The Balford Farms FAQ
Q: What is a FAQ?
A: FAQ is an abbreviation for Frequently Asked Questions.
You'll find FAQ's on different subjects all over the internet.
Q: Where did the name, Balford Farms come from?
A: Baldwin Dairies merged with Frankford Dairies in 1964,
becoming Baldwin Frankford Dairies. In 1971, we changed the name to an easier said
contraction, Balford Farms, incorporating portions of the names BALdwin, FrankFORD, and
FARMS, from a sister dairy, Gardenville Farms (We maintain another page with a condensed
history of our company).
Q: How do you pronounce Balford?
A: Although the "Bal" in Baldwin was pronounced like "BALL",
the "Bal" in Balford is pronounced as in "BALANCE". It simply sounds better.
Q: Why don't you have pictures of your cows on your WEB page?
A: We don't have any of our own cows, but if we did, we
probably wouldn't show any pictures because cows are naked and we avoid nudity on the
World Wide Web.
Q: Where is your farm?
A: We get EMail all the time from agriculture students and
others all over the world asking us about our cows and our farm. We didn't mean to deceive
anyone, but there simply isn't any farm. Balford Farms is merely a trade name for the
distribution business of MIMCO. Because we are delivering food, primarily dairy, we thought
"Farms" would do more justice than if we called the company Balford NoFarmOrCows.
Q: You don't have cows, you don't have a farm, do you
even have a dairy?
A: Ahhhhhhhh, no again. However, back in the days when
we were Baldwin Dairies, we did! The building was located in the heart of the
Frankford Section of Philadelphia. It was at the corner of Foulkrod and Duffield Streets.
Besides a milk processing facility, it included offices, garages, and even a stable dating back
to the horse and wagon era of the company. We gave up our own production plant so we could
concentrate on customer service and diversify into other product lines.
Q: Where did the name MIMCO come from?
A: MIMCO stands for Milk Industry Management Corporation. It
was intended to be a consulting firm for dairies. Through a child corporation PSI, or
Profit Systems Incorporated, data processing and other services were to be offered to dairies.
Unfortunately, the dairy industry was in a rapid transition and there just wasn't much need
for a service oriented firm.
Q: Then who does your data processing?
A: Our Information Systems Department is one of our greatest
assets. We operate our own proprietary I.S. Center with modern mainframe and PC computers.
All programming right down to our WEB pages are created by our own staff.
Q: What HTML editor do you use for your WEB creations?
A: Believe it or not, all we use is the Windows Notepad. We
tried one of the first generation compilers created for Word for Windows, but it didn't provide
the flexibility that a "down and dirty" editor does.
Q: How big is Balford Farms?
A: Presently, we operate in excess of 60 routes which includes special
delivery, tractor/trailer and a division devoted to the Philadelphia School District. We do that
throughout six states. We also load trucks for privately owned distributors. We are about
160 people strong at four locations.
Q: I see your trucks all the time. Is it because there's
so many of them?
Q: Will you deliver milk to my home?
Q: I've never seen any products that indicate they're from Balford Farms?
Q: What about that "Little Man that serves the Best". Where'd
that logo and expression come from?
Q: I love your 800 phone number! (800-WOW-COW1) Where'd that
come from?
Q: What is an EmotIcon?
/ee-moh'ti-kon/ /n./ An ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in email or news.
Although originally intended mostly as jokes, emoticons (or some other explicit humor indication)
are virtually required under certain circumstances in high-volume text-only communication forums
such as Usenet; the lack of verbal and visual cues can otherwise cause what were intended to be
humorous, sarcastic, ironic, or otherwise non-100%-serious comments to be badly misinterpreted
(not always even by newbies), resulting in arguments and flame wars.
Hundreds of emoticons have been proposed, but only a few are in common use. These include:
(These may become more comprehensible if you tilt your head sideways, to the left.)
:-) `smiley face' (for humor, laughter, friendliness, occasionally sarcasm)
It appears that the emoticon was invented by one Scott Fahlman on the CMU bboard systems
around 1980. He later wrote: "I wish I had saved the original post, or at least recorded the
date for posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting something that would soon pollute
all the world's communication channels." [GLS confirms that he remembers this original posting].
