SKOWHEGAN — Gifford’s Famous Ice Cream plans a $1.6 million expansion project that involves adding staff, building an addition onto its factory and pushing its products into other markets in the Northeast and beyond.

The expansion is the largest in the company’s 41-year history in Skowhegan and will double the ice cream maker’s total production.

John “JC” Gifford Jr., vice president for sales, said production this year is expected to top 1.9 million gallons of ice cream. In August, Gifford’s set an all-time monthly record with a 12.4 percent increase in sales of its quarts and premium bulk flavors, 10 percent above the industry average.

The expansion at the company’s Hathaway Street plant in Skowhegan will create additional floor space and allow Gifford’s to bring in two more large steam kettles, a new quart filler and a new shrink wrapper for retail packaging. These additions will allow two production lines to run simultaneously.

A SWIRL OF RECENT GROWTH

“We’ve been growing the past four or five years at double-digit growth, and it continues to grow with more and more of a reach, so there’s more demand for more ice cream,” Gifford said in an interview Wednesday. “The ice cream that’s being pushed just by natural, organic growth and word of mouth results in people demanding the ice cream and wanting it in their stores within New England and up and down the Eastern Seaboard.”

Gifford’s, which currently has 37 full-time employees, hopes to add at least two full-time workers by next summer as part of the expansion.

The company plans to hold a special “ice cream scooping” event Friday – instead of a more traditional groundbreaking – to officially mark the beginning of construction for a 3,810-square-foot addition and plant renovations. On hand for the ceremony will be two generations of the Gifford family, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and a representative from U.S. Sen. Angus King’s office.

“It’s kind of part of the visual surprise,” Betta Stothart at Ethos Marketing said of the “scooping” ceremony. “Let’s just say that they are going to be doing an unconventional take on a groundbreaking, which includes shovels and ice cream.”

Gifford’s ice cream is distributed to about 1,000 retail outlets throughout New England and as far south as northern Virginia and east to upstate New York and Indiana. The company says it sources its fresh milk and cream exclusively from independent family farms.

The business remains privately owned and is now operated by fifth-generation Gifford family members.

EMPHASIS ON PRODUCT QUALITY

“The quality of the product is the most important part,” JC Gifford said. “The fact that it’s a true ice cream still – it’s 14 percent butter fat – all we have is the quality of the product.”

Gifford’s produces 90 percent of the base products and “ripples and ribbons” used in its ice cream flavors. All of the ice cream is made using antique 1940s Cherry Burrell freezers to slow-churn the creamiest product possible.

The ice cream is produced in a historic yellow clapboard factory in Skowhegan. Gifford’s also operates five ice cream stands in Maine and makes more than 100 flavors of ice cream.

Among the company’s top-selling flavors are Old Fashioned Vanilla, World’s Best Chocolate, Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip Low Fat Frozen Yogurt, and its signature flavors inspired by Maine tradition: Moose Tracks and Muddy Boots.

ON A WIN STREAK IN FLAVOR CONTEST

Gifford said the company has been winning ice cream flavor awards for the past several years, including “grand champion” the past five years at the World Dairy Expo Championship. This year the winning flavors were Gifford’s vanilla and vanilla bean. In previous years the winning taste was Gifford’s chocolate ice cream.

In 2015, the company celebrated anniversaries at two ice cream stands in Maine. The Gifford’s stand in Waterville turned 25 and the one in Skowhegan turned 35.

Cory King, executive director of the Skowhegan Area Chamber of Commerce, said he hopes other local businesses take note of the investment Gifford’s is making and recognize the potential of Somerset County, and Skowhegan in particular.

“Some people say manufacturing is gone in America, and Skowhegan is proof that there are many great things still made by hand and created by knowledgeable, passionate people – this expansion represents all of that,” King said. “Gifford’s has been a huge part of the Skowhegan region for decades, and we are thrilled to share in their successes and celebrate the announcement of this new project with them.”

AT FIRST, DABBLING IN ICE CREAM

The Skowhegan factory dates to the 1930s, when it served as a holding station for local farm milk that was shipped to Boston. In 1974, the building was purchased by the Gifford family from Hunt’s Dairy and was run for many years as a milk company.

In 1980, continuing a longstanding family tradition, the Gifford family started making ice cream in a corner of the milk plant. Three years later, the Giffords sold the entire fluid milk business to Oakhurst Dairy and went solely into making premium ice cream.

The anticipated completion date for the expansion project is April 2016. The company is considering a second phase that would allow it to add a second state-of-the-art hardening system to the new space.

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