At the Yoshkar-Ola cold storage plant they make a unique product - goat ice cream. It can be safely given to children and those who are intolerant to cow's milk, and it is simply delicious. It appeared in the Republic of Mari El by chance. One day production received a call from:
“We have goat’s milk, let’s come up with something together!” - they said at the other end of the line.
- What can we come up with? We specialize in ice cream,” says Olga Surdina, director of the refrigeration plant. - But technologists quickly introduced a dose of realism - no, no one does this, and it is impossible to bring such an idea to life. Technologists are generally quite conservative.
By that time, goat ice cream was very popular in Turkey and India, and the proximity of the goat farm (and Sernur is 100 kilometers from the city) was conducive to joint projects. Who else has the opportunity to get fresh goat milk so quickly every day?
For three weeks Olga Valerievna followed the technologists and persuaded them to try. They had no experience with goat butter or goat milk.
Colleagues from the Sernur plant also did not lose hope. “They say we’ll bring you milk and butter for free, and we’ll charge you technology,” she recalls.
The first batch of ice cream doesn’t work out, and the technologists completely give up. The structure of goat's milk and butter is completely different from cow's milk. Temperature conditions, pasteurization - everything is different.
They bring the next batch of raw materials, and suddenly something similar to ice cream comes out. “This made us all happy, we tried to do it for 3 months until we got a good result. We simply distribute the first batch of ice cream - back to colleagues from the Sernur cheese factory, partners, children of employees... And everyone likes the new taste and light aftertaste that traditional ice cream does not have.”
3 years have passed since then. Technologists are already accustomed to the fact that this comes easily to them and have forgotten how difficult it all began. Ice cream began to be sold in local health food stores, but the republic could not generate good sales volumes, and the management of the cold storage plant sent a proposal to VkusVill. Moreover, the positioning of this product is very close to the philosophy of the network.
When goat ice cream appeared in VkusVill, the cold storage plant began receiving requests for goat products from other chains.
“When we ordered pure strawberry filling for goat ice cream, no one understood us,” recalls the director. “People weren’t used to it. Now we have completely moved away from chemical compositions in fillers and in the products that we make “for ourselves.”
They are developing goat ice cream with cereals to combine a sweet dessert with breakfast, and goat ice cream without sugar, low in fat. “Everything will be the way we would like our children to eat,” says Olga Surdina. “Prunes, walnuts” in a bath has already appeared on the shelves of VkusVill.
“People here forget the taste of real ice cream and get used to the taste of ice cream made with powdered milk,” Olga continues. “Working with powdered milk is very simple.” Whole milk always comes in different fat contents. Each intake of new milk is a new recipe. It may come with 3.5 percent fat content or 5. And each time you get a different amount of product at the end. You need to have laboratories and specialists who can determine acidity, because if you take sour milk, it means the product is killed. But powdered milk is never sour. It's a storage issue again. Powdered milk can be stored for a year, but you cannot keep live milk for 3 days while you have no orders.
Another difficult point in ice cream production is the shortage of milk, although there is still relatively plenty of it in Mari El. Sometimes a moment arises when suppliers say there will be no milk tomorrow. Ice cream is a seasonal product; refrigeration plants do not rely heavily on it. That's why many switched to dry food.
“This is the heart of the enterprise,” technologist Lyubov Tanerova shows us her possessions. “Raw materials are delivered, oil is heated, cooking takes place in two containers, oil and other ingredients are added.” The mass is heated, goes to the pasteurizer, and then to break up the fat globules. Balls in milk - from 1.5 to 3 microns. For ice cream to be beautiful, they need to be no more than 1 micron. Therefore, we homogenize, that is, we break up the fat globules.
The mass was cooled and sent to a tank for maturation. Any ice cream mixture must mature for at least 4 hours. Usually the mixture is boiled in the evening and worked with in the morning.
During our visit they make popsicles. The ice cream is cut, the stick maker (what a word!) inserts a stick into the ice cream, it sits for 40 minutes and comes out with a temperature of minus 18 degrees. It is then dipped into the icing, it sticks to the ice cream and the excess slides off. The process is meditative. When we posted a video of the process on Instagram, readers wrote that they could watch it forever.
There are also defects on the line, for example, there is no stick, or it is not positioned straight, or the ice cream is not lying correctly. This will no longer be suitable for packaging.
