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Get the Scoop On A Cool and Tasty LSU Tradition  Pick your pleasure. Have a cup, cone, shake, sundae, malt, pint, or half-gallon to go. Chocolate Almond, Black Cherry, Butter Pecan, Mint Chocolate Chip, or perhaps a perennial favorite like vanilla, chocolate or strawberry. Maybe you'd like to let a more ferocious ice cream flavor tempt your taste buds, like the luscious, purple-and-gold-swirled "Tigerbite." No matter what you choose, all LSU Dairy Store treats hit high on the Yummy-o-Meter! LSU Dairy Store:History of a Campus TraditionThe beginnings of the LSU Dairy Store go back to 1904, when the Louisiana legislature appropriated $5,000 for a dairy herd and creamery. In 1905, founders established the first "LSU Creamery," as it was then called, on the site where the Louisiana State Capitol currently sits. In 1925, the Creamery moved to the new LSU campus, in what is now known as the basement of Coates Hall. The Creamery relocated into yet another campus building in 1929. This building was originally intended as a laundry facility, but was never used for that purpose. A bit of remodeling and the addition of a sales room made the building (today's Nuclear Science Building) functional for a creamery operation. The LSU Creamery quickly became a tremendous success in its new home. When the U.S. entered WWII, enrollment at LSU rapidly declined and the Creamery faced a serious labor shortage. With rationing of certain food products, Baton Rouge citizens swarmed to the LSU Creamery sales room to purchase dairy products. However, increased demand and a labor force too tiny to support it meant the Creamery had to close.
The war ended. Years passed.In 1956, the LSU Creamery moved to its existing spot at the corner of South Stadium and Tower Drive. In March 1972, officials changed the name to LSU Dairy Store, and in spring 1990, dairy science students remodeled the store to provide a pleasant, café-style seating area for customers. Today's thoroughly modern operation serves the University community with traditional fare such as cheese, sundaes, shakes, and malts. But it also sells espresso, cappuccino, and other chic coffee drinks, in addition to providing some 16 spectacular ice cream flavors, pre-packed in pint, half-gallon, and three-gallon containers. The Dairy Store has a briskly expanding mail order cheese business as well, selling hundreds of boxes of premium LSU cheddar and jalapeño Cajun Spice cheese every holiday season. But, hold your horses, or cows, shall we say! More on that in a minute! The LSU Dairy Store: Up Close and PersonalMatt Summers, former research associate and creamery manager, provided a lesson in Dairy Store manufacturing processes for ice cream and cheese, in addition to the operation's hopes and plans for the future. (Summers, as of July 2, is the Dairy Store's latest "success story," so to speak, as Summers has recently accepted an exciting new position with Chef John Folse and Company as Director of Technical Services for Folse's Bittersweet Plantation Dairy located in Gonzalez, LA. LSU will miss Summers, but until his replacement is hired, the Dairy Store will be in the experienced and capable hands of interim creamery manager and associate professor, Chuck Boeneke.)
