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Anderson Erickson Dairy

• Address: 2420 E University Ave, Des Moines, IA 50317, USA, United States Map
• Phone: +1-5152652521
• Tags: Family And Kids

You can take a tour of the Anderson Erickson Dairy. The main dairy plant is located in the beautiful location of Des Moines, USA. The dairy farm has been in the business from the year 1930. They offer high quality milk along with a vast range of other dairy products such as yogurt, cottage cheese, sour creams, dips of many kinds, flavoured milk, buttermilk, creams, ice cream mix and orange juice. You will be happy with the pleasing location of the plant as well. The plant authority keeps two large figurines of a cow and a calf who the local people find interesting. To experience what it takes to produce dairy products in large numbers, you must pay a visit to this place.

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How to Reach Anderson Erickson Dairy

• Bus 10 to stop : E University Ave / E 25th St. DSM
• Bus 17 to stop : Hubbell Ave / E 22 St. DSM

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• Anderson Erickson Dairy Address: 2420 E University Ave, Des Moines, IA 50317, USA, United States
• Anderson Erickson Dairy Contact Number: +1-5152652521
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Anderson Erickson Dairy Reviews & Ratings

Attractions Nearby

• Sky Zone Des Moines
• Dragoon Trail Chapter Of The Izaak Walton League Of America
• Walnut Creek Church - Altoona
• Adventure-life Church

When do you give tours and how large are your tour groups?

As far as I know, there are no actual tours conducted here. Their official website mentions only about the virtual tour. I think it would be better to call them directly on  1 515-265-2521 for updated information. 

• Des Moines Itinerary for 1 day
• Des Moines Itinerary for 2 days

AE Dairy: Celebrating 90 Years of Dairy Delights

December 9, 2020

By Ann Foster Thelen

Since 1930, Anderson Erickson Dairy has been making its signature, delicious dairy products right here in Iowa. Their milk comes from family farms in Iowa, and in less than 24 hours, the milk is transformed into fan-favorite products – cottage cheese, dips, chocolate milk and eggnog, a holiday season favorite. Milk, with nine essential nutrients that are necessary for good health, is a core ingredient in many lovable foods and recipes, during the holidays and throughout the entire year.

Miriam Erickson Brown is the CEO of Anderson Erickson Dairy in Des Moines. Photo courtesy of AE Dairy.

Miriam Erickson Brown, AE Dairy CEO, embraces her role as the guardian of the iconic dairy’s brand while building on the strong legacy of quality, excellence and product innovation. She recently spoke to a group of agricultural leaders and reflected on the company’s 90th anniversary, what it’s been like to lead a company during a global pandemic and how trends impact product development.

Let’s all toast – with a glass of ice-cold milk – to AE Dairy on this milestone of providing undeniably dairy goodness!

Please note, by clicking the following links, you’ll be leaving a partially funded checkoff site.

AE Dairy reached a significant milestone this year; how has the company evolved over the past 90 years?

Erickson Brown: Our goal has always been to help customers enjoy the goodness and the taste of dairy the AE way. It was the foundation of how the company was built, and it’s still true today. AE Dairy was founded in 1930 by my grandfather, Iver Erickson. AE Dairy survived during the depression at a time when there were over 150 other dairies with operating permits in just the greater Des Moines area.

Today, we’re a third-generation family dairy, with approximately 400 employees. We make 250 products, including milk, juices, three different lines of yogurts, cottage cheese, sour cream, dips, eggnog, ice cream mixes, and other items in our one plant on the east side of Des Moines. Consumers can find AE products across Iowa, along the borders of Illinois and Nebraska, south to Kansas City and north to just over the Minnesota border. We focus on excellence and the ultimate customer experience.

We have heard that when Iowans who have moved away come back to the state for visits, they often take a cooler full of AE products back home. What makes AE’s products so special?

Erickson Brown: We love hearing those stories! AE is a different kind of dairy. All our products are made with specially selected ingredients, such as European cocoas, real vanillas at two and three times the standard amounts, fresh cream and milk from Iowa family farms. The intentional way we make our products takes time, patience, expertise and flexibility. AE products are continually evaluated on taste and performance, consistency and overall appeal in our on-site laboratory and a weekly Thursday taste test with our management team and owners. We do countless things to ensure our products are hours fresh and just right for our customers’ enjoyment.

