EAST LANSING, Mich. – Nothing proclaims summer’s imminent arrival better than the warm, sunny days and flower blossoms of springtime. MSU offers plenty of opportunities for fun and family-friendly activities for every season of the year, but nothing complements warm, sunny weather better than a tour to see the animals at one the MSU farms – and don’t forget to end the day with a stop at the MSU Dairy Store for a fresh scoop of one of the store’s most popular flavors, Sesquicentennial Swirl ice cream.
MSU DAIRY FARM TOURS
Looking for a fun place to take the kids for a class field trip or a family outing? The MSU Dairy Farm may be just what you’re looking for.
MSU animal science senior Jennifer Sidge, White Lake, has redesigned the self-guided MSU Dairy Farm tour to offer visitors a more enriching experience by including expanded educational and historical information at each tour stop. Learning stations can be found in a variety of different areas of the farm from the calf nursery to the feed storage room to the milking parlor to the yearling heifer barn. Visitors only need to follow the “hoof prints” to proceed from one area to the next.
The new tour design was an honors option project assignment for Sidge’s dairy management course. In previous years, the farm had conducted visitor surveys to learn how the tours could be enhanced. After assessing the feedback, Sidge said identifying new ways to make the tours more interesting ranked at the top of people’s suggestion list.
“We want to make touring the dairy farm the best experience possible so as to encourage people to make return visits,” she said. “We also want people who have little or no experience with agriculture or farm life to be able to easily understand the information available at each station and be able to relate to how it affects them.”
Upon arrival, visitors will receive a detailed tour map that includes labels for each learning station along with the location and a short summary.
The MSU Dairy Farm is open to the public daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., including weekends.
For more information on the newly designed MSU Dairy Farm tour, contact Jennifer Sidge at 248-462-9124 or email her at sidgejen@msu.edu.
I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM
FOR MSU DAIRY STORE ICE CREAM
One store. Multiple machines. Countless flavors.
Cold. Frosty. Delicious. There’s nothing more refreshing than the sensation of ice cream hitting your tongue on a warm summer day, and the MSU Dairy Store has the ideal summer snack to fill the order.
Since 1914, the MSU Dairy Store has served the East Lansing community with its quality ice cream. A wide variety of unusual flavored ice creams line the shelves of the coolers in the MSU Dairy Store.
“The lines typically stretch out the door on a sunny day,” said John Engstrom, MSU Dairy Store manager.
Though many of their loyal customers don’t know the secret to the popular ice cream, they keep coming back!
But have you ever wondered what makes the MSU Dairy Store ice cream such a hot commodity?
Engstrom said making “quality” ice cream is a complicated process.
Engstrom works with Rodney Clark, MSU Dairy Plant operation manager, and a group of seven students to produce the store’s popular ice cream. Approximately another 30 students are employed in the MSU Dairy Store. These students manage the store, serve customers, clean the facility and help operate machinery in the Dairy Plant.
The Dairy Store orders their cream and milk from the Michigan Milk Producers Association where the products are “guaranteed fresh,” Engstrom said. They order most of their unique flavoring ingredients from companies such as Pecan Delux and Sensient.
Once all the ingredients are on hand — including cream, water, non-fat dry milk powder, granulated sugar and stabilizer — workers mix the items together to make ice cream, which is then stored in two 500-gallon stainless steal tanks.
The first step is to take one of the three base ice cream products – chocolate, vanilla or sherbet – and add to it one of several distinctive flavorings before partially freezing the ice cream. Next, when the ice cream reaches about 22 degrees Fahrenheit, it is moved to the deep-freezer where it sits at -20 degrees Fahrenheit until it is hardened.
And what sets MSU Dairy Store ice cream apart from other ice cream brands?
Engstrom said more expensive ingredients such as granulated sugar and non-fat milk powder give the ice cream a “cleaner” taste. Granulated sugar is pure and doesn’t interfere with the actual flavor of the ice cream, he said.
“Quality ingredients can make a world of a difference,” Engstrom said. “What we have is a premium product.”
Engstrom said most ice cream makers use less expensive ingredients such as fructose and corn sugar.
The most popular flavor of ice cream at the MSU Dairy Store is the sesquicentennial swirl, which is a blend of cake batter, vanilla ice cream, thick fudge swirl and green and white cake pieces.
The MSU Dairy Store often rotates the flavors of ice cream available for purchase in the store. Some flavors are seasonal, such as the peppermint stick and pumpkin spice flavors which are served in the fall. And, with the Spartan basketball team’s success in the NCAA Finals, Engstrom pulled out an old recipe for the Final Four Fudge Dribble ice cream and served it to the community at the beginning of April.
“We have flavors you won’t find anywhere else,” Engstrom said. “People get bored with the standard flavors, so we cater to the community by giving them a new ice cream to taste each season they stop in the Dairy Store.”
The MSU Dairy Store has locations in the MSU Union and Anthony Hall. The university dining halls also regularly serve Dairy Store ice cream to their students.
For more information about the MSU Dairy Store, contact John Engstrom at 517-355-7713 ext. 173.