Penn State's new University Creamery, occupying the first and a portion of the second floor of the new Food Science Building, offers new products as well as advanced new equipment that manufactures more product in a shorter period of time.

This year milk and tea are available in gallon sizes and green tea is available, Assistant Manager of the University Creamery James Brown said.

Milk and tea are now packaged in plastic containers as opposed to paper-like containers used in the past. The new containers improve upon the old ones because they allow students to see the beverage they contain and also because they are recyclable, Brown said.

Half-gallons of ice cream are repackaged as well. In much the same way as Wendy's sells "soquids"--the Frosty, which is both a solid and a liquid--the Creamery now sells "scrounds," a new ice cream container which is both square and round, Brown said. The scrounds, featuring pop-off lids, are cleaner than the leaky, paper-like containers used in the past.

The new production equipment churns out creamery confections more quickly than the equipment used in the past and is less prone to breakdowns, Brown said.

More cooler and freezer space in the new Creamery means that there is no worrying about where to put all the confections, something that was a problem in the old Creamery.

The old Creamery's milk packaging equipment has been replaced by two new machines that are faster at filling and capping the new plastic containers, said Thomas Palchak, Manager of the University Creamery.

The machines were built in America's Dairyland, Wisconsin, and are comparable to what is commonly used in the dairy industry.

Palchak said he is having a proverbial cow over the advanced new production equipment. "It is absolutely spectacular," he said.

New Creamery curiosities include a cold dock and a self-leveling dock, Brown said. The cold dock is basically a refrigerated waiting room for products as they are moved between the Creamery's coolers and freezers and refrigerated trucks. The self-leveling dock is able to raise and lower itself or a truck to match up with each other, Brown said.

Students wanting to check out the new Creamery can attend the dedication of the new Food Science Building that will be held the morning of Sept. 29. There will be a ribbon cutting and tours, Director of the Food Sciences Building Robert Lumley-Sapanski said.