The technologist gives us ice cream straight from the line, still soft and without chocolate, on a piece of paper, with a stick. And, it seems, I really have never eaten anything tastier, even if I’m generally indifferent to ice cream. Lyubov Nikolaevna enjoys the second ice cream in a row with us. He says he loves his ice cream, and this picture is the best proof of that!
The next morning we come to the cold storage plant again, that day they make goat ice cream. The mixture enters the freezer through pipes, where it is cooled (from 2 to +6). Ice cream comes out with a temperature of -3.5 - -5. The dispenser releases the required amount of ice cream into the molds. It is packaged right there.
Packing at the enterprise is manual. If you consider that 3.5 tons of ice cream are made per shift, you can imagine what superpowers the workers have.
— What is the most difficult thing about your job? - we ask the technologist.
— Probably, that everyone should work with soul, understand the meaning of their work, and be responsible.
Every enterprise has its own difficulties, the technologist believes, but they can be solved. The main staff of the cold storage plant has been working together for more than 10 years.
- When I first arrived, they told me - let's make blue ice cream? Who will eat it? - I was surprised. And now it’s okay, we’ve adjusted, we’re already doing bad things. It's interesting, something new happens all the time. If you sit in one place, without moving and without developing, you will not go far.
From the workshop, where the magic happens, we go to the laboratory. Here, of course, there is no romance, everything is strict and everyday: they check the acidity, fat content in the milk, density. The finished ice cream also contains dry matter content. This is important to constantly monitor the quality of the product so that it meets the standards,” says the laboratory technician. Incoming raw materials are also checked.
— Does it often happen that you send milk back?
- No, very rarely. Over the course of a year and a half, there were 1-2 times when the acidity of the milk was exceeded. Such milk cannot be used in production because it will curdle. Acidity occurs when milk is not stored properly.
Microbiological indicators, antibiotics, pesticides, toxic elements - these are checked by the refrigeration plant in an accredited laboratory.
When Olga Surdina came to Moscow for an internship for suppliers, we even discussed trends in the ice cream industry. Foreign gelato, according to her, is generally expensive. The latest fashion is vegan ice cream, with coconut milk or rice milk; no matter how hard you want it, it can’t be cheap. By the way, Russian ice cream recently began to be sold to China!
If we talk about the market as a whole, three directions are visible in the work of manufacturers - some go into fashion lines, some into natural ones, some just make cheap ice cream, there is a great demand for it due to low incomes of the population. But while black or cheese ice cream can theoretically be repeated, goat ice cream is practically impossible. Some people brew it at home, but there are no analogues on a large scale yet.
Ice cream is a seasonal product. Last year there was no good weather and there were few orders. At the cold storage plant they still remember 2010, when ice cream was in almost every grocery basket. Therefore, it seems that the best thing that can be wished for the employees of the refrigeration plant is a hot summer! In Yoshkar-Ola, in Moscow... Hot summer - and a wide geography!
Yoshkar-Olinsky cold storage plant
Ice cream producers in Russia in the 2016 catalog. Production and wholesale sales. 70 manufacturer. Ice cream factories included in the list of domestic companies:
- GC "Russian Cold";
- Ice cream factory "Gulliver";
- SibHolod company;
- LLC "Ice House";
- GC "Belaya Dolina" etc.
Suppliers also offer frozen semi-finished products and confectionery products. Selected quality dairy products are used! Representatives of the food industry produce: ice cream, cone, in cups, weighted and other types. Ice cream makers are introducing new products to the market! The goods are sold through kiosks, cafes, and shops.
Ice cream factories offer factory tours and excursions for schoolchildren. Children can try different flavors of sweet products during their visits! Addresses, telephone numbers, official website of manufacturing plants in the “Contacts” tab.
Delivery to the regions from production - by transport organizations. Deliveries abroad are possible! Manufacturing enterprises are calling on dealers in the regions for cooperation. To buy a product in bulk or download a price list, contact the manager on the page. Prices for large wholesale lots are negotiable!
The Inmarko company was founded in 1993 and in 19 years has grown from a distributor of Novosibirsk cold storage plants into the largest Russian ice cream manufacturer. In 2008, Inmarko became part of the Unilever company and the absolute leader in the ice cream market in Russia in terms of production and sales volumes. According to Unilever, the share of Inmarko in urban Russia (cities with a population of over 10,000 people) in monetary terms in 2011 was 20.7%. Currently, the company produces its products in two factories - in Omsk and Tula.
