n TASTE
NEW RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
After a change in ownership, contract manufacturer Mad Will’s is cooking again
BY Allen Pierleoni PHOTOS: Debbie Cunningham
A
Mad Will’s cooks, bottles and labels
products onsite that its customers
then distribute and sell as their own
house-branded products.
34
comstocksmag.com | June 2019
mid the clatter of machinery and the
beeping of forklifts, workers wearing
white hair nets tend their stations
around the assembly line in the ware-
house-like production kitchen of Mad
Will’s Food Company on the outskirts
of Auburn.
Steam rises from 150-gallon kettles
as metal blades churn batches of fragrant
apricot-ginger-teriyaki glaze, which is soon
pumped through stainless-steel pipes into
a holding tank. From there, it’s injected into
bottles that move on a conveyor belt to the
capping and labeling stations. The bottles
are quickly handpacked a dozen to a box for
shipment to a farmstand in Georgia, one of
hundreds of Mad Will’s customers around
the United States.
Now it’s time to clean the equipment
and cook the ingredients for the next run,
a batch of barbecue sauce destined for the
gift store at legendary Harris Ranch Inn &
Restaurant in Coalinga.
“We can make up to 30,000 pounds of
[product] a week at peak production,” says
Tuck Caruthers, Mad Will’s director of op-
erations, raising his voice over the racket.
“More than 80 percent of the produce we
use is grown in California.”
In the world of food production,
Mad Will’s is what’s known as a contract
manufacturer. The company specializes
in housemade-quality condiments —
sauces, vinaigrettes, mustards, marinades,
fruit toppings and the like — that it cooks,
bottles and labels onsite. Its customers are
food entrepreneurs who want to distribute
and sell their own house-branded
products, and they turn to Mad Will’s
for the know-how.