Go behind-the-scenes at AE Dairy’s Thursday taste test . Also, just in time for the holidays, try AE Dairy’s Egg Nog Trifle dessert.  

2020 has been a challenging year for nearly everyone. What are some of the specific challenges AE has faced this year?

Erickson Brown: We work every single day to guide AE to a place of strength and purpose. Like many others, we faced unknowns during the year. The pandemic closed down many customers overnight, while increasing grocery store sales restored milk purchases to a five-year high, all during the very first week of COVID closures.

Then we had the August derecho, which caused a power outage for about six hours, followed by a decreased power supply for the next 24 hours. When you deal with a fresh product like milk, that can present a significant problem, but I’m proud of how we managed it. Hurricane Laura blew through the south, leaving packaging and resin shortages for all of us to manage in its wake.

We have a just-in-time inventory, which means everything we make is fresh. Packaging products in advance isn’t an option for us unless it’s maybe a day or two with culture items like yogurts or sour cream. When the pandemic began, our finely tuned organized process came to a screeching halt overnight, and we dealt with unheard-of demands. I prayed for our employees’ safety so that they could continue to bring dairy products to families who were depending on us. They needed a constant. I wanted that to be us in our own small, little way.

Tell us more about how COVID-19 challenged your business.

Erickson Brown: In thinking about all the different ways that the coronavirus has impacted us at AE, I realize it’s also disrupted the personal way we like to do business. For example, we have a team of employees whose job is to hand out product samples in grocery stores. These are new flavors, seasonal products or customer favorites. When COVID-19 hit – almost immediately – grocers closed their salad bars, removed their self-serve bulk food items, and stopped allowing any in-store product sampling.

We introduced four wonderful and unique flavors of lactose-free yogurt in the untimely month of March. Unfortunately, without our sampling team, we could never get those off the ground and discontinued those products in early fall.

How does AE continue to stay relevant in a market that can often be crowded with trends and fads?

Erickson Brown: We are living in a time when there are major shifts in the way people view food, family, the environment, social responsibilities and the list goes on – all of which influence our consumers’ mindsets before they even buy a gallon of milk. The fact that three decades of scientific research supports dairy products’ role in overall health is reassuring to us at AE. Still, we spend a lot of time helping our customers understand the benefits of dairy and especially the benefits of real milk.

Flavor trends, consumer preferences, and purchase behavior are always changing. I call it the big tornado. Whole milk has overtaken 2% as the most popular white milk; 10 years ago, we would never have predicted this surge. Cottage cheese and eggnog are trendy products with millennials as compared to their parents. We are always working on new products and love to combine current trends with dairy. We have a long and successful history of product and flavor firsts in our industry. Dark Chocolate Milk, Milk Nog, Sea Salt and Pepper Cottage Cheese, and Mexican Hot Chocolate Yogurt are examples of ways we found current trends with dairy products.

AE Dairy product lines. Photo courtesy of AE Dairy.

How does AE ensure its customers have a wonderful experience with its products?

Erickson Brown: We are fortunate because Iowa’s farmers supply us with the best milk anywhere in the U.S. Hands down, they have access to the best quality feed, and their expertise is second to none. However, in producing dairy products, you can use the same formula every time, and there will always be slight differences in the way a product turns out. That’s why we depend so heavily on an employee’s experience, training and intuition while making and packaging our products. Making dairy products is part art and part science, and our employees embody the AE brand.

For example, we generally make cottage cheese the same way, yet the cooking and the culture and times always vary. Environmental factors, such as the weather, the age of the cultures, and even the room’s humidity, can cause slight differences in how the product develops. Our goal is always to address all these things before they reach customers. Our dedicated employees help us make that happen. We can’t run our business without the creativity, ingenuity and intelligence of committed employees who understand our purpose and are not satisfied with mediocrity.

If the process of creating, making, packaging and delivering dairy products becomes more important than our customer experience, then everything we do quickly becomes irrelevant.

Vintage Egg Nog carton, photo courtesy of AE Dairy.

Eggnog is a holiday favorite for many. What makes it so popular?

Erikson Brown: Millennials love eggnog, and we’ve seen the popularity growing. In the last three years, eggnog has been written about in the Wall Street Journal and national media. It’s one of those consumer behavior things that couldn’t necessarily be predicted, and you’re thankful when it comes your way. When it comes to eggnog, the most frequent question we receive is, "Are those eggs pasteurized?" Of course, I say, "Yes, they are; they have to be."

