Thanks to Dr. Babcock’s revolutionary developments in dairy science, Babcock Dairy, an inspected and licensed dairy plant, not only produces high-quality, delicious dairy foods, it principally serves as a world-class research and educational facility. We achieve our objective by:

Teaching: The Babcock Dairy Plant provides hands-on operational education, experience, and research to provide industry-leading concepts and methods for making ice cream, cheese, and pasteurized milk, equipping UW students and faculty and food industry professionals with cutting-edge knowledge and techniques that provide a competitive advantage in today’s fast-paced food-science environment.

Research: Through the dairy plant’s partnership with UW–Madison’s renowned UW Department of Food Science and the Center for Dairy Research—one of the premier dairy research centers in the world, food science students, faculty, and industry professionals are able to create, conduct, and implement research to pioneer methods of producing and using dairy ingredients. This research leads to higher quality and innovative products, as well as valuable knowledge for the food and dairy industries.

Hands-on Experience: UW Food Science students and faculty learn through application with the experience they receive in the Babcock Dairy Plant. In addition, we provide international food processing industry researchers with the facilities and expertise required to create healthy, high-quality, cost-effective products.

As an educational, university-sanctioned business, our goal is not profit-driven. Rather, our goal is to give students the best firsthand experience backed by our exceptional dairy research. Any revenue that is generated offsets the dairy plant’s and store’s cost, and filters back to give its students an abundance of learning opportunities. Currently, our annual revenues and costs are around $2 million, which includes both the plant and the store. We have been successfully covering our costs with revenues for the past 30 years.