Every since we were little Insiders, we’ve driven by the milk processing plant on North State Street and wondered what magic lies within.
Last week, we called up Michael Anderson, the plant’s manager and asked for a tour. He was happy to oblige.
We geared up in hair nets and hard hats and started in the facility’s capping and filling room. Bottles whizzed by on a conveyor belt and were met by a machine and pumped full of whole milk. Next, the bottles moved on to the capping machine, which placed tops on at lightning speed and shipped them to a giant refrigerator out back.
Milk isn’t the only product the plant puts out: It also produces buttermilk, juices and ice cream mix for the Hood and Weeks brands, and sells to many private companies. (Ever wonder where that delicious ice cream from Arnie’s was made? Probably not, but the mix is from the plant.)
At full capacity, Anderson said, the plant is capable of processing 115,000 gallons a day.
The facility is equipped with two pasteurizers capable of turning 1,700 gallons of raw milk each hour into 1 percent, 2 percent, whole milk and cream.
Another fact we learned on our visit: The plant makes its own bottles. Resin pellets are stored inside grain silos, and when it’s time to make a batch of new bottles, it’s melted down at 350 degrees and formed into whatever size is needed for the job. A machine blows air inside the plastic and puffs it up into the bottle. The plant can make 100 gallon-sized bottles a minute.
Remember those little cartons of milk you got with school lunch? If you grew up in New Hampshire, there’s a good chance the milk you were drinking came from the plant. Products from the facility supply school districts across the state, as well as the Boston School District and some schools in Vermont and Maine.
Sixty-five percent of the milk, Anderson said, comes from local New Hampshire farms. The rest is from farms around New England, he said.
By the numbers:
1956 – the year the milk processing plant was built. It was operated by Concord Dairy until it was bought by Weeks Dairy in 1971. Crowley Foods bought the facility in 1988, and Hood took it over in 2004.
54,000 – Square footage of the plant. It takes up 11.3 acres.
30 million – Number of gallons the plant is capable of processing each year.
115,000 – Number of gallons of milk processed each day.
160 – Number of employees at the plant, including drivers.
32 – Number of distribution routes drivers take to get the milk out.
300,000 – Number of milk cartons the plant produces each day.
365 – How many days a year the plant operates. “Cows don’t stop producing milk,” said Michael Anderson, the plant’s manager.
20 – Number of hours the plant runs each day.
