Mayfield Dairy evolves products with changing times

The Mayfield family has been selling milk from their East Tennessee dairy since 1912, branching out to ice cream 10 years later.

Some things have changed at Mayfield Dairy Farms in the past 92 years, but even though Mayfield was acquired by Dean Foods in 1990 the company's leadership has remained in the family.

Mayfield recently added low-carb ice cream for dieters and continues to develop new flavors, like snow cream and jamocha fudge, under the supervision of company president Scottie Mayfield, grandson of founder T.B. Mayfield.

"We're trying our best to sometimes get ahead of and sometimes catch up and try to stay with the consumer and their needs," Scottie Mayfield said.

As company spokesman, he touts the health benefits of milk even while the dairy industry was hit this spring with the biggest single price hike ever, rising by 50 cents to 60 cents a gallon.

"It is still a very economical product. It's a product with a lot of food value," Mayfield said. "I wish it hadn't gone up, but there are a lot of things that cost more today than they did 10 years ago that I wish didn't."

Mayfield has expanded over the years to markets in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Mayfield already claims to be the No. 1 brand of milk and ice cream in East Tennessee and Atlanta, but the company continues to get the word out.

Mayfield has a group called the "Mom Squad" mostly made up of stay-at-home mothers who are hired part-time to attend community fairs for Mayfield. They also give presentations called "What Women Want" to women's groups about dairy nutrition.

More changes may be afoot when Scottie Mayfield starts thinking about retirement. None of his three children work at Mayfield or seem interested now in taking over the company.

"There's a possibility there might be a time when there's not a Mayfield at the helm, but we have a lot of very dedicated and top-notch people who believe very strongly in what we do and how we do it," he said.

Visitors are welcome to tour Mayfield's plant at the headquarters in Athens. There are no longer cows but dozens of bright yellow trucks that deliver milk, ice cream and other dairy products.

"When people are able to see the environment and the cleanliness and (we can) talk to them on a one-on-one basis we feel like we have a better chance of them understanding the value that our products bring," Mayfield said.

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A milk plant with a visitors center opened in 1997 in Braselton, Ga., to serve the Atlanta and Greenville, S.C., markets, and Mayfield has an ice cream plant in Birmingham, Ala.

Each year, about 101,000 people visit the Athens and Braselton plants, which combine to annually produce 69 million gallons of milk, 28 million gallons of ice cream and 384 million ice cream sandwiches and other frozen novelties.

Visitors in Athens first watch a short video about the company's history and then put on hair nets _ beards have to be covered too _ before entering the plant.

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Behind panels of glass, visitors can see machines mold yellow jugs out of melted plastic pellets, fill cartons with milk and put ice cream sandwiches together while boxes of Brown Cows move overhead on conveyor belts.

Mayfield continues to add more products and flavors of ice cream, which now total about 30 depending on the season.

Mayfield's newest additions are low-carb versions of traditional favorites, like vanilla, chocolate, Neapolitan and butter pecan, using Splenda as a sweetener instead of sugar.

Sometimes Mayfield introduces a product that surprisingly takes off like snow cream that debuted last fall and was meant to be a wintertime flavor only.

The mixture of frozen milk, sugar and vanilla is supposed to taste like the treat adults remember making from freshly fallen snow when they were children. It's suddenly become Mayfield's second-best selling ice cream after top-seller vanilla.

"When something becomes so popular you just realize the consumers are telling you this is not a feature flavor _ this is something we want all the time," Mayfield said. "You change your plan and accommodate those consumers."

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If you go:

The Athens and Braselton, Ga., visitor centers are open Monday through Saturday. Call for hours at 1-800-629-3435 for Athens and 1-888-298-0396 for Braselton.

The Athens visitor center is located about four miles from Exit 52 on Interstate 75 between Knoxville and Chattanooga.

The Braselton visitor center is located outside Atlanta. Take I-285 East to I-85 North, turn right on Exit 126, take left on Broadway Ave. and proceed two miles to center.

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On the Net:

Mayfield Dairy Farms: http://www.mayfielddairy.com