AE Dairy’s motto is ‘customer first’

Chairman Jim Erickson (seated) is the second-generation owner of Anderson Erickson Dairy, Des Moines, Iowa. President and CEO Miriam Erickson Brown, a daughter, stands behind him in the lobby of the corporate headquarters. Jim Erickson’s son, Warren (on the right) is chief operating officer and chief financial officer. Others on the executive team include (from left) Kim Peter (marketing), Steve Flattery (distribution), Bill Sharp (sales), Joel Abbott (human resources), Dave Horton (plant operations), Sean Thamas (cooler operations) and John Just (quality assurance).

AE Dairy makes plain and flavored milks and other milk-based beverages in a variety of formats including paper and plastic in sizes ranging from half-pints to gallons. Five-gallon bags are produced for foodservice customers.

Cultured dairy foods from Anderson Erickson Dairy include conventional and Greek-style yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream and dairy-based dips.

This is one way in which AE Dairy assures quality and a great customer experience: the weekly taste test. Every Thursday, a trained team of tasters samples every product made that week. Besides evaluating product on sensory criteria, the team examines the packaging. Clockwise, from left: Chairman Jim Erickson, COO/CFO Warren Erickson, President and CEO Miriam Erickson Brown, Director of Marketing Kim Peter, Sales Manager Bill Sharp, Human Resources Specialist Chad Van Hauen, Dairy Foods editor Jim Carper (visiting for the day), Cultured Products Manager Dave Sutton Jr., Plant Manager Dave Schrader, Quality Assurance Manager Erick Ude and Director of Quality Assurance John Just. All photos by Vito Palmisano

It is a well-known fact in the Midwest (and a source of amusement to some) that Iowa’s hog population is larger than its human population. But natives of the Hawkeye state take pride in their agricultural status. Despite the emphasis on pork, Iowa is a heavy-duty dairy state, ranking 12th in the nation in milk production (measured in pounds) in 2013.

According to the Food and Drug Administration’s Interstate Milk Shippers List, more than a dozen Grade A dairy processors operate plants in the state. They take advantage of the supply of high-quality milk and hard-working labor force. Three companies on the Dairy 100, our list of North America’s largest dairy processors, have their headquarters in Iowa: dairy co-op and cheesemaker Swiss Valley Farms (in Davenport); ice cream processor Wells Enterprises (LeMars) and Anderson Erickson Dairy (Des Moines). This last ranks No. 82 with revenues of $165 million in 2013, up from $162 million the previous year.

Iowa’s farming heritage has created a population that recognizes and values the nutrition and wholesomeness of dairy foods and beverages. From its one plant in Des Moines, ( see related )Anderson Erickson Dairy supplies Iowa and some neighboring states with milk and Grade A foods including cottage cheese, yogurt (conventional and Greek) and sour cream. It sources its milk from local farmers. Besides making its own branded products, the dairy co-packs for other customers.

Anderson Erickson, or AE as the company is known, got its start in Des Moines in 1930 when William Anderson and his friend Iver Erickson went into business together. In 1938, Erickson bought out Anderson’s share but kept his friend’s name on the door. At that time, 150 dairies supplied the capital city with milk. It was a simpler era. Home delivery route drivers entered their customers’ houses freely. Some even had house keys, said CEO Miriam Erickson Brown, a grand-daughter of the founder and a daughter of Chairman Jim Erickson. Miriam’s younger brother Warren is the chief operating officer and chief financial officer. They have a sister who is not involved in the business.

Today, AE Dairy stands alone, having outlasted all the other dairies that once supplied Des Moines. “We’re a survivor,” said Erickson Brown. “We give our heart and soul to the business.”

A customer-driven business

Many dairies are operations-driven, putting a priority on manufacturing efficiencies over product quality. That is not to say AE Dairy doesn’t care about efficiency. But the reason the third-generation family-owned business has survived for nearly 85 years is a single-minded focus on the consumer. She is the one who shops, buys, serves and (hopefully) repurchases the company’s dairy foods and beverages again and again.

It is common to hear CEOs of hospitality businesses (especially cruise ships or resort hotels) talk about “delighting the customer” but that phrase is not typically voiced by the head of a dairy business. But that’s the mission of Erickson Brown. She wants every consumer to have a great experience with AE Dairy products every time.

