Yarnell's Premium Ice Cream is ceasing operations, leaving 200 without jobs, the company announced Thursday morning.
The Searcy-based ice cream maker said that a tough year for the ice cream industry, particularly for regional manufacturers, prompted the decision.
In a news release, chief executive officer Christina Yarnell said the privately owned company had searched for ways to stay afloat in the past year, including finding new investors or even a possible sale.
Around 75 percent of Yarnell’s employees work at the Searcy headquarters, with the rest of the employee base located throughout the state and in Tennessee and Mississippi. A small team will remain working for the company to finalize operations, with completion expected by Aug. 27.
An Arkansas company from the outset, Yarnell's has been in business for 75 years, starting with Yarnell's great-grandfather, Ray and continuing through four generations.
Ray Yarnell bought Grisham Angel Food Ice Cream Co. in 1932, renaming it.
In the beginning, the company produced half a dozen flavors of ice cream, popsicles and a few flavors of sherbet.
Seventy-five years later, the manufacturer had 200 different frozen products, from ice cream to yogurt and ice cream sandwiches to fudge bars. It also acquired the Angel Food ice-cream brand out of Memphis.
More than 200 employees worked for the company, which has over the years put out such Arkansas-themed flavors as Woo Pig Chewy and Razor Tracks.
Most of the ice cream first produced by Yarnell’s was sold to drug stores that sold ice cream soda or cream sandwiches.
A spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe, who represented Searcy as a state senator, said the governor was saddened by the news of Yarnell’s closing. At its 75th anniversary celebration, Beebe reminisced about drinking vanilla milkshakes with Yarnell’s ice cream at a corner drug store when he was a child.
Matt DeCample said the Department of Workforce Services will help the laid off workers as they seek new employment.
The Yarnell’s closing is the latest announcement of layoffs in Arkansas. Simmons Foods Inc. announced last week that it would eliminate 223 jobs at a slaughtering plant in Siloam Springs by August and move its remaining production to a neighboring facility in Decatur. Rhode Island-based United Natural Foods said earlier in June that it will lay off 225 workers after closing a plant in Harrison as part of an acquisition by another company.
Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
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Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.