

I’m not sure I knew of any other ice cream company as a kid. I thought ice cream was just supposed to come in those gold-topped maroon tubs, unless you wanted to get some Crush soda and milk and make


Even into adulthood, Yarnell’s always held a special place for me. And, obviously, for others as well. In my TV days they were always willing to come out and help a good cause like the Summer Cereal Drive. Yarnell’s folks would show up for just about anything. They helped me get a crowd of several hundred people together one morning, serving up ice cream at 4 a.m. and encouraging people to come out to meet Dave Price of the CBS Early Show… ah, what memories.
But I digress.
There are few manufacturers in this state that bring such pride. All sorts of places I go, I see Yarnell’s ice cream mentioned by name on menus, celebrated in stores and lauded at fairs and festivals. They’ve been a major sponsor for Riverfest for several years now. But what goes into that production?
I spent a good time begging for a chance to see ice cream being made, several phone calls and such. Finally I was granted a chance to visit the Searcy facility. Let me be clear: there’s no tour for the public. Read on and you’ll find out why. It’s a good reason, don’t worry.

Our first stop was at the tank room. Each of these tanks holds milk or cream that will be used in the production of ice cream. Each week, the plant uses 16,000 gallons of milk, 10,000 gallons of cream and 8000 gallons of sugar. The milk comes here first (and to the outside storage tanks) before being pasteurized and sent along to be mixed as ice cream.

Dlorah showed me some of the assembly lines where frozen desserts were being assembled. Because of proprietary rules, I can’t tell you what was being made on the lines. But I was fascinated… not only by the speed at which these items were being assembled and by the apt and able hands guiding each product along the way, but by the machinery itself. These aren’t permanent lines. They’re assembled in sections depending on what needs to be made. It’s

We also viewed some of the ice cream holding tanks. These big tanks hold the mixture of milk, cream and sugar just before and during the processing of each certain product. In-between they’re scrubbed out and sterilized. Not only does that keep your Fudge Bars from tasting like
your Fruit Bars, it means that everything’s done as meticulously and cleanly as possible. Depending on the run of a product, these tanks might get thoroughly cleaned out a couple times a day.
We walked through a couple of other areas and looked at equipment and another processing line. The gigantic drum that holds ice cream novelties as it goes around is huge. It has indentations for each treat within. Since it’s not being used right now, it’s been cleaned and set to the side. I also saw one of the big machines that catches the 1.5 quart tubs I’m used to seeing in refrigerated cases at the store. Very novel.


The cookies are ground to the proper consistency and mixed in with the other ingredients and forced into another pipe, which carries the mixture overhead to another machine.



The pints are then sent scooting along a conveyor belt to waiting assistants that hand pack them into boxes and flats before those boxes and flats are sent into the freezer.
We didn’t go into the freezer… we certainly weren’t garbed out for freezer time. The VRT (Variable Retention Time) freezer instantly sweeps the ice cream up and away and freezes it at 90 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. It’s kept there for a bit and then stored in the storage freezer at -30 degrees. The storage freezer can hold up to a million packages of ice cream at any one time.



The people that work the booths at Riverfest are almost all volunteers from local churches. They’ll earn money from the sales that will go for projects and the like.
We passed by where the milk trucks were making their deliveries and walked around the building further. We passed what folks there call “The Barn,” a structure that’s been there since the 40s that’s still used for storage today. It was neat, seeing this perfectly kept little barn in the middle of all this recently built stuff.


I got to sample several different types of ice cream produced at the plant, including a couple of new items being tested (no, can’t tell you about those), a few ice cream treats and a couple of ice cream flavors (which no, I can’t tell you about, either -- except to say they’re very yummy).
I felt a lot smarter about ice cream when I left, and I’m looking forward to the summer season.
I know that tomorrow morning Christina Yarnell, the company CEO representing the fourth generation of her family with the company, will be back on TV. I caught her talking with Barry Brandt last year as I was walking through the Riverfest set-up, as she shared Coke floats and the new Sunny Berry flavor.
This year the new flavors are Fried Ice Cream (a Riverfest special) and Lemon Ice Box Pie. I’ll certainly look for one of the nine stands out there… I’m partial to Ozark Black Walnut, myself.
If you’re interested in sampling some of the many flavors (there’s about 20 of them) or some of their ice cream novelties (did you know the Yarnell’s Ice Cream Sandwich is the most popular ice cream novelty in Arkansas? No? You do now), you can find them in just about any Arkansas grocery store. Yarnell’s is also distributed across Tennessee, Mississippi, as well as parts of Texas, Missouri, Alabama and Louisiana. You can find out more by checking out the company website.
UPDATE: On June 30th, 2011, Yarnell's informed its employees that it was ceasing operations. After 79 years as part of the Arkansas experience, it will be missed.
UPDATE: December 1, 2011 -- Searcy Chamber of Commerce president Buck Layne tells me Shulze and Birch Biscuit Co. has purchased the plant and most of the recipes and plans to reopen the facility. Huzzah!
Great Ice Cream, Great Family, Great Town.
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