After battling—and successfully overcoming—quality issues at its Airline Highway plant for much of the past year, Kleinpeter Farms Dairy confirmed to Daily Report on Monday that it has halted production of its ice cream lines and is considering outsourcing production to another dairy.
President and CEO Jeff Kleinpeter, who has spent some $3 million in recent months on improvements and upgrades at the family-owned dairy, does not attribute the decision to lagging ice cream sales or the need to cut costs. Rather, he says, Kleinpeter Farms is trying to find the best possible manager to oversee ice cream production and has yet to identify someone who measures up to the dairy’s standards.
“One of our challenges has been to find good, consistent management for our ice cream plant,” Kleinpeter says. “Our original manager, Don Gerald, was basically a rock star in this department and he has been a hard act to follow since his retirement.”
Kleinpeter says he hopes he does not need to outsource, but that it is a possibility. In the meantime, some stores still are carrying the ice cream, as the dairy has enough packaged product on hand to continue stocking local freezers for the time being.
Also this week, the Metro Council approved Mayor Kip Holden’s $830 million budget for 2015 without changes at a special meeting Tuesday evening, but not before some members voiced concern about forgoing pay raises for Department of Public Works employees and raised the idea of stripping money from the Baton Rouge Area Chamber.
And at its final regular meeting of this year, the council on Wednesday deferred for the sixth time an item that has spawned an ongoing standoff between the city-parish and bus bench vendors over a $45 fee the vendors could be required to pay each time they place a bench alongside a state roadway.
The council also OK’d introducing a resolution to approve a tax increment financing district, or TIF, for developer Mike Wampold’s planned downtown hotel at 150 N. Third St.
—Steve Sanoski Read the complete Daily Report Week in Review.
