Inside the New Frontier of Dairy Blending: Idaho Milk Products' Innovative Mixes

Reese Clark:

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Milk Theory Podcast. We are here at the ADPI conference in Chicago, and it is day number two. We're having a great time. I'm here with Carol Barreiro, she's the Idaho Milk Products Business Development Manager of the Blending Vertical, and I'm super excited to chat with her. Carol, welcome to Milk Theory. Thank you.

Carol Barreiro:

Thank you. First of all, I just want to say, I want to congratulate you guys on an incredible work you're doing with the Milk Theory podcast. It's amazing, and I'm honored to be here.

Reese Clark:

Thank you. Thank you. We're so happy to have you. So tell me about the world of blending. We know Idaho Milk products. We've been talking a lot about the new ice cream plant that's coming on, and the new blending plant that is a component of this as well. What is blending? What is powder blending? What's it all about?

Carol Barreiro:

That's a great question. Well, it's a new frontier for us at Idaho Milk Products, and everybody has been talking a lot about the new facility, and everybody loves the ice cream side of the facility, but I always like to remember everybody, there's ice cream and there's blending in the same building.

So, blending is interesting because it can be so many things at the same time, to give you perspective, we produce proteins. So a very easy example to share would be we can get our own ingredients and blend them with other ingredients depending on the customer's needs. And that product can be a final product to a customer, or it can be a step into a final product to a customer, depending on what it is. So for us, we're going to be focusing on dairy blends for obvious reasons.

Reese Clark:

That makes sense

Carol Barreiro:

To make it easier. So what are the benefits to a customer? Instead of buying a standalone ingredient, we can offer something more. So, we can blend that ingredient with vitamins, minerals, flavors.

Reese Clark:

Wow.

Carol Barreiro:

Or even a pre-mixes for certain products.

Reese Clark:

Will customers do your customers approach you for what reason? Essentially, they just mix this themselves, or maybe

Carol Barreiro:

Technically some of them could, depending on the equipment that they have. But if we talk about right now and what's happening with proteins, proteins are so tight. Everybody wants protein in everything. So it can give the customer some sort of flexibility to mix different proteins, for example. Or if they're making a protein bar, we can offer a premix, a system for a protein bar to make it easier for them. So they don't have to procure five or six different ingredients from five or six different companies. We can offer them a system, a solution, a premix for a certain product that they might be making or wanting to make.

Reese Clark:

Oh, wow. Okay. So are you bringing a product like a mixed product to them, or are they coming to you with their own concepts and ideas, or is it both?

Carol Barreiro:

That's a great question. It could be both. So we can work with them. We can help them in terms of r and d. Even we can formulate something from scratch with them, depending on an idea that they might have, or they can come to us with their formulation or ready to go, and we can either procure all the ingredients for them or they can just send over the ingredients and we can blend for them. So there's a lot of flexibility, in this.

Reese Clark:

Yeah, no kidding. Okay. So tell me about your journey. You've only been here for a year, and you came on the first representation of the blending sector for Idaho Milk products. What has this journey been like for you as you literally have been business development, you've literally been developing the business. What's it like?

Carol Barreiro:

It has been a wild roller coaster. That's the best way to describe it, because very exciting. To be able to be a part of something new and to be able to build it from scratch, to me is the most exciting part of it all. Right. But it doesn't come without challenges, as you can imagine, and as I know. Yes, of course. From being together in this. So we went from just knowing equipment and capabilities all the way to what can we actually make with the equipment, what makes sense, what doesn't make sense? So it has been a discovery journey mainly.

And we already have incredible products and incredible customers. So a lot of it has been navigating with them and asking questions and offering and seeing how we can do this and how we can actually optimize everything that we have to offer. So it's been a little bit crazy.

Reese Clark:

Yeah. Yeah.

Carol Barreiro:

I feel like it's happening now. It's becoming real very fast.

Reese Clark:

Yes. You've had to collaborate with a lot of different teams ranging from R&D to Operations and Sales and Quality. There's a lot that goes into it.

