Source: TECHNICIAN, 11/16/21

Howling Cow is part of the Dairy Enterprise System within the department of food, bioprocessing and nutrition sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. As such, NC State students, faculty and staff are involved in every step of the process helping to support the University’s mission through the sale of milk and ice cream.

Just like the name suggests, it all begins with the howling cows.

“My program spans from the dairy farm, which is on Lake Wheeler Road, where I collaborate with animal science and the vet school for dairy husbandry,” said Carl Hollifield, director of the Dairy Enterprise System. “They grow crops, they feed cows, they milk cows and then I bring the milk over here to Schaub Hall, where the dairy processing plant is.”

From there, the raw milk is pasteurized, homogenized and packaged in various forms before it is distributed to campus.

“Anything that you get at the dining halls is Howling Cow milk,” Hollifield said. “We also make the soft serves for the dining halls and the awesome Howling Cow ice cream that you have. All the milk products go back to campus. They go to the convenience stores on campus, the dining halls, the two shops in the libraries and our shop at the dairy farm.”

Beyond purely producing and processing the milk and ice cream, Howling Cow continually develops new flavors to add to its extensive list, the newest of which is Icing on the Cake.

“Within the department of food, bioprocessing and nutrition sciences, we have a world class sensory and analytical chemistry unit and they have a bunch of 'supertasters,’” Hollifield said. “We’ll run samples by them and basically ask 'What do you taste in them? Do they taste good, do they taste bad, is it the right kind of flavor but doesn’t fit well with the other ingredients?’... It’s a lot of trial and error.”

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