You know ice cream is good when it lasts.
Of course, ice cream itself melts, but the Blue Bunny brand has been around for more than 80 years.
Now a household name, Blue Bunny is known for its playful persona and delicious flavors. Blue Bunny is the largest privately held, family-owned ice cream manufacturer in the United States.
Known for innovation, quality, (yum), and large-scale production, Blue Bunny is headquartered in Le Mars, Iowa, (i.e., the Ice Cream Capital of the World) and also operates a high-output factory in Dunkirk, New York.
This location runs 24/7, powered by dedicated workers covering three shifts. It’s a fast-moving, precision-driven environment where safety, speed and communication are non-negotiable.
When manufacturing more than 500 ice cream flavors and frozen novelty products, you can imagine the critical role of clear communication. At the Dunkirk Blue Bunny factory alone, there are more than 400 employees working together, with planned expansions to come.
Blue Bunny’s goal was clear: bring every employee in the Dunkirk facility to a basic functional level of English for safety and efficiency.
The continual breakdowns in communication were hurting productivity and increasing the potential for injury. Workers didn’t understand instructions. Feedback wasn’t being received clearly.
This wasn’t about upskilling just a few individuals.
Blue Bunny came to Fluency Corp to raise the baseline.
- Quickly grasp safety rules
- Confidently ask for help when needed
- Easily follow instructions
- Be part of a seamless team with no communication gaps
Widespread lack of English skills across all shifts made it difficult to ensure safe machine operation and adherence to procedures.
High safety risks due to miscommunications around equipment use and factory protocols.
Shift-based scheduling complexity, requiring language training across all three shifts – day, swing, and overnight.
Urgent need for uniform communication standards to avoid production slowdowns and errors.
Widespread lack of English skills across all shifts made it difficult to ensure safe machine operation and adherence to procedures.
High safety risks due to miscommunications around equipment use and factory protocols.
Shift-based scheduling complexity, requiring language training across all three shifts – day, swing, and overnight.
Urgent need for uniform communication standards to avoid production slowdowns and errors.
With a large-scale need at all hours of the day, we knew it would take a new level of customization to deliver.
The minute we heard the Blue Bunny name, we were in. (Who doesn’t love ice cream?)
But really, a completely tailored full-scale English training program for the Dunkirk facility? Absolutely in our wheelhouse. Unlike general ESL classes this was not an academic exercise with some safety-related vocabulary cards.
This was a practical, workplace-centered English curriculum built around real communication needs already occurring on the factory floor.
We began the process with several in-depth conversations including team leads and management. We stuck around, observing and recording to discover the language they needed in action.
We were building a language curriculum in real time for Blue Bunny’s exact needs.
- What do employees need to know about this machine? What is it called?
- What instructions are you giving every day?
- What safety rules are you endlessly repeating?
- What safety rules did employees need to understand yesterday?
- What phrases are supervisors using 50x in a shift?
- What feedback do you need to give employees?
- What are employees most confused about each day
- During what conversations do you have to pull in an interpreter? (meaning taking someone else away from their job)
Directions, common tools and machinery terms, and workplace behavior expectations
In addition to capping classes to keep groups small and ensure high participation and real speaking practice, we adapted to every shift. If workers clocked out at 11 p.m., we were ready to teach English at 9 p.m. No matter the hour, Fluency Corp showed up.
This flexibility was a critical key to success. Our commitment to meet employees where they were, both literally and linguistically, built trust and drove real engagement.
Universal baseline of English achieved across the workforce, improving both safety and speed on the factory floor.
Hand us your most complicated one.
Not a problem. Let us spend some time with your team.
Fluency Corp can help. We build customized workplace language training programs that support safer operations, stronger communication, and better performance across every shift.