Carol Barreiro:

Yeah. Because different than offering just one ingredient and knowing exactly what you can do and cannot do with that ingredient, this is so much more broad. Not only we can have in the system different kinds of ingredients, so many applications and so many different things that we can do, and we are limiting ourselves to dairy blends. Even then you would be like, okay, but it's dairy. But even then, there's so many things that you can do with a dairy blend.

Reese Clark:

Totally.

Carol Barreiro:

All the way from, like I said, a premix to a protein bar to an ice cream mix.

Reese Clark:

Yes.

Carol Barreiro:

Which is a totally different thing.

Reese Clark:

A totally new thing. Yeah. Tell me about that ice cream mix. I know it's a very innovative product that Idaho Milk products has begin to roll out. I mean, it's an interesting hybrid I find as we're moving into this ice cream plant, but also this is a blending product. Tell me about it.

Carol Barreiro:

Yeah, I'm very excited about this one, and I feel like this is, I say this is kind the firstborn in terms of the blending efforts that we're having, and it makes sense for two main reasons. First, because we're a protein facility, so we're connected to protein anyways. And we're moving into the ice cream space, and the ice cream mix is kind of like in between. It's ice cream, It's dry, so it's a powder blend, and it's also, we're incorporating high protein into this product.

So we're very excited because it's true innovation. If you go to the marketplace right now, you're going to find some powder, ice cream mixes, but they're all, the majority of them are going to be made with coconut oil, palm oil, so it's not going to be necessarily real dairy. In ours, as you know, it's our cream. We dry our cream, so it's a high quality, indulgent product, and we're incorporating protein to it. It's perfect for what's happening in the world right now, and everybody wanting to add protein to their lives.

Reese Clark:

And so a dry mix allows you to, I mean, there's a huge sustainability play. I mean, Idaho Milk Products is extremely sustainable to begin with, but on top of that, you're adding a super sustainable product. You could decrease transportation costs. And there's also, what else? My gosh. I mean, you're not getting the artificial ingredients, and then there's the longevity of the product a shelf life.

Carol Barreiro:

And not only that, think about it this way. We are trying to be an option, a solution to those customers that are looking for a high quality product. So most likely, those customers are already buying some sort of liquid mix for this. So they're transporting water and they need refrigeration to transport to store. For us, with this product, I mean, it's dry. You're not transporting any water. You don't need any refrigeration to transport or to store it.

Reese Clark:

Yeah,

Carol Barreiro:

It's easy, super easy to mix it. You just have to add water to it to reconstitute it. And for someone looking into that perspective, with a tailor machine, for example, you mix it with water and it's ready for the machine.

Reese Clark:

That's amazing. That's really cool. Whether it's the dry ice cream mix or some other product, what bag sizes? How is this distributed?

Carol Barreiro:

Great question. So in terms of our capabilities, we can go, the smallest size for us would be six pounds all the way to 20 or 25 kilo bags, totes.

Reese Clark:

Okay.

Carol Barreiro:

Right? Depending on the customer's needs, we can work with them and see if they're looking for something more geared towards the end consumer, because we have that now with the Ninja Creamies of the world.

Reese Clark:

Yes, yes.

Carol Barreiro:

People are wanting to make soft serve at home. So it would be maybe a different B2C instead of B2B. And we would be open and willing to work that angle as well. But in terms of packaging, for us, the smallest size would be six pounds all the way to totes.

Reese Clark:

Okay. That's amazing. Tell me a little bit about the opportunities that come just with partnering with Idaho Milk products versus maybe another company. I know there's the r and d side and the connections you've built there. What kind of benefits would a customer get from partnering with us versus someone else? I mean, from the ingredient lens, but also just in creating something new.

