MOLINE, Ill. — On the hottest days of the year, there's no cooler job in town than stocking the giant freezer at Whitey's Ice Cream!
At the company's manufacturing plant in Moline, thousands of cartons of ice cream are kept in the cool compartment. It takes less than a minute to whisk the sweet treats from the line to the freezer, where temperatures are kept at -20 degrees all year long.
"It's gotta sit in here for at least 24 hours before we'll ship it out to our stores," said Mark Cutkomp, co-plant manager.
But don't try grabbing a scoop from these batches! After hours in the deep freeze, they're solid as a rock.
"You'd probably break the scooper," Cutkomp laughed.
For the workers who stock the chilly containers, even the blazing summer heat can't help them in here!
It takes full winter coats, hats, hoods, gloves, boots, freezer socks and hand warmers to handle a shift in the freezer. And even then, employees only work for twenty to thirty minutes at a time before stepping back outside and warming up again.
"The key is plenty of breaks, right," Cutkomp smiled. "Get out and warm up and then come back and do it all over again!"
But if you catch Cutkomp working in the freezer, you might think you're seeing double. The other co-plant manager is his identical twin brother: Mike.
"We've been doing it for 25 years," he said. "And I would rather be in here than outside! This is still way better!"
Typically, workers rotate who's on freezer duty by day.
Once inside, you not only have to battle the frigid temperatures, but icy, slippery floors as well.
"I'm not gonna lie, I've fell in here a couple of times. But that's pretty normal," laughed plant worker Quincy Houston. "I waddle! I try to waddle!"
At the back of the freezer is the coldest section, where fans blow directly into workers' faces, creating wind chills plunging to nearly -50 degrees.
Despite being shielded from the sun, the workers still schedule their shifts around it.
Work is primarily done during the early morning, to avoid frequently opening the doors and straining the system at the sun's hottest, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. During a heatwave, the compressors that keep everything cool are carefully monitored, thanks to all the added stress.
Inside, it takes forklifts and manual lifting to shuffle all the sweet treats around the freezer. Although even the equipment needs the occasional respite! Pallet jacks and forklifts have to be taken outside during warm-up breaks, otherwise they'll freeze up and won't work.
The Cutkomps and Houston said they've all gotten used to the cold and aren't bothered by it anymore. In fact, they say they'd much rather work in the bitter conditions than stand under the blazing sun.
"It's funny when you go outside in the summertime and you're wearing your winter coat and people are driving by! But no, I'd rather be in here," said Mike Cutkomp. "I would not want to be doing road work right now, outside in that temperature! Would not want to do it."
Houston had to agree.
"It's so hot out there, and you just come in here it's like this is a breath of fresh air," he said. "On like a 90 degree day or a 100 degree day, you know, it just feels good to get in here."
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