LITTLE ROCK — The volume of Yarnell’s ice cream produced and its availability will depend on how many retailers agree to carry the reintroduced product, says Kevin Boyle, president of Schulze & Burch Biscuit Co., which bought the shuttered Yarnell Ice Cream Co. manufacturing plant in Searcy at a bankruptcy auction on Nov. 30.
The Chicago-based company said Monday that it would reopen the plant and would use Yarnell’s recipes to resume production by this spring.
The number of people Schulze & Burch will hire also depends on sales volume to retailers, Boyle said in an interview Tuesday. Twelve workers are preparing the plant for its reopening, and Boyle said they will have the opportunity to stay when production resumes.
“But people need to temper their enthusiasm because we don’t have any customers yet, and there were a lot of bridges burned when [Yarnell] closed down,” he said. “The buying community might have some memory of that.”
Either way, there won’t be anywhere near as many people working at the plant as there were when Yarnell closed in July, Boyle said. The family-owned company had been making ice cream in Searcy for 80 years.
When Yarnell closed the plant, about 200 employees lost their jobs. Boyle said the bankrupt company had been making ice cream products at the plant for other companies that was sold under other brand names. That business has been lost, and that’s why far fewer workers will be needed at least initially to reintroduce the Yarnell’s brand.
“It will take years to regain this business, if it ever returns,” Boyle said in an e-mail.
Boyle wouldn’t name the other companies for whom Yarnell was making ice cream.
Yarnell also had a contract to deliver Nestle products to Arkansas stores. Since Yarnell closed, Nestle found another way to deliver ice cream and other products to stores.
When Schulze & Burch starts manufacturing ice cream, it will use a third party company to deliver the product to retailers, meaning it won’t need to hire drivers.
Schulze & Burch bought the Searcy plant and the recipes for about $1.3 million in the bankruptcy auction. The company has approximately 100 employees at another plant in Searcy that makes toaster pastries and granola bars.
Yarnell filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in August.
David Ganoung, director of marketing at Harps Grocery of Springdale, said the chain would be willing to stock Yarnell’s at its 47 stores in Arkansas “if the price is right.”
“We had a strong relationship with Yarnell’s, we always had a strong relationship with them,” he said. However, Harps has “not been contacted.”
Whether Harps would be willing to stock Yarnell’s also will depend on the flavors of the ice cream and what kind of contract Schulze & Burch seeks, he said.
Ganoung added that when Yarnell shut down its plant, Harps had to do a little “scrambling” but there are “no bad feelings.”
Several other major grocers didn’t immediately respond to inquiries about restocking Yarnell’s.
In a news release Monday, Schulze & Burch said it also will bring back the Yarnell’s frozen yogurt and a no-sugaradded line of “guilt free” frozen desserts.
Business, Pages 25 on 01/18/2012