Carol Barreiro:

So I would say we have a state-of-the-art facility. So number one thing, I know a lot of the blending facilities around the United States are pretty old, so older equipment and all of that. So we have a state-of-the-art facility, incredible equipment. So that would be one that's worth mentioning. And then other than that, also the fact that we have an incredible R&D team, the Milk Innovation Center. So we have a miniature milk processing plant in a lab, and also a blending in a lab.

So we can work with them and help them formulate from scratch if they need us to do that. If they just come with an idea of a product or if they already have a product, but maybe they're struggling with adding protein to it, for example, or layers or coatings, chocolate, caramel, whatever it might be. We can help them figure it out and formulate based on what their needs are. So I think at this day and age, especially the moment that we're going through with protein, this is really important because we can cater to very specific needs. This is not just going to be a blending facility that's going to do tolling.

That's it. Right? I mean, we can do that too. It's part of the menu of services that we're going to be offering. But the way that I like to explain it, just to give more perspective, we're going to be working in mainly three different project types. One will be we have some custom formulations that we can offer, for example, a premix for a protein bar, a premix for an RTM, a premix for an RTD. Then another angle will be, well, we can help you formulate from scratch if you need us to, so we can be totally flexible and help you with your issues. Start with nothing and build from scratch, or to even solve a specific problem. And then a third would be, well, we just need you to blend ingredients for us. We procured ingredients, we ship them to you, and you just do that par for us. We can do that too.

Reese Clark:

Okay. Okay. Dang, it covers a lot.

Carol Barreiro:

Yeah,

Reese Clark:

So there's a lot of customizability, the range of customers you could actually, that can approach you. It has to be quite vast. And the end products that these things, it could be literally, it could be bars, ice cream, smoothies, other things like that too.

Carol Barreiro:

Yeah, RTDs, anything that you can think of that has protein in it pretty much nowadays, that's a lot, right?

Reese Clark:

Yes. Yeah.

Carol Barreiro:

So it's a pretty vast range of applications and different products and different formulations that we can offer.

Reese Clark:

Yeah. How is your experience with just being here? This is your, I remember when you first joined, I think around this time last year, how is your number two at this ADPI conference? What are your conversations? How has it been going?

Carol Barreiro:

Yeah, so I remember last year it was drinking from the fire hose, as you can imagine, because I had just barely started. And I came, and we were still in that phase of discovery, not knowing exactly what we were going to be able to offer. Even so this is coming full circle. It's a year after I started, and I think ADPI is the perfect place to be having these kinds of conversations because everybody's so focused on innovation and what can we do better and how can we prepare for the future? And this is it. We're coming in at the right time with the right people and with the right ideas.

Reese Clark:

Yeah, it's a whole new frontier entirely.

Carol Barreiro:

It is.

Reese Clark:

Yeah. That's amazing.

Carol Barreiro:

So it's exciting.

Reese Clark:

Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. Oh, it's my pleasure. How can people get in touch with you, learn more about blending? Sure. What do you recommend?

Carol Barreiro:

So I feel like you can find me on LinkedIn. You can find us on LinkedIn, Idaho Milk Products. You can find me there as well. And if you go to our website, we already have a blending website, which is very exciting. Thank you for that.

Reese Clark:

Of course.

Carol Barreiro:

And so you can send us an email. I mean, we're going to be easy to find. We want to be found. We want as much exposure as we can get. So another thing that I want to mention, we're going to be participating in a lot of the trade shows happening now. In between now and the end of the year. So just send us an email, give us a call, and we'll be happy to navigate and see how we can find some synergies together.

Reese Clark:

Wonderful. Awesome. Thank you, Carol. I know you're super busy. Thank you. As we navigate this new frontier. So I wish you the best of luck throughout the rest of this ADPI conference.

Carol Barreiro:

Thank you so much.

Reese Clark:

Thank you for taking the time. You're just such a great cultural fit for Idaho Milk products, and I can vouch for her too, for you'd be a great partner for any customer looking to scale their business. Oh, thank you so much.

Carol Barreiro:

It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the invite.

Reese Clark:

Wonderful. Thanks everyone. We'll see you next time.