Ice cream—it’s a category that has long held the hearts of consumers, and the burgeoning sector isn’t letting up any time soon. In a move to strengthen its rapidly growing ice cream brand, Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA) has announced the opening of a new ice cream manufacturing facility in Decatur, Illinois, in late 2024.
“Consumer demand for Tillamook Ice Cream has grown exponentially over the past several years,” said Mike Bever, Executive Vice President of Operations, TCCA. “This new facility is an investment in our continued national expansion plans. We are proud to be able to expand our manufacturing footprint even further as another step toward bringing Tillamook to more fans around the country.”
The new Decatur facility marks TCCA’s first owned and operated manufacturing facility outside of Oregon and will be the organization’s only facility solely dedicated to ice cream production. The Decatur ice cream plant will manufacture Tillamook family-size ice cream (48 oz) as well as Tillamook foodservice ice cream (3 gallons). The new plant is expected to create approximately 45 new jobs in the Decatur community, and TCCA will begin recruiting to fill positions at its new facility later in 2023 and early in 2024.
“Opening this Illinois manufacturing location will enable us to make more of our ice cream closer to the eastern U.S., where demand for our ice cream is growing fast. In the last year, we’ve added 1.6 million households and grown ice cream sales nearly 60 percent in the eastern U.S.,” Bever continued. “Ultimately our continued growth is a ‘win’ for who and what matters most to us. It allows us to continue to generate meaningful profits for our farmer-owners, create growth and well-being opportunities for our 900-plus employees, and to give back to the communities where we live and work. Now we get to welcome Decatur into that valued group.”
As explained in a press release, TCCA will spend the next 18–24 months updating the plant to bring it up to TCCA’s manufacturing quality standards, with a goal of October 2024 for the first full ice cream production run.
To read more about this expansion, click here.
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