A reason to scream

By Julian Walker
Times Staff Writer

It started in the 1960s, when the manufacturing industry still was the engine that drove this city’s economy.
At that time, Processing Machinery & Supply Inc., at 1108 Frankford Ave. in Fishtown, was a fledgling independent company that built food-processing machines and equipment used by other companies to make all kinds of edible goodies.
Four decades later, Processing Machinery & Supply is still operating in the food industry, now as part of WCB Ice Cream of Northvale, N.J.
It is one of several plants owned by the private company — other factories are in Denmark and Italy — that produce industrial ice cream-making equipment for such recognizable companies as Ben & Jerry’s, Häagen-Dazs, Good Humor-Breyers, Turkey Hill, Friendly’s, Carvel and Hershey’s, to name a few.
"We make the equipment that is specific to making high-volume ice cream and Popsicles," explained WCB operations manager Bill Young.
So if it is ice cold and sweet and in your grocer’s frozen-food section, chances are that a Philadelphia company played a significant role in making that tasty treat.
And you thought the city’s only claim to fame in frozen desserts was Rita’s Water Ice?
Among the pieces of machinery made by Processing Machinery & Supply and other WCB subsidiaries is an ice-cream freezer that allows companies to rapidly transform a mixture of liquid ice cream, flavoring and other ingredients into a substance of soft-serve consistency.
Those machines, which produce 800 gallons of ice cream per hour, can freeze an entire batch of liquid ice cream from 40 degrees to 22 degrees in 90 seconds.
As the ice cream is frozen, air is added to the mixture to give it a softer consistency for packaging, and to preserve it longer.
"Most people don’t know that about ice cream," Young said of the air additive. "We freeze it fast to get the smallest ice crystals possible. That makes for smoother ice cream."
Those machines take between eight and 16 weeks to produce and can weigh between 1,600 and 12,000 pounds.
"A lot of this equipment is about the size of a small car," noted Young. "All machines are pretty much custom-made to the customers’ specifications. We ship all over the world — to Japan, Australia, Thailand and plenty of other places."
All are completely automated, fitted with a computer brain called "programmable logic control."
Another piece of equipment produced by Processing Machinery & Supply is a packaging machine that stuffs gobs of ice cream into half-gallon and gallon cardboard containers.
"The goal is for it to be solid enough that it will stay fresh, to make it as cold as we can to keep it at the best quality, but soft enough that it will fit into the corners and fill the container," Young explained.
The last step before shipment to stores is to put containers of ice cream into a hardening tunnel that freezes the center of the package to 0 degrees and the outer layers of cream to minus–40 to preserve it during shipping.
That process takes 90 minutes.
WCB plants like Processing Machinery & Supply don’t just specialize in ice-cream equipment. They also make machines to mint Popsicles.
Flavored juices are poured into stainless-steel molds floated in a salt bath cooled to minus–40 degrees.
As the molds travel through the machine, sticks are inserted as the individual treats begin to freeze. Once fully frozen, the molds are sprayed with a warm-water mist to loosen the Popsicles from their steel holders. Another machine packages the treats in wrappers.
A modified version of that machine can extrude ice cream bars and coat them with chocolate, for example, before they are packaged.
Those mold machines can produce anywhere from 7,000 to 40,000 ice cream bars or Popsicles per hour.
Each machine sells for $70,000 to $100,000.
After functioning for more than 30 years as an independent company, Processing Machinery & Supply was one of several outfits purchased by SPX of Delavin, Wis., in 1996. Others bought around that time included Waukesha Cherry Burrell (WCB) and APV Ice Cream, both of Wisconsin, and the Alliance Group of Northvale, N.J.
The goal of those mergers, said Young, was to convince European competitors Hoyer and Gram, both of Denmark, to buy the conglomerate.
When that didn’t work, the former owner of Alliance coupled with some investors to purchase the company back from SPX and consolidate its operations in Philadelphia, New Jersey and at the two European plants.
As it is composed today, WCB employs about 100 workers in its four factories, including the Philadelphia plant.
And though more of a boutique outfit, as compared to giants like Hoyer and Gram, WCB presumably is making a cool profit with its ice-cream equipment. According to the International Dairy Foods Association, U.S. sales of ice cream and frozen desserts topped $20 billion in 2003. oo
Reporter Julian Walker can be reached at 215-354-3038 or jwalker@phillynews.com