Neal Gottlieb, the founder of Three Twins Ice Cream, needed more capacity to keep up with demand for his organic ice cream. His facility in Petaluma, Calif., was maxed out. Adding shifts was not feasible. Gottlieb bid the work to co-packers but said their quotes were “sky-high” and the quality of the test runs was a “disaster.”

Three Twins Ice Cream has grown into the leading brand of organic ice cream in just 10 years. In the course of a decade, its gone from a scoop shop to owning manufacturing facilities in California and Wisconsin. A Three Twins cause-marketing program has conserved 8,000 acres of rain forest in South America. Through another program, the company donates 1% of its sales to environmental groups.

Last year was an exciting year for the milk industry. We saw more product innovation, sustained growth of chocolate milk and whole milk sales, and resumed growth of organic milk.

Sales in the ice cream category look promising as dollars and units rose in the last year. Meanwhile unit sales in the frozen novelties category were frozen in place.

In an ideal world, all solids in the cheese vat would end up in the finished product. Unfortunately, this is not possible with our current cheesemaking methods.

La Terra Fina, Union City, Calif., introduced a vanilla bean cheesecake dip sold exclusively at Sam’s Club’s nationwide.