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Spotlight [10] is a podcast feature series that highlights sound storytelling through fiction, non-fiction and comedy productions. Learn more about the world around you, or dive into a new reality built on sound storytelling.
Welcome to Spotlight 10. We share our favorite stories with you, spreading the full range of fiction, non fiction, and comedy. Learn more about the world around you or dive into a new reality built on sound storytelling. Each of these feature episodes has been crafted by a different host with a different style. Let's jump into this week's episode.
Speaker 2:There is one treat that is held by high regards to many. Chocolate, cake, pie, and even flan. But there's one that most people get all the time, and it is ice cream. This tasty treat is a timeless classic with many flavors to awe, like Superman, chocolate chip cookie dough, or just standard chocolate and vanilla. But what does it take to run this kind of business, you say?
Speaker 3:My name is Aaron Weiner. My position is the Spartan Dairy Store operations and business administrative manager. Yeah. Like, as far as ice cream production goes, I, I'm in constant contact with the dairy plant manager. So we talk about what flavors need to get made, how much needs to get made, any, you know, special upcoming flavors that that might need to be produced.
Speaker 3:Marketing, we have we have two hourly managers that help me out. They're former employees of the dairy store. One of them handles our social media accounts. I'm not really big on social media, so I kinda let her handle that, and she does a fantastic job. But that would that would fall under marketing, and social media is a is a pretty big job for us.
Speaker 3:We have a pretty big following, and we don't have any paid advertising, so that's how we get the message out to people.
Speaker 2:Having this kind of business run is very tricky, but making the ice cream can be a struggle as well. So it is nice to look at both sides of the business as equals. So what does it take to make this treat for many to enjoy?
Speaker 4:My name is Matt Wilcox. I'm the productions and production and operations manager at the dairy plant. So basically, I schedule production, schedule labor, figure out recipes, keep products ordered. We have a a nice pilot plant here at Michigan State where we have a couple different rooms that we work with. We have a raw room that where we receive raw milk and or totes of milk where we can pasteurize.
Speaker 4:And then we have another floor that we call the ready to eat floor where we would move the pasteurized product to either a cheese vat where we're making cheese or to the pasteurized tanks where we're making the ice cream in the freezing center. We come in and we sanitize all the piping. We put everything together. We stage all the ingredients. We move the product that we made the prior day.
Speaker 4:And then we, you know, fill our chemicals and just get everything basically set up for tomorrow. And then it would come in tomorrow. We have the mix already in the tank, and then we move the mix into the flavor vats where tomorrow we're actually making Spartan swirl. So Spartan swirl, would put the mix in the flavor vats. We would add the white cake batter base to the mix, then send that through the freezer.
Speaker 4:And after it goes through the freezer, it goes by an ingredient feeder where the white cake pieces fall into the ice cream. And then follows the piping up and over just before it gets filled in the tubs that you see in the dairy store. The variegator puts the green swirl in the ice cream, and then the finished product gets know, you put a lid on it and put it through the chute door into the dairy store freezer.
Speaker 2:Now that this kind of career has a frosty kind of dessert, what happens for when we get into the winter season? What kind of effects does it have for the company and business?
Speaker 3:Yeah. We see a massive drop in business when between summer and winter. So we're in that. We're we're slow as of, like, last week is when we really started to feel the winter. So we do about half of our overall sales in the winter that we do in the summer.
Speaker 3:So it's very significant. It's a very big difference in how our business is operated. You know, in the summer, we go probably four or five months of where we just we can't even keep up, you know, lines out the door and sales goes up, emails go up, orders go up, everything goes up, staffing goes up, and then it gets cold. Then all of a sudden, like, you have to completely change your mindset, and we're going from just trying to make sure we have enough staff to deal with the crowd to making sure that we're not wasting money on staff and having employees standing around. You have to be really aware of not over ordering, so product is going bad, and then we're throwing it out and wasting.
Speaker 3:So it's a completely different change in mindset from summer to winter. You know, when when our sales drop, we need to focus on cutting costs wherever we can and making sure that we're not wasting money.
Speaker 4:Yep. A lot of it has to do with the inventory levels. This time of year is kinda tough, So we have we have a couple batches that we're gonna make just to bulk up the Spartan swirl and buckeye and the ones that are gonna they're they're going to sell. And then we have some that we're you know, when we do a sponsored flavor, we don't we're not planning on running a ton in December. So we have a sponsorship that starts in January, so we're gonna be making a sponsored flavor here at the November to be prepared for the for the sponsorship in the January.
Speaker 4:I mean, during the summer, we're we're running twice twice a week and setup days in between. And then, you know, maybe Friday's a a conditioning day where we get we can do a a few other things and work on some other equipment or anything that might pop up. But, you know, during the summer, it's you know, we're running two days a week, setting up the two days prior to those two days. And then, like I said, Fridays usually are like a conditioning thing, or we have something else something else that comes up working on machinery or trying out something new or maybe doing like a test batch in the batch freezer or, you know, something else that comes up, tours and things like that. We don't we're only running right now, like, we'll run, you know, two weeks out of the month instead of running four.
Speaker 4:And then looks like December, we we're we're working on getting recertified in the in the raw room that I mentioned before. So I have recertification stuff that I'm working on with that, and, you know, we plan to get that all squared away here in December and then, you know, start anew right in January with with, you know, certified equipment where we can do a few more things.
Speaker 3:We're gonna keep the store running from the sales that we make in the summer. But in the winter, you know, yeah, I don't know that the store would the store would probably lose money if we only did the sales that we did in the winter year round. But, you know, it's not we don't lose so much money in the winter that that we would consider just closing completely like some other seasonal businesses do. You know, we spend some time thinking about different ways to build sales in the winter, offset ice cream sales with hot food sales or some retail items or special events, stuff like that.
Speaker 2:This kind of business has many different kinds of things to look at, so peering behind the ice cream lid and going behind the scenes to talk to with the company was a real help to see what does it take to make this delectable treat in the hands for a lifetime.
Speaker 4:Ice cream production to, like, to keep the store stocked and, you know, obviously, the the major signature players in in stock so that, you know, when people, you know, go to go to the store, they don't have to go, oh, we don't have any Spartan Swirl or anything like that. So it's just a lot of inventory, a lot of, like, I don't know what the best way of forecasting, you know, what what we may need and, like, you have to there's ordering the the ingredients that go into ice cream. A lot of companies have minimum order quantities. We don't we're not that big by any kind of, like, industry standard, so we have a hard time, like, meeting some of the MOQs, minimum order quantities, where it makes it a little difficult to, like, schedule for the whole year, you know, like you don't know exactly what's gonna happen because their taste buds change. They may come in every time and get one flavor, and then they start getting another flavor.
Speaker 4:So it kinda skews the, you know, which ones get used, you know, throughout the year, I guess.
Speaker 2:Ice cream is a treat that many hold as their way to treat themselves that other standard kinds of desserts can't do. And with this kind of business, it's a fun way to go out and have fun with the buzz by making it a casual fair. And without ice cream parlors, where will somebody go to see their local flavor of the week that makes them wanna go back every day? Speaking of that, this has been another installment of Spotlight 10. This podcast was written and produced by Braden Putlow.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Aaron Weiner and Matthew Wilcox for being interviewed for this project.
Speaker 1:Like what you hear? Rate us on Spotify, give us a like, and follow Audio Video Land on Instagram where you can find more Spotlight 10 updates, teasers, and behind the scenes content. Spotlight 10 is an audio video land production by digital storytelling students of Michigan State University in collaboration with Impact eighty nine FM. Hi.