Factory
for the production of Unilever ice cream
LOCATION
Tula city
OPENING DATE
2011
EMPLOYEES
300 people
Group TURNOVER
42 billion rubles (SPARK)
The plant in Tula was built by Unilever in 2011. By the time construction is fully completed in 2014, the Tula complex will become Unilever's largest ice cream production enterprise in Eastern Europe and will be among the top five in the world.
Raw materials for ice cream arrive at the warehouse, which is divided into two parts. In the first, the air temperature is about 20 degrees - packaging and raw materials that do not require special storage conditions are stored here. In the second compartment, the temperature is only five degrees - fillers, oil, fat and other ingredients that can spoil are stored here. Samples of a new batch of raw materials are sent to the laboratory, where they are checked for compliance with specification requirements.
Everything that happens during the production process is recorded by a special computer program. The operator uploads information about the recipe for the appropriate ice cream, and the program automatically dispenses the ingredients and monitors their movement through the pipes, containers and conveyors of the factory.
Pasteurization and procurement department, where raw materials are stored in tanks: sugar, cocoa, stabilizers, whey. From these, the ingredients in the required quantity go into a common mixer, where they will all be mixed into a mixture.
The ingredients and the ice cream itself move through pipes, the total length of which reaches several hundred meters.
Before entering the maturation tank, the mixture goes through a homogenization stage, at which it becomes homogeneous (without lumps), and pasteurization. The mixture is a flowing substance similar to thick milk. In order for it to freeze, it needs to be beaten in a freezer and saturated with air.
Cone-shaped waffle cones are made in the same way as pancakes are baked. The dough is poured into flat molds that pass through an eight-meter-long oven. Then the resulting pancake is wrapped onto a cone, which gives it the shape of a horn.
The principle of preparing a waffle cup is almost the same, only without the pancake stage. 17-19 grams of dough are immediately poured into the mold. A punch is lowered into it, which distributes the dough according to the shape of the future cup. The workpiece passes through four meters of a gas oven, then the excess edges of the dough are cut off from its surface, and the finished cup is squeezed onto a moving belt, from which a factory employee picks them up.
What is the most favorite delicacy of all ages, times and peoples? Of course, ice cream! It is loved both in Europe and Asia, by children and adults, and the history of ice cream goes back several thousand years; the first recipes appeared about 2 thousand years BC in China.
I had the opportunity to visit a factory that produces the most delicious ice cream, try a variety of varieties and get to know the production in detail. Now I will tell you in detail and show you how ice cream is made.
2. The main thing in ice cream production is milk. The Clean Line factory uses milk from its own farms and from trusted suppliers. The cows that provide milk for ice cream are fed without hormones and silage; the milk they produce is very high quality and tasty. 
3. Meet the founders of the Clean Line company Gagik Evonyan and Tigran Matinyan. Production began in 2001. Initially, the factory produced ethnic drinks - tan and ayran. But these drinks contain little fat, there was a lot of cream left in production, so after experimenting with butter and other products, they decided to produce ice cream. Business has taken off, and now “Clean Line” ranks first in terms of ice cream sales in Moscow. 
4. We won’t talk for a long time in the office, we’ll rather go to production. The factory is located 5 kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road in the city of Dolgoprudny. Small vans immediately catch your eye. 
5. Now cars are being recharged, refrigerators are being charged with cold. Soon they will take their favorite delicacy to the shops. 
6. The company’s assortment includes more than a hundred items: popsicles, ice creams, waffle cups, sherbets, ice cream with fruits and nuts. 
7. Advertising cars, they always have the freshest and most delicious ice cream on board. By the way, when testing an advertising structure on the roof, cars accelerated to 180 kilometers per hour. Hold securely. 
8. We start our tour with a huge freezer, a warehouse for finished products. Do you see the sign above the entrance? It's -27°C inside now. 
9. You need to get dressed before entering, otherwise you can freeze everything in the world. 
10. We thoroughly insulate ourselves. 
11. Inside the refrigerator, your eyes widen from the abundance and variety of ice cream. 
12. There are so many different and tasty things, but the cold also makes itself felt. 
13. The warehouse uses a modern warehousing system, pallets move along guides from any place to the edge of the rack, this allows to reduce the warehouse area and reduce cooling costs. 