“When you have excellence as your standard, your work is never finished – things can always be improved,” Erickson Brown said. And to get to that level is “a ton of work,” she admitted. “We care really deeply about the brand experience.”

The focus on quality permeates every level of the company. By learning what AE Dairy is all about, employees all become brand ambassadors, Erickson Brown said. So when a route driver in a grocery store is stocking shelves, he can explain to a consumer how AE Dairy’s chocolate milk differs from competitors’ (for one, AE uses three kinds of European cocoa). Employees know how to share product stories, like AE Dairy’s emphasis on using premium ingredients (it sampled dozens of vanilla flavorings before selecting one for its Greek yogurts). Those flecks in the egg nog? Everyone in the dairy knows that’s real nutmeg.

Standards are “ridiculously high”

The company’s brand position is expressed as “Ridiculously High Standards.” The standards focus on both customers and consumers, as well as the foods and beverages themselves. Full service route drivers learn to anticipate a retailer’s need, delivering products before a store runs out. The AE sales team partners with their accounts and will stock shelves and help train dairy managers even if that is not part of the service agreement. When a consumer complained about finding Cheerios in a gallon of milk, an AE Dairy employee delivered a fresh jug to her house. (The consumer later explained that her husband was responsible for the cereal.)

Internally, employees follow their own set of standards. They use a scorecard to track a number of metrics including quality, safety and efficiency. There are weekly inspections of the manufacturing equipment, a review of general housekeeping practices and a check of product freshness. Currently, the goal is to have 98% of production meet the end-of-code date.

And then there is the weekly Thursday taste test. A team that includes members from the plant and from the executive office tastes everything that was made that week. They check the foods for taste, color, texture and consistency. Some panel members earned tasting certifications from Iowa State University. Erickson Brown said she learned the standards from 29 years of on-the-job tasting.

The taste test team also inspects packages for ease of opening and scrutinizes the printing of labels and cartons. Sometimes, especially if they are developing a new flavor or product, they test competitive products. AE Dairy benchmarks itself against the competition, which Erickson Brown said includes other dairies, foods and beverages including “milk imitators,” meaning almond and soy milks.

If something is amiss, AE Dairy takes a forensic approach to finding out what went wrong. They traced one deviation to standards to a new supplier of ink to the dairy’s packaging vendor. Another time the tasting panel saw that the yogurt did not meet the standards for pieces of blueberries. They traced that failure back to the supplier’s fruit shipment.

The ingredient selection process provides another insight into AE Dairy’s Ridiculously High Standards and quality focus. It can take months (in the best case) and years (in the worst) to bring a product to market. For its low-fat and nonfat Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie yogurt, AE Dairy strove to develop authentic flavors and deliver them in a proscribed order. It wanted the strawberry taste to come through first, followed by rhubarb and then the pie crust.

Strawberry-rhubarb pies are a favorite of Iowans. “If you don’t get it right, (consumers) know,” said Marketing Director Kim Peter.

When AE Dairy switched to stevia to sweeten one of its chocolate milk offerings, the team made sure that the taste was just right before releasing the product to the market. It reviewed dozens of vanillas for AE Greek yogurt before selecting one that was both bold and delicate. The dairy wanted the vanilla flavor to linger.

Challenges and allies

Although the Des Moines competition has changed (there are no longer 150 dairies as in Iver Erickson’s day), AE Dairy still has its share of challenges. Milk consumption isn’t what it used to be. And while the Des Moines population (about 570,000 in the metropolitan area) is expected to continue to grow, it is still a small market. Jim Erickson’s decision to serve Kansas City, Mo., three hours south on Interstate 35, was a good move. Its metro area population is 2.34 million, nearly four times that of Des Moines. For comparison, the total population of Iowa is just over 3 million.

Challenges to the dairy industry come from parties as diverse as health advocates and animal-rights activists who question the benefits of milk. Erickson Brown said she appreciates and leans on the marketing and research efforts of industry partners, including the Milk Processor Education Program, Dairy Management Inc., and the farmers who supply AE Dairy with milk (who can speak to animal-care issues, when they arise). MilkPEP and DMI spend thousands of dollars on research and advertising, resulting in consumer insights and awareness that is shared with the industry. Individual milk processors can leverage those results in their own marketing.

