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Oak Farms Dairy provides glimpse of 'end product' |
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By MANDY JOHN | Central Texas Edition |
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October 24, 2002 -- The 19th Leadership Waco class experienced a lesson in "Land and Labor" on Oct. 15 by going to different sites to learn about Waco's history, government, economy, social issues, needs and opportunities. Included in the program was a tour of Oak Farms Dairy, located in Waco. Leadership Waco is a ten-month program designed by the Waco Chamber of Commerce to identify and develop potential community leaders. "There are 26 dairy farms that the Dairy Farmers of America assigns us. We pick up the milk and bring it to our facility," stated Robert Keeling, plant manager for the Waco Oak Farms Dairy. "The rest of the dairies go to Stephenville." Keeling said Oak Farms gets at least eleven tankers a day and produces 1.6 million gallons of milk a month. "There are four Oak Farms Dairy sites in Texas. Waco is centrally located from the other plants. Our plant runs six days a week and we package under a variety of labels.
"At this plant, we only produce fluid milk of all varieties," Keeling said. "School milk is a big part of our business. Kids are very important to us." "After we receive the milk, we must make sure to standardize it," said Upendra Sethi, quality assurance manager. "Our quality control lab makes sure that our products are what they are supposed to be." Sethi said that at the lab, they check the flavor and the temperature of the milk to make sure that the milk is good. "If the milk is not good, we must call the health department so that they can dispose of the bad milk. "Then we dispense the milk to make the whole milk, 2 percent milk, and skim milk. We also check to make sure that the process in making the milk is being properly done. "We make sure that the milk is being properly pasteurized and check the samples of the milk by testing it for antibiotics and bacteria. There are six different tests that we run on the milk." Sethi said that USDA market-checks the quality of butterfat in the milk once a week to make sure it's up to standard and the health department checks the quality of the milk once a week. "We make 300,000 pints of milk a day for students," said Mernon Stephens, production manager. "We work three different shifts and each shift produces 100,000 pints. We also produce 50,000 gallons of milk a day in the gallon tank area.
"We even have an area where the workers put labels on the milk bottles and then put the bottles on the line. We produce both half gallons and gallons in the gallon area." Stephens stated that while they make gallon bottles from scratch at the Waco site, they must purchase the half-gallon bottles from different outside manufacturers. "Just recently, we built a new room for the milk gates in our receiving room. These gates are how we ship the bottles of milk to the different stores that sell our milk. "We also have a cooling system to store the milk. Once the milk comes out of the cow, it goes through this system. The milk can't go above 40 degrees. If it does, the milk is considered bad and must be discarded." The Oak Farms Dairy website states that Oak Farms produces 185,000,000 gallons of dairy products through its four plants located in Waco, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. The Waco site was built in 1925 and has branches in Austin and Temple. The Dallas site was built in 1936 and has branches in Wichita Falls, Tyler, Weatherford, Paris and Sherman/Denison. The San Antonio site was built back in 1908. Its branches are in McAllen and Uvalde, with nine distributors. The Houston site, built in 1940, has branches in Beaumont and Brenham. For more information about Oak Farms Dairy, visit their website at: www.oakfarmsdairy.com. |
