SYLACAUGA, Alabama – If your favorite flavor of Blue Bell ice cream is Homemade Vanilla, you're not alone.

That traditional taste accounts for about 60 percent of the company's sales, with Dutch Chocolate and Cookies and Cream rounding out the top three.

Regions have their favorites, too. In Alabama, for example, Black Walnut and Butter Pecan are popular.

But the variations of Blue Bell are far from predictable, a fact proven by a tour of the company's Sylacauga creameries.

On a recent day there, the different production lines simultaneously turned out novelties like Mooo bars and chocolate-dipped cones alongside ice cream flavors including Cotton Candy, Strawberry and Italian Cream Cake.

The facility -- formerly owned by Flav-O-Rich and acquired by Brenham, Texas-based Blue Bell in 1996 -- makes about 15 million gallons of ice cream annually. Nearly 300 workers stay busy year round producing 3-ounce cups to 3-gallon drums and every size in between.

"Traditionally, ice cream season was in the summer, and it would slow down in the winter," said Kevin Wood, general manager of the Sylacauga creameries. "But it's not like it used to be. People eat ice cream all the time."

A day at the facility starts early, with trucks carrying milk, cocoa, fruit and other raw ingredients arriving at 3 a.m. Those are unloaded into tanks or pallets and then begin the journey through an automated process.

The mixture is blended, then pasteurized to kill pathogens and homogenized to break it down and make it smooth. Flavors are added, and the finished ice cream is poured into cartons spinning along the production line.

At that point, it has a soft-serve consistency, with a temperature of 21 to 22 degrees. The ice cream then goes into sub-zero freezers to harden and prepare it for shipment to a company distribution center.

From there, Blue Bell trucks transport the ice cream to stores.

"We deliver everything ourselves," Wood said. "Our product is in an employee's hands from production to the grocery store shelves."

Founded in 1907 in Brenham, Blue Bell started out as a butter maker. It added ice cream in 1911 and eventually dropped the butter.

Today, the company makes more than 60 million gallons of ice cream per year and sells its products mostly in the southern U.S. Other production facilities are in Brenham and Broken Arrow, Okla.

The Sylacauga site offers tours of the operation and also has an ice cream parlor and gift shop. About 25,000 people visit each year.



As for Wood's favorite flavor, it's predictable, but with a twist.

"My favorite is Homemade Vanilla out of the 3-ounce cups as they're being filled," he said. "The best ice cream we make is anything that's fresh off the line."

Alabama-made is a regular al.com feature about the state's homegrown products and businesses.

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