Dixie Brewing Company
Since 1907, Dixie Beer has been a beloved New Orleans institution. The original Dixie brewery that stood on Tulane Avenue since 1907 was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, and in 2017, Tom and Gayle Benson, owners of the New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans, purchased a majority stake in Dixie Beer, promising to bring jobs and economic growth back to New Orleans while preserving an iconic local brand. The new 85,000 square foot Dixie Beer brewery opened in 