15. We go outside and +6° outside seems like a warm summer day. It’s good that the optics on the camera didn’t have time to freeze, otherwise this could have happened. 
16. Now let's go to the workshop where they make ice cream. On the way we meet a handsome young man. This is Chistolin, he loves to lead excursions for children. 
17. First we get to the warehouse of ingredients and packaging. 
19. Looking at the packaging, you can get an idea of the range. In my opinion, the most popular are ice cream, popsicle and ice cream in waffle cups. 
20. Before entering production workshops, you must put on protective clothing and shoe covers and be sure to disinfect your hands. Without this procedure, the turnstile simply will not let you in. 
21. One of the features of the factory is a huge number of excursions. The management adheres to a policy of information openness; everyone can come and see all the details of production. Excursions are scheduled several months in advance, and the main visitors, of course, are children. But I highly recommend seeing everything with your own eyes and trying it in person. By the way, after the excursion, a lot of delicious ice cream will be delivered to your home. . 
22. One of the most interesting machines bakes waffle cups. 
23. You can endlessly watch how hot, crispy cups come out of the belly of the machine in rows. Later I will add a video from the factory, subscribe to my magazine, YouTube channel And instagram. I broadcast live directly from the factory. 
24. Let’s try the hot cups and enjoy crunching them! 
25. A little about the technology for producing ice cream itself. The milk is pasteurized, rests for a while, and then goes into huge tanks, where it is mixed with cream, butter, condensed milk and other ingredients. These are all closed processes; there is nothing special to see there except huge “pans” made of stainless steel. After cooking, the mass is sharply cooled and kept for a day or two at a temperature of 2 to 4 degrees for maturation. Then the finished ice cream is sent for packaging. 
26. Occupational safety practices include more than just protective caps and clean hands. Everything here is strict, just like at school! 
27. Here is the workshop where ice cream takes on its familiar appearance. 
29. One of the most popular varieties of ice cream is ice cream. Produced according to Soviet GOST. Unlike other enterprises, this factory does not use vegetable fats or other tricks. 
30. Line for packing ice cream in cups. It works very quickly, eight cups are filled at the same time. 
31. Here it is, the most popular ice cream. 
32. After filling the cups, the ice cream is very soft and tastes delicious. In order to get into stores, the cup will go into the refrigerator, where it will harden, but here you can try it straight from the line. Incredibly delicious! 
33. Children passing by will not let you lie. 
34. Some types of ice cream are covered with chocolate glaze. 
35. A special machine takes each ice cream by the stick and dips it into chocolate glaze. 
37. Entire glazing line. 
38. General view of the workshop. 
39. Let's go further and look into the room. Children again. What a pity that I didn’t go to such a factory as a child. 
40. Review board. I'm ready to sign up for everyone. 
41. Another feature of the “Clean Line” is the “O! Eskimo” stands. Here they will prepare ice cream according to your taste, you can choose from different bases and icing. Would you like strawberry ice cream covered in dark chocolate? Do you prefer classic ice cream in milk? Or maybe you want to try creme brulee with white glaze? No question, the popsicle will be prepared right in front of you. Now there are four such points in the capital: in Raikin Plaza, in Avenue on Yugo-Zapadnaya, in the Empire Tower in Moscow City and in RIO on Dmitrovka. Global expansion is expected. True, very, very tasty. 
By the way, even now ice cream from the Chistaya Liniya factory can be found not only in stores. The factory produces ice cream for restaurants, Gorky Park and VDNH. This is another confirmation of the quality of the ice cream.
42. After inspecting the new products, let's pay tribute to history. The workshop for the production of ethnic drinks is still in operation. 
43. If you have been to Armenia, you have probably tried tan soup. Very tasty. Tan is also produced in Moscow, at the Clean Line. 
44. Containers are produced right there from blanks. 
45. Heat the capsule in the oven. 
46. We form bottles under high pressure. 
48. I have been to many industries, but the tour of the ice cream factory was the most delicious. Many thanks to “Clean Line” for the detailed story and delicious treats that allow you to feel the taste of childhood. 
Liked? Do you like ice cream?
P.S. And that is not all! After the ice cream factory we went to a farm, but this is a story worthy of a separate story. I'll definitely tell you about it.
P.P.S. And here is the video:
