Mackie's Ice Cream, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, United Kingdom

In mid-2006 Mackie’s, the luxury ice cream maker in Scotland, placed an order for a new ice cream production line, worth in excess of £350,000, with dairy systems provider CPS (Carlisle Process Systems, now owned by Tetra Pak). Mackie’s is based in Aberdeenshire, Scotland on a large-scale dairy farm (500 Jersey and Holstein-Friesian cows) which provides a substantial quantity of the milk and cream for production.

The company, which produces a range of luxury flavours, has seen its production of ice cream triple over the past ten years. Because of this it needed to replace its existing equipment, which was struggling to cope with current production demands. The company's ice cream is stocked in every major supermarket from ASDA to the local Co-op.

In addition to the Mackie’s own brand luxury ice cream range, the company also produces ice cream for leading high street retailers. This is an area of the business Mackie’s hopes to expand and it is forecasting a further 100% increase in sales in the next three years.

Mackie’s, which is a family run business, employs 65 staff and turns over £14m a year in retail sales.

In 2007, Mackie's received a Scottish Food & Drink Excellence Award for its economic growth and outstanding environmental management. It also received a Financial Times Environmental Award. In 2008, the company won a Grampian Food Forum Innovation Award.

New system

In April 2006 CPS was contracted to design, manufacture, install and commission a bespoke semi-automatic mixing system, a pasteuriser and a chilling plant. The system design incorporated unique features such as automatic top filling of the ageing tanks and a mobile unit for small additions.

The new line, which was installed in August 2006, now produces both own-label ice cream and Mackie’s luxury ice cream range. The latter consists of five flavours – Traditional, Strawberry and Cream, Caramel Choc Mint, Honeycomb Harvest, and Absolutely Chocolate.

The company has also just introduced a raspberry ripple flavour.

The old Mackie’s production system (installed over 12 years ago) only had an output of up to 2,000l of ice cream per hour. The new equipment has an output of up to 6,000l per hour.

Automation and a higher ice cream output will decrease production costs through reduced energy and lower labour expenses. CPS had already worked for Mackie’s previously as in 2002 they designed, built and installed a milk chilling and routing system with storage tanks, which is in use on a daily basis.

Mackie’s business is powered by a Vestas wind turbine (850kW with 1,600t carbon offset) and the target is to become completely self-sufficient in renewable energy. Summer 2006 saw an investment of over £1m in production equipment, which adds new capacity to fill different types of packaging and has increased overall volume capacity and speed of production.

Mackie’s now has some of the latest technology to assist in the mixing and filling process and in the new freezing area.

Green Technology

Mackie's has installed three Vestas V52 wind turbines in order to reduce its carbon emissions.

The system consists of a 45m turbine. The wind farm has a power production capacity of 2.5MW with each turbine capable of producing 850KW of power.

Korean expansion

As part of its ongoing business plan Mackie’s has been expanding into the Korean retail market for their products. The company initially broke into the South Korea market in 2002 and the Korean partners established a new company, Mackie’s of Asia. This has formed a link from which to target key Asian markets including Japan.

The company sells its special ‘Scottish Purity’ brand (introduced for more brand differentiation in Asian markets) in Korea and won an award for this at the Grampian Food Innovation awards in March 2006. The company had won a similar award for business innovation in 2005.

The company has capitalised very successfully on the positive Korean demand for a fresh, natural ice cream from Scotland, and now has 30 Mackie’s ice cream parlours established in prime retail locations all over Seoul and other South Korean cities.