MilkPEP’s current ad campaign promotes the value of protein in the diet. “They don’t define our strategy, but they do give us a head start” Erickson Brown said. The protein message forms “a foundation” for AE Dairy’s marketing and makes it more “relevant,” she said. The company promotes the protein in milk, yogurt and cottage cheese on product packaging, at in-store demonstrations and on its website.

As much as AE Dairy talks to consumers (through traditional advertising, social media and events), it does as much listening to what the general public is saying. Today’s “MRI moms,” as Erickson Brown describes them, look deeply into products and question everything, from nutrition to sustainability to animal care.

“You have to be tuned in to the customers. When the conversation gets tricky [like animal welfare], we have to provide a response,” she said.

On the positive side, Iowa’s agricultural culture and values work in favor of dairy, Erickson Brown said. For example, the population favors milk over fast-selling plant-based alternatives like almond milk. Values like serving a sit-down meal bring family members together. Breakfast at home is a hospitable place for a gallon of milk.

Erickson Brown calls milk “a multitasker in nutrition” and points out that it tastes good and is economical. To show consumers that they can do more with milk than drink it, AE Dairy works with a recipe development company. The recipes, available on the dairy’s website, through social media channels, and at sampling events, show how to incorporate milk, yogurt, sour cream and other foods into salads, appetizers, main courses, desserts and baked goods.

The CEO is also the target market

Erickson Brown grew up at the dairy. Early jobs including answering phones and running the paper shredder, she joked. After graduating from Wheaton College in Illinois where she studied speech communications, she worked outside of the family business before joining it in 1985. She held a variety of positions and ran the Kansas City operation before being named chief executive officer in 2006. She said her father was “brave” to put her in charge for a couple of reasons. One, she is a family member. Second, there were few women who were CEOs of dairies. Even today, there are only four women in charge of dairy operations on the Dairy 100. An advantage to being the CEO is that she represents the target market for dairy products, she said.

As a smaller dairy, AE is “scrappy” Erickson Brown said, acknowledging the company’s lean management structure. Employees’ passion for dairy and their willingness to do a lot of tasks, regardless of job title, means even the CEO posts to Facebook.

Erickson Brown credits her father with growing the dairy started by his father and William Anderson. Her grandfather, who ended his formal education at the eighth grade, created the AE logo, styled after a cattle brand. The red color reflects his love of tulips. The company plants 40,000 new tulip bulbs every year outside its headquarters. The community is invited to dig them up and take them home after they’ve bloomed in the spring. The Keep Iowa Beautiful organization recognized AE Dairy in 2013 with a corporate award for excellence for “maintaining the attractiveness and beauty” of its headquarters.

Jim Erickson, who also graduated from Wheaton College, joined the dairy in 1958. He said his father insisted upon quality in every aspect of the dairy. He held everyone to the same standards in the operation. His principles were quality and customer service.

All the right moves

In the 1960s, Jim Erickson saw the potential in yogurt, then a niche product. He brought it out of health food stores and into the mainstream, his daughter said, by changing the formula to make it milder and less tart.

Erickson modernized the operation with new equipment and packages. He converted the plant from vat pasteurizers to faster and higher-capacity high temperature/short time processors. Erickson worked with professors at Iowa State University to develop product standards.

Capital investment continues today. A new mix-proof valve cluster in the plant might not sound as sexy as the newest flavor of Greek yogurt, but it allows for flexibility in manufacturing, said Warren Erickson. For example, the company can process a short run of one flavored milk then quickly process a different flavor without shutting down the entire line for cleaning.

AE Dairy manufactures a full range of Grade A beverages and foods, including white and flavored milk, ice cream mix (packaged for retail sale and for commercial use), 50 flavors of Greek and conventional yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream and dips. The company looks for flavor inspiration everywhere. An apricot-raspberry combination for yogurt came about after a visit to a farmers’ market, Erickson Brown said. A bath-and-body store is a seemingly unlikely place to inspire a food company. But Erickson Brown said the company’s pear-flavored yogurt was developed after she saw a sparkling pear body gel.

Customers include supermarkets, convenience stores, schools, institutional foodservice accounts (including soft-serve ice cream stores) and private label accounts. A fleet of 179 company-owned trucks serve 150 routes. An automotive shop on the 22-acre campus maintains 406 pieces of equipment.

Involved in the dairy industry

The success of a trade association depends in large part on the support of its members. Anderson Erickson Dairy is a long-time member of the International Dairy Foods Association and executives volunteer to serve on its committees. Miriam Erickson Brown serves on the board of IDFA’s Milk Industry Foundation and is its former chair. She and her father have received IDFA’s Soaring Eagle awards which recognize those who have provided exemplary leadership to the association.

