I have been in the dairy business for ten years or so and have been making ice cream for more than six.

Did you know one of the ways that Scottie Mayfield describes quality? Simply having consistent products day in and day out. Here in Birmingham we want to make sure that the Mayfield Ice Cream we produce tastes EXACTLY the same as the ice cream we make at our plant in Athens, Tennessee. If we have folks visiting our lovely state; the beaches down south; our areas of great history around Montgomery; the "Center" of attraction in Birmingham; or Rocket City in Huntsville; who have grown up in East Tennessee on Mayfield we want them to feel at home when they taste our Ice Creamier products.

We have gone to extremes to insure that our facilities, equipment and most importantly, our Team of folks that make our products are prepared to accomplish this task. Over the next few weeks Scott Watson, my brother and fellow Plant Manager in Athens, will try to show you our operations and how we go about making the best dairy products around.

Thanks.

EA