Wells Enterprises - History

History

Fred H. Wells opened a milk route in 1913 in Le Mars after purchasing for $250: a horse, delivery wagon, a few cans and jars, from local dairy farmer Ray Bowers.

Around 1925, Wells and his sons began manufacturing ice cream and selling it in neighboring Iowa towns: Remsen, Alton and Sioux City. In 1928 Fairmont Ice Cream purchased the ice cream distribution system in Sioux City along with the right to use the Wells name.

In 1935, the Wells family decided to sell ice cream in Sioux City again. Unable to sell their product under their own name "Wells", they decided to hold a “Name That Ice Cream” contest in the Sioux City Journal. A Sioux City man won the $25 cash prize for the winning entry of “Blue Bunny” after noticing how much his son enjoyed the blue bunnies in a department store window at Easter.

After Fred H. Wells, Jr. died in 1954, his sons, Harold, Mike, Roy and Fay, and their cousin Fred D. Wells, son of Harry Cole Wells, ran the family business as a partnership. Meanwhile, new facilities were added in the postwar period. For example, the main part of what the company, the North Plant, was built in Le Mars in the 1950s for the manufacture of ice cream products. In 1963, the company constructed its Milk Plant. The family retained ownership and management of the business after it was incorporated under Iowa law in 1977 as Wells' Dairy, Inc.

The newly incorporated business expanded in the 1980s, a decade marked by phenomenal growth of the American economy and the addition of millions of new jobs. New corporate offices were added in 1980, and Wells built new facilities for its growing fleet of trucks used to deliver milk around Iowa. In 1983, Wells purchased an Omaha plant and after being remodeled, it processed milk, yogurt and fruit juice.

In the mid-1980s the firm's North Plant in Le Mars was enlarged through the purchase of five adjacent lots. New production lines, a mix department, and a high-rise freezer helped the company double the North Plant's capability. After completion, the expanded plant covered the equivalent of one city block, with the first floor taking up 109,000 square feet (10,100 m2) and its second floor comprising 44,000 square feet (4,100 m2). The ice cream remained largely a regional brand until 1992 when it began an aggressive program to expand nationally. The centerpiece of the expansion is a 900,000-square-foot (84,000 m2) plant, which in addition to manufacturing includes a 12-story-tall freezer. The plant is referred to as the “South Ice Cream Plant” because of its physical location on the south side of Le Mars. Operating two ice cream plants in Le Mars, Wells is the world’s largest manufacturer of ice cream in one location (which in turn has prompted Le Mars to claim the title of “Ice Cream Capital of the World”). In 2003, an ice cream plant in St. George, Utah was opened to better meet the west coast market.

In November 2007, Mike Wells was named CEO of Wells.

In 2009, at a time when many ice cream companies (the majority being Dreyer's, owned by Nestlé) cut down the ingredients to ingredients that caused the marketing to "frozen dairy dessert", Wells' Dairy started putting a seal that says "Real Ice Cream" on all Blue Bunny products.