Mayfield Dairy Farms Tour – Athens, TN

One recent Friday morning, I found myself sitting in an optometrist’s office in Athens, TN with five of my children. On a whim, as we were leaving, I decided to take the group to the Mayfield Dairy a couple miles away to see how their milk and ice cream are packaged.

The free tour was quite interesting! (Due to my inquisitive nature, I have always been a fan of “factory-tours”, beginning with watching crayons being made on Mister Roger’s Neighborhood as a young child, and now continuing as I frequently watch How it’s Made on television.)

So at the Mayfield tour we found fascination with everything from the plastic beads being mixed and molded into the signature Mayfield yellow jugs, to seeing the molds being cut and filled, to learning about the “Aro-vac system” that Mayfield uses exclusively, to the capping and the cleaning, and the facts about the yellow jugs and the astonishing amount of daily production and distribution!

A FEW FUN FACTS

• Approximately 6,000,000 half-pint cartons of Mayfield milk are delivered per week to local schools.
• Mayfield fills about 300,000 gallons of Mayfield milk and juice per day.
• Mayfield can fill 350 pints per minute.
• Mayfield’s full-sized ice cream sandwiches are made at a rate of 50 per minute
• Due to the unique Aro-vac system, and the UV-resistant yellow jugs, Mayfield milk still tastes fresh up to 15 days after the “sell by” date.
• Vanilla is Mayfield’s best-selling flavor of ice cream.

Photography wasn’t allowed during the tour, but I managed to get a few shots afterward, outside, while the children were enjoying their favorite thing about the tour — ice cream cones!!! (available for purchase after the tour)

Above: Dee thought the cap that was required during the tour was her special “hat”.
She didn’t want to remove it.

Below: “Boo” sporting her cool new shades…
the ones the optometrist gave her to wear after the dilation.

The Group

….And what would a post of mine be without some random baby cuteness?