The tentative date for Babcock Hall Dairy Plant’s completion is September of this year. Scott Rankin, the UW-Madison Department of Food Science chair, says the Center for Dairy Research side of the project is mostly complete. Staff are slowly migrating into those new spaces.
The plant itself has recently started undergoing construction, which means Babcock ice cream production continues to take place offsite, Rankin explains.
Amidst renovations, supply disruption has persisted on the campus dairy. University dairy processors are not immune to cost inflation. Rankin says sometimes procuring different sizes of packaging has been an issue, such as Dixie cups.
He also gives the Mid-West Farm Report a look at how UW Dairy Innovation Hub money impacts the food science department. Rankin is grateful for those who pushed hard for the investment, which he says is a tool for the universities involved to hire a “dream team” to make contributions to dairy that have enormous effects. The department has hired faculty in food chemistry, fermentation and microbiology.
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