Bever was asked during the news conference about what, exactly, stood out as more challenging among the surprises found during renovation. He said the plant, which had stood for so long and was rumored to be a bomb shelter or fallout shelter during the Cold War, had been really well built for its time. However, some of the concrete had worn and broken down over the decades, and TCCA needed to remedy that.
“We put a steel superstructure under many of the concrete floors,” he said. “So what had been a very strong structure to start with is now probably indestructible.”
At full capacity, the Decatur plant is expected to produce all 32 flavors of Tillamook ice cream at a clip of 15.5 million gallons per year (at presstime, only 19 of those flavors had been commissioned to be manufactured at the plant, they said). Supply will be as local as possible, with the exception of regionally specific ingredients (think Oregon strawberries for that particular ice cream variety as a prime example).
As production ramps up, more jobs are expected to be created, but for the time being, 50 new jobs have been created. The plant also allows TCCA to pull more of its ice cream production internal to the company, giving it more control over the high quality it demands in its products, Bever said. Additionally, it boosts capacity for future growth. Bever noted that Decatur’s overall capacity is more than double that of the company’s ice cream plant in Oregon.
Decatur gives TCCA improved access to its customers and consumers across the eastern half of the U.S., and the company is pushing hard on that strategic growth initiative. According to data cited by TCCA, more than one million new consumers purchased Tillamook family-size ice cream in 2024, and more than half of those new consumers were from the eastern U.S. Decatur, which is in central Illinois, allows better access in all four directions due to its centralized location in this half of the country.
