Name

Brendon Arsenault

Occupation

Working Foreman, ADL Butter Plant

Tell us about ADL.

Amalgamated Dairies Limited (ADL) is a farmer owned dairy cooperative made up of over 150+ Island farms. We’ve been around since 1953, making this our 70th year in business. We produce butter, cheese, milk, ice cream, and sweetened condensed and evaporated milk.

What is your role at ADL?

I’ve been at ADL now for around 22 years. I started on the floor as a labourer and worked my way up to butter maker and then move up into supervisor / working foreman for the plant. My day-to-day responsibilities are to oversee things, making sure work orders are getting complete and work orders are being produced at the highest quality possible to ensure we meet our standards.

What ADL products are produced at your location?

We are the only ADL butter-producing facility in PEI. We produce the ADL and Dairy Isle brand of products you find in your local grocery store, restaurants, etc.

What does your team look like?

We are a small team of five guys including myself. We work Monday-Friday with our butter maker working 6:30am - 2:30pm and the rest of us from 7:30am - 3:30pm.

How much butter is produced at the ADL butter plant?

A production day would consist of producing around 30,000 pounds of cream and converting that over into butter production which then generates an average of 14,500 pounds of butter per day. The cream that we use to produce butter with, that comes from a number of ADL facilities. Those facilities separate the cream from the raw milk and then deliver it to us. The cream comes to us at a 38% fat content, we then pasteurize that cream, heat it up to 155 degrees which kills any microbes, we leave it overnight and produce butter with it the next day. In roughly an hour, we can produce around 3,500 pounds of butter every hour throughout the day. We focus on small, single batches to ensure quality. Our butter is produced in a barrel churn. Our butter is as close to what our grandparents would have made on PEI at one time. We are old school that way but at the end of the day, we produce a top-quality product which is our goal.

What does a typical day look like for you?

On a normal day we start production around 6:30am and that goes till around 1:30pm where we than start the clean up and preparation for the next day.

What’s something you would like everyone to know about your operation?

When you open up a pound of butter and you see that rich golden colour, there is nothing added to make that color. All we add to make butter is cream and salt. There are no additives added such as coloring, preservatives, etc. An ADL pound of butter just has cream, salt and a little bit of water for moisture. Nothing added. It’s a proven recipe. It’s not rocket science to make butter, it’s consistency that is key. It all starts with our dairy farmers producing top quality milk. They are able to do that here on PEI because of our air quality, the soil, the way farmers look after their cows. It all starts at the farm and continues through to ADL practices.

What’s your favourite ADL product to enjoy?

I would have to say butter. I know I’m biased but it’s goes on a lot of things. Butter has to be number one and then cheese!

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