Summers says the Dairy Store sells ice cream and cheese to not only the campus community, but the general public as well. The Dairy Store formerly supplied milk to the entire campus and to fraternity and sorority houses, but had to discontinue that practice as the size of the LSU campus grew, making it impossible to keep up with demand."We'd like to get back into the packaged milk business, not necessarily for the entire campus," says Summers, "but for retail sale in the Dairy Store." Summers says running the Dairy Store is fun, and making ice cream and cheese, while enjoyable, also means intense, hard, hands-on work over long days. Besides Summers, the Dairy Store crew includes Manager Linda Snerling, who has primary responsibility for student workers and inventory. Ten student workers are on the team, and literally help to keep things cooking in the Creamery. Many student workers pursue a degree in animal, dairy, and poultry sciences with a concentration in Dairy Food Technology. The Dairy Store provides them with extraordinary real-world experiences for every phase of milk processing, including making ice cream and cheese, as well as scooping and selling ice cream. The Dairy Store makes some 600 gallons of ice cream each month. Summers says it takes about five days to organize and prepare for each batch, including time to pick up non-pasteurized, raw milk from the AgCenter's Dairy Science Research Farm on Gourrier Lane. The raw milk is a key ingredient in "ice cream mix," the fundamental building block of the ice cream manufacturing process. Ice cream mix contains raw milk, cream, nonfat dry milk, and more than 400 pounds of sugar in a 250-gallon batch of mix. Ice Cream 1001
Summers explains that the first part of making ice cream involves homogenizing and pasteurizing the ice cream mix. Homogenization—pressurizing the raw milk to evenly disperse milk fat—is what gives the ice cream a smooth and creamy texture. Pasteurization—heating and rapidly cooling the raw milk—kills any harmful bacteria that may be in the milk. Once the ice cream mix is made, Summers and his crew freeze it in a "batch freezer" or a "continuous freezer." Summers uses the batch freezer to test new flavors because it makes only three gallons of ice cream at a time, a quantity great for experimentation. The continuous freezer, on the other hand, is appropriate for much larger batches. It continually freezes the ice cream mix by forcing it through an extremely cold barrel device. The ice cream comes out of the barrel in a "soft-serve" consistency and is ready to be placed into containers. Dairy Store workers fill all containers by hand. Filling a three-gallon container takes about two minutes.
"Making ice cream in the Dairy Store is a hands-on, labor intensive process. We don't use a lot of automated processing equipment," Summers says. "We want students to be prepared to take a job in their field—we want them to know how to do things by hand and we train them to pay close attention to detail and quality." Summers says although it takes longer to do things by hand, there's more pride in a job well done and in the end, the students learn more and have a better experience. Going beyond the basic, the Dairy Store creates its long list of delectable flavors by using what is known as a "fruit feeder." Summers says this device allows for the addition of chocolate chips, nuts, cookies, peaches, strawberries, and other goodies, blending them into the basic ice cream mix."I like to come up with different ideas for ice cream flavors—and I encourage our student workers to be creative with ingredients and names for the ice cream, too," he comments. For the ultimate Tiger fan, the Dairy Store's themed ice cream "Tigerbite" is the way to go. Tigerbite is gold-colored vanilla ice cream—with purple (blueberry) swirls throughout. According to Summers, the flavor has been around for some 25 to 30 years. The most popular flavors the Dairy Store sells are vanilla and chocolate. Making cheese at the Dairy Store is a three-day process. Summers says they produce 12 batches a year—about one vat of cheese each week—throughout the summer to fill demand for their annual holiday mail-order sale. Tigers Like Milk, Too!Summers forecasts that in the not-too-distant future, the Dairy Store will be back to processing and selling whole and chocolate milk in paper cartons. He wants to reinstate the "Tigers Like Milk, Too!" slogan that was used on packaging back in the 1950s and 1960s. Summers predicts that in addition to whole and chocolate milk, they may sell low-fat milk varieties in the future, also. Other plans call for expanding the successful cheese operation and developing more varieties. Enhancing the versatility and interactive qualities of the Dairy Store Web site is one way to reach potential customers and to call current customers' attention to new Dairy Store products. Work on the Web site is well underway. The LSU Dairy Store: It's Simply "Moo"-velousIf you haven't indulged in a taste of the offerings of the LSU Dairy Store, stop by soon to sample some of their delicious ice cream or cheese. Or, take a break and drop in for an espresso or cappuccino drink. Store hours are M-F, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Make time to delight in this outstanding example of a true and tasty LSU tradition.
LSU graduates who worked in the Dairy Store have had jobs in many dairy plants in Louisiana, and have benefited from all they learned during their time in the Dairy Store. Contact Holly Houk | LSU
University Relations Related Links LSU Ag Center |
The Dairy Store owns a 1972 model truck, attached to which is a 1942 model, 1,000-gallon milk tank. The term "fill 'er up" takes on new meaning with a load like this one, but fill her up they do, transporting the milk from the Dairy Science Research Farm to the Dairy Store plant. 
