COLUMBUS – Ye Olde Mill has entered the 21st Century with Velvet Ice Cream’s $3 million expansion, the largest in its 102-year history.
It took 14 months to complete the 23,000-square-foot freezer warehouse at the company’s home in Utica, which more than doubles the company’s capacity, president Luconda Dager said.
The ice cream maker, founded in 1914 by Joseph Dager and operated by the Dager family for four generations, recently expanded into Kentucky and other markets, increasing its revenue from $25 million in 2009 to more than $30 million in 2014.
The new freezer keeps up to 32,000 cartons of ice cream – enough to fill 80 tractor trailers — at 20 degrees below zero.
Dager says the workers will walk a quarter of a mile for every order, equivalent to walking from Utica to Las Vegas and back every year.
Velvet was nearly at capacity with its former distribution facility. Currently employing a staff of 125, Velvet’s new distribution facility initially will require the addition of eight new employees