The dairy industry benefits from IDFA’s educational and lobbying efforts. Erickson Brown cites the work IDFA has done on Capitol Hill, including its recent advocacy for clear and sensible labeling of foods and beverages and 2014’s farm bill.

AE Dairy also finds value in two other dairy-related organizations: the Milk Processor Education Program (Erickson Brown is an at-large member of the board and chairs the Breakfast at Home; and Branding committees) as well as the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, a unit of Dairy Management Inc. She is the past chair of the health and wellness committee of the Innovation Center, funded by the dairy producer check-off program. The insights about dairy nutrition that she gleaned from chairing these committees have helped to form AE Dairy’s marketing messages.

Deep roots in the community

Anderson Erickson Dairy is deeply involved in the Des Moines and Kansas City communities and in towns throughout Iowa. It reviews every request for product donations and rarely says no, Peter said. The dairy especially favors family-friendly groups that request support and tries to match products to the event (for example, giving chocolate milk, a refuel beverage, to road races). Peter said the donation program is more important to the company than couponing because it forms a relationship with the community.

AE Dairy supports numerous runs and walks. A favorite is Kansas City’s Trolley Run (a four-mile race) that raises funds for the Children’s Center for the Visually Impaired. In Des Moines, the dairy has adopted Brubaker Elementary School. The dairy has funded computers at the school, and employees volunteer to read to students there. Fifth-graders visit the company every week to learn about dairy foods and nutrition.

The Ericksons are active on numerous community boards including the Better Business Bureau, the Des Moines International Airport, Goodwill Industries of Central Iowa, the Governor’s Business Advisory Council, the Iowa Prayer Breakfast, Keep Iowa Beautiful, Partnership for A Drug Free Iowa, and Youth Homes of Mid America (a shelter for homeless boys).

A constant: consumers are the future

Jim Erickson has a collection of vintage quart glass milk bottles and he recalls the days when the company used to pack cottage cheese in glass jars. Family movies shot in the 1930s and 1940s depict a simpler time, showing delivery men hopping off their trucks and running into customers’ homes and navigating Iowa’s country roads during a particularly snowy winter.

Today, the trucks are fueled by bio-diesel and are covered in fleet graphics proclaiming the dairy’s “Ridiculously High Standards.” Erickson Brown said the company is always “dreaming, looking to the future” and “driving to the next thing.” A dozen products are in development, including new concepts and flavor extensions, although Erickson Brown wasn’t willing to discuss specifics.

Respecting the individual and communicating one-on-one is a value of both the Erickson family and AE Dairy. Personal letters and phone calls to consumers are authentic, which is especially important today when the public is wary and weary of marketing hype from companies saying one thing and doing another.

AE Dairy stays connected to the customer through every network available because it is not just nice to know what consumers are thinking, it is vital.

  “If you don’t know what’s important to them, you won’t be around for long,” Erickson Brown said. She added that “you get a lot of love back” by communicating directly with the customer. That love is repaid, as shown in AE Dairy’s increasing sales and consumer loyalty. Iowans love their local dairy. 

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Jim Carper is the former editor-in-chief of Dairy Foods .

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Anderson Erickson Dairy

I was also taken on a tour through the entire facility, seeing start to finish of how the dairy creates each product.  If you’ve ever watched How It’s Made you would be just as fascinated as I was. The first step is attaining raw milk.  AE does not own the actual farms and milking cows, they purchase the raw milk from Iowa farmers.  Miriam explained that this separation is actually very important because each container of raw milk that comes in is tested before it is unloaded and if it doesn’t meet all the AE standards it is rejected.  AE’s slogan is “ridiculously high standards” and it’s not just a figure of speech, at AE they test at every level of production to make sure their products are the highest quality they can possibly be.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of AE Dairy via Burst Media. The opinions and text are all mine.

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4 photos: Anderson Erickson Dairy over the years

PODCAST: To the Bar with Cocktail Expert Anders Erickson

By Door County Pulse , November 1st, 2023

Anders Erickson got his start behind the bar at the late, great T. Ashwell’s in Ellison Bay. Twenty years later he has turned his cocktail skills into a thriving cocktail channel on YouTube where he has nearly 500,000 subscribers and his cocktail recipe videos garner millions of views. He joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about his journey and how the channel has grown.

