Brown’s ice cream melts into history

Annandale and the Upper Midwest have had their last luscious lick of the original Brown’s Velvet Ice Cream.  Brown’s, one of the oldest businesses in Annandale, has closed its doors for good after 99 years, an official of its parent company, Upper Lakes Foods of Cloquet, said last week.  The plant at 110 Excelsior Ave. S. shut down about the beginning of June when a part broke, and Upper Lakes decided about three weeks ago to close it permanently rather than buy costly new equipment to keep it operating.  Family business  The decision ends a family business that began manufacturing butter in 1906, made its name making ice cream for many years and was sold to Upper Lakes in 1990.  “It’s going to be missed by a lot of people,” said 15-year manager Kevin Brown, great-grandson of founder Carl John Brown.  Besides him, the plant employed 13-year worker Mark Pohl and two part-time employees, Kevin Brown said.  The shutdown occurred when the shaft on an ammonia compressor “just snapped” because of its age, he said.  The part was about 50 years old and at one point it was used continuously in making and cooling the ice cream.  Sue Ryan, one of the owners of Upper Lakes, said the plant’s old equipment had lost its usefulness.  “To replace it would be quite a costly venture,” she said, “so we have decided at this point to close the plant.  “We’re not happy that we had to make this decision, obviously, and wished it didn’t have to be that way.”  Ryan added the company would like to find someone else to manufacture the ice cream under the Brown’s Velvet name, but that’s not in the works yet.  Brown said there’s no ice cream left in the plant, and he believes most of its retailers in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula have sold out by now.  He expected the plant’s equipment will be sold, the building torn down and the land sold for housing.  Brown said he’s a bit saddened by the company going out of business.  “I just think it’s God’s timing for me to move on to something else.”  He was skeptical that Upper Lakes can replace the product made by Brown’s.  “I’m not sure if they could ever exactly duplicate it,” he said.  “I think they would have a hard time” and that the product would vary.  C.J. Brown purchased the Farmers Creamery in Annandale about 1906 to give his six sons a business in addition to the home farm near French Lake.  About 1916, C.J Brown & Sons started making ice cream, at first only 10 gallons at a time.  For many years, Brown’s had a float in the Fourth of July parade and gave away free ice cream cones at Christmas.  In 1990, Floyd Brown and his sister Doris, now deceased, sold the business to Upper Lakes.   “It was either sell or go under,” Kevin Brown, Floyd’s son, said. Upper Lakes bought it on condition he stay on and run the plant.  He believes Brown’s heydey was before the 1970s. “Ice cream was a special treat” back then because people couldn’t keep it as long.  At the end, Brown’s turned out between 135,000 and 150,000 gallons of ice cream per year, he said, compared to the millions of gallons a company like Blue Bunny makes each month.  Brown’s made close to 50 flavors of ice cream alone and 62 flavors when you include its sherbet, yogurt and gellato.  As a family business, Brown’s used to sell to retail stores, he said, but Upper Lakes decided to market only to wholesalers.  The only retail store that sold Brown’s ice cream in Annandale was Holiday.  It was also available at the plant, and the company sold a lot of it locally through word of mouth, Brown said.  “I think it was way better than Kemps, and a lot of customers think the same thing,” he said.  “We didn’t scrimp on it. We tried to make the best ice cream we could.”  Brown’s didn’t have the same butter fat content as premium ice creams like Ben & Jerry’s and Haagen-Dazs, but the quality was better, he said.  “Vanilla was by far the biggest seller.”  After vanilla, maple nut sold best in Annandale, and mint chocolate chip, caramel cup cashew and French silk chocolate were all popular, Brown said.  “Everyone has their own flavors.”  He recalled one couple who would come to the plant. One would buy a half-gallon of vanilla, the other maple nut.  For years Archie – Brown doesn’t know his last name – would come in for chocolate.  “He’d hold up one or two fingers. We didn’t have to ask him what flavor.”