BATON ROUGE (AP) — Kleinpeter Farms Dairy is getting out of the ice cream business.
After suspending production of its ice cream line in December, the company said Friday that it will not resume production.
"We've decided it makes sense to concentrate our efforts on our core dairy products, where we are market leaders," said Kenneth P. Kleinpeter Sr., general manager of Kleinpeter Farms Dairy, in a statement.
NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune’s Renita D. Young reports the company said the ice cream line only made up about 3 percent of sales, and it became difficult to keep up the quality of the product. The company began producing ice cream in 2008.
The move to end production comes after Kleinpeter spent some $3 million in upgrades and improvements to the facility following sour milk issues that happened in early 2014. The Baton Rouge-built dairy late last year considered outsourcing production of the ice cream products to another dairy if it couldn't find someone to fill retired manager Don Gerald's shoes. But Friday, the dairy decided to stop production of its ice cream line altogether.
Company officials said Kleinpeter Farms has seen an increase in demand of its dairy products since then, and needs extra storage space. The ice cream plant will be turned into a milk refrigeration plant. All 10 employees of the ice cream plant will become employees of Kleinpeter's milk plant.
Additionally, the four ice cream trucks will be turned into milk delivery trucks and those drivers will be offered positions delivering milk.
Stores selling Kleinpeter ice cream are being notified this week, the company said, and any ice cream that isn't sold by March 1 will be collected and credited back to the stores' accounts.
