The oldest manufacturer in Searcy, Arkansas,
Yarnell’s Ice Cream Company has a distinguished history.
In 1932, Ray Yarnell, 36, bought Dairyland, financing it with his personal nest-egg plus money borrowed from relatives and business associates. Ray and his wife, Hallie, and their son, Albert, walked in the teeth of the Great Depression to establish Yarnell’s Ice Cream Company in Searcy, then a town with a population of about 3,000. Ray has been described as a "dynamic salesman;" he needed to be as he was selling a luxury product when a nickel would buy a pound of salt pork.
In addition to Ray, his wife, Hallie, and their nine-year old son, Albert, were among the 13 or so employees that ran the operations. Deliveries were made in four small delivery trucks. Albert pitched in after school and during the summers doing odd jobs such as stacking salt and making deliveries on his bicycle. He recalls carrying letters to other businesses to save the two cents postage.
Yarnell’s first routes ran from Searcy South to Cabot and Lonoke, East to Forest City, Northwest to Heber Springs and Batesville, and North to Newport, Tuckerman, and Walnut Ridge. The delivery trucks were refrigerated with ice and salt, the same as homemade ice cream is made in the hand freezer today. Ice cream was made in a 10-gallon batch freezer, using ammonia to freeze the ice cream.
Most of the ice cream produced at that time was put into five-gallon metal cans and sold mainly to drug stores where an ice cream soda or an ice cream sundae was a special treat. Yet the company was also making ice cream sandwiches by hand, slicing the ice cream and placing cookies on top and bottom.
The company’s first electrically refrigerated truck was purchased in 1938, capable of holding 650 gallons of ice cream. Today, modern diesel powered refrigerated delivery trucks deliver products throughout Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. By 1941, plant capacity was at 800 gallons per day — thanks to a new continuous ice cream freezer — and employment had risen to 24 people including Mr. Ray and Albert.
Following military service in World War II and a college education in dairy science, Albert returned to the plant in 1948 to work as a sales manager. At that time, there were 48 to 50 ice cream companies in the state. He recalls that every one of the companies operated in a close geographical area. By then, ice cream parlors were declining and ice cream was becoming a take-home product purchased in grocery stores. Albert accepted the challenge as an opportunity and implemented an incentive program for salesmen.
Under Mr. Ray and Albert’s leadership, Yarnell’s met the industry changes. In 1951, the company took an aggressive step by completing a major expansion that included new offices and a mix-making facility as well as enlargement of sales territory deeper into central and southern Arkansas.
Also in 1951, Weingarten stores and several bakeries allowed Yarnell’s into the Little Rock market, an important step in the company history. In 1970, Yarnell’s passed the magical million-dollar sales mark. But four years later, the company lost its founder when Mr. Ray died at the age of 78. Albert succeeded him as president.
The following year, Albert’s oldest son, Rogers, at the age of 25, left a military career to join the family operation. He joined the company on a full-time basis in 1975.
Rogers brought with him an aggressive sales spirit and a highly-disciplined work ethic that in time would additionally strengthen the Yarnell’s legend. He became president and Albert chairman in 1984. This unique father-son combination has propelled Yarnell’s to the forefront among regional ice cream companies.
The largest expansion program in the history of Yarnell’s was completed in January 1995. This doubled Yarnell’s production capabilities. The expansion included the addition of a state of the art warehousing and hardening system and a high-rise cold storage facility as well as a computer controlled mix-processing system.
With the 1997 acquisition of White Dairy in Fort Smith by Hiland Dairy, Yarnell’s became the last Arkansas-based ice cream company. In 2001, the company completed another major expansion allowing the plant to operate at a 16-million gallon capacity.
Today, three Yarnell family members maintain offices at the headquarters — Albert Yarnell continues to serve as Chairman Emeritus and Rogers Yarnell is the company’s Chairman. The fourth generation, Christina Yarnell, is now involved in their still privately-owned company on a full-time basis as Chief Executive Officer.