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Matthew Anderson wins 69th ECP Brazil Open

Matthew Anderson used a final-round 69 to capture a one-stroke victory at the 69th ECP Brazil Open. (Gregory Villalobos/PGA TOUR)

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Matthew Anderson carded his third consecutive sub-70 round to win the 69th ECP Brazil Open at the Rio Olympic Golf Course. Anderson was one shot off the lead after 16 holes but rallied to make back-to-back birdies on Nos. 17 and 18 to secure his maiden victory as a professional.

Anderson’s breakthrough win comes after T21 and T3 finishes at the season-opening Bupa Championship at Tulum and the Totalplay Championship at Atlas Country Club. Anderson’s victory vaults him into the No. 1 spot in the Fortinet Cup season-long ranking through three tournaments.

The Mississauga, Ontario native is the first Canadian to win on PGA TOUR Americas and has registered six top-25s since he turned pro last summer. Anderson found success early in his career by winning the 2019 Ontario Men’s Amateur Championship. He was selected for the Golf Canada team in 2021-22 and has been part of the team since.

Prior to turning pro, Anderson came off an impressive finish in his graduate season at the University of San Francisco, earning All-American honors after notching a top-15 finish at the 2023 NCAA Championships. From there, Anderson gained status on PGA TOUR Canada via a fourth-place finish at the PGA TOUR Canada Qualifying Tournament. He finished 50th in the 2023 Fortinet Cup standings to gain membership into the inaugural PGA TOUR Americas season.

Anderson is expected to be in the field at the Diners Club Peru Open, the fourth event of the Latin America Swing, which will be hosted at Los Inkas Golf Club from April 25-28 in Lima, Peru.

About Matthew Anderson (winner/16-under)

Age: 24 Birthplace: Mississauga, Ontario Residence: Phoenix, Arizona College: University of San Francisco Fortinet Cup: First

• Credits his dad for introducing him to golf at a young age, saying that he picked up the game when he was two and started hitting balls in his grandmother’s living room.
• Played his first round on an official golf course at the age of four and played in his first tournament at eight.
• Finished 11 th and earned All-American honors at the 2023 NCAA Championships.
• Travels with friend and fellow PGA TOUR Americas member Johnny Travale during tournament weeks.
• Played hockey for 12 years, shoots the puck left-handed but plays golf right-handed.
• Always carries four tees and his lucky Tito’s ball marker in his pocket when he’s playing.
• Favorite sports team is the Toronto Maple Leafs, favorite athlete is Kobe Bryant.
• Favorite musical artist is Drake, favorite song is “Butterfly Effect” by Travis Scott.

Competition Notes

Course Setup: Par 71/7,162 yards; Cumulative average: 70.380 Weather: Sunny with a high of 80. Wind from the east at 3-8 mph with gusts up to 16 mph.

• Jonathan De Los Reyes set the course record at the Rio Olympic Golf Course after carding a 10-under 61 in the second round of the 69th ECP Brazil Open. De Los Reyes finished T6.
• Holes 12 and 13 were the most challenging holes at Rio Olympic Golf Course; averaging a +.340. Over the course of the weekend, only 45 birdies were made compared to 184 bogeys across the two holes.
• Hole 5 was the lowest scoring hole at the Rio Olympic Golf Course, with a -0.510 scoring average and 166 birdies and 21 eagles carded.
• Anderson is the second player to earn his first professional win on PGA TOUR Americas: Clay Feagler earned his first professional win at the season-opening Bupa Championship at Tulum.
• Rodrigo Lee finished as the low Brazilian after finishing T8 (11-under). Lee is expected to make his second start of the season at the Diners Club Peru Open, and is in the field as an unrestricted sponsor exemption.
• 60 players made the cut at 3-under or better.
• Ivan Camilo Ramirez (T56/1-under) became the first Colombian to make a start and make the cut in a PGA TOUR Americas event.

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The Anderson Erickson Dairy leadership team does things differently. We don’t have to be as invested as we are, but it’s part of our commitment to consistent quality and innovation. We’re passionate about our dairy products, and from weekly taste-testing to brainstorming new flavors, we’re involved at every step. From all of us, thanks for making AE Dairy a daily guest in your fridge.

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Years with ae: 26 years, human resources, years with ae: 4 years.

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