Q: I don't see ice cream in your catalog?
Q: Can I buy stock in your company?
Q: Why don't you offer on-line ordering?
Q: Does chocolate milk really come from brown cows?
A: People say they see our trucks, all the time. Having
more than 50 routes certainly increases the odds, but we think it's a matter of
those maroon stripes, considering that's what people tell us they remember, most often. The maroon vertical stripes are carried down from one of the dairies that formed us. When we merged with Gardenville Farms, their trucks had the same vertical stripes but they were powder blue.
They were a design by the President of Gardenville (later Chairman of MIMCO), George
Baldwin, Sr. The January 30, 1970 Intelligencer reads "New! Blue And White Color Scheme. All
our trucks will be painted an outstanding blue and white color". Apparently, red and white is
just as outstanding! Incidentally, our motto, "You Will Be Happy Because We Care", was the
result of a brainstorming session between brothers George and Edgar Baldwin during the Gardenville
years.
A: No, we ceased home delivery many years ago. Although
there are a few dairies who still perform "retail" delivery, the related costs are prohibitive.
Not to mention that in our area of distribution, a saturation of grocery and convienance stores
invalidates most reasons for home delivery.
A: For the most part, you probably won't. There are a few
products which are "branded" Balford Farms. The most likely item you may see are coffee creamers.
And, if you start looking at creamers, you may be surprised just how often you see the
"Little Man". Recently we branded continental chip butter, so you can look for that in quality establishements. Other items such as sour cream in bulk containers, you won't see unless you work
in a kitchen. Still, other items which are formulated by us, are sold under other names and
we wouldn't want to spoil the fun of what those items are.
A: Cute, isn't he. We're still researching that one, but
his origin will probably remain in the mind of one of the deceased founders of our company.
All we can say at this point is that he has been an icon at least since the 40's (of course the
term "icon" was not used back then). Also we know that he has worn out at least one uniform. In
the 70's he was given a new look with a more modern uniform. One of the most unique uses of him
was in the 60's when we had four Ford "Econoline" vans with larger than life, 7 foot,
cutouts of him, on each side of each van. The vans were used by the retail solicitors.
A: That is an easy one. When we were looking for a catchy
800 number in the mid 90's, then President, John F. Baldwin, created it. It got a great review
shortly after we began painting it on our trucks when local Philadelphia Radio D.J., Ken Garland of WPEN, made several comments about it on his morning show.
A: Although, not specific to Balford Farms, EmotIcon's
are ICON's for expressing EMOTion.
:-( `frowney face' (for sadness, anger, or upset)
;-) `half-smiley' (ha ha only serious); also known as `semi-smiley' or `winkey face'.
:-/ `wry face'
]=8) 'smiley cow'
(It's a Cow EmotIcon)
A: Been there, done that. Several years ago, we were a large
ice cream distributor, having more than a football field of low temperature storage. We
had contracts with three major grocery chains to order, store and deliver their ice cream, along
with our own customers in the Philadelphia and Scranton areas of PA. We didn't enjoy trying
operate both medium and low temp operations though and were afraid we would not be able to
maintain the customer service we strive for, so we eliminated the operations and leased our
freezers to a major ice cream distributor. I'll bet you'd be surprised to hear we were also in
the fish processing business too! That's right, we were partners with Cape May New Jersey to
process and distribute fresh seafood. It was the first Grade 'A' government inspected seafood
plant in the world. Unfortunately it met with a disastrous fire and we decided not to reenter
that market.
A: No, we are a privately held. However, several
years ago we became an ESOP which means that all employees not belonging to collective
bargaining agreements are given shares of our company.
A: This question is probably the most frequent, and the
answer is; WE DO! Our own proprietary PC ordering system called RBOE (pronounced like ROBO in robotics). RBOE stands for Remote Balford Order Entry and when installed on a clients PC, allows downloading of our product database. Customers then create orders off-line at their convenience and in one quick transmission upload their orders directly into
our mainframe computer.
A: How Now ... did that story ever get started? No,
chocolate milk is made by adding flavoring to milk from a white cow.
