United Dairy Farmers (UDF) announced updated logistics to ensure daily delivery of fresh-baked goods, keeping shelves stocked with UDF’s expanded lineup of doughnuts, cookies and products across the tri-state area.
In the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Blue Ash, Ohio-based UDF Bakery and Fresh Innovation Center took the opportunity to revisit its recipes and logistics, recalibrating its baking and packaging methods as well as its distribution practices to best ensure the fastest delivery and most delicious products from oven to shelf. During this innovation period, UDF managed to avoid layoffs due to COVID as so many staff were involved in the reimagining process, all while eclipsing the 10 million units sold milestone since introducing fresh doughnuts in October 2019.
“Freshness, innovation and convenience are core to our United Dairy Farmers heritage,” said David Lindner, UDF senior vice president of retail and co-owner. “Even with the pandemic slowdown, we continued investment and expansion of our capabilities at the bakery while continuing our recipe development to create the ideal fresh cookies and brownie products for our stores and our guests.”
UDF introduced a German oven system to allow for consistent quality of its cookies and fudge brownies, which are used in UDF’s famous fudge brownie sundae.
Because UDF baked goods are truly homemade and are without additives, shelf life for each product is short. Upping the company’s fleet of drivers to handle deliveries to each of the 177 UDF locations across the tri-state area was a critical component to ensure the baked good lineup meets the standards that UDF dairy, fresh food and other products have enjoyed for over 80 years.
“Customers seem to really like the new products, and we have made them easy to find with a dedicated display,” said Chuck Kronyak, UDF bakery category manager. “Over the last three weeks we have seen unit sales growth of over 16%, which we attribute to the addition of new varieties, daily delivery and some return to more normal commuter patterns.”
UDF now offers a total of 20 unique products in UDF retail stores: blueberry muffins; cinnamon rolls; cookies (candy, chocolate chunk, Snickerdoodle and white chocolate macadamia nut); doughnuts (classic glazed, jelly filled, Bavarian cream, chocolate glaze, devil’s food cake, kettle and Long John, plus the Buckeye doughnut during the autumn season); doughnut holes (glazed chocolate, glazed confetti and glazed sour cream); double chocolate chunk brownies; double chocolate muffins; and glazed croissants.
UDF has 177 dairy stores across Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana committed to quality, customer experience and being a trusted neighbor in the communities that it serves. UDF stores sell high-quality proprietary products that include hand-dipped ice cream, signature malts and shakes, fresh baked goods from the family bakery, premium coffee, and other fresh foods and dairy products. After over 80 years, United Dairy Farmers continues to be family-owned and headquartered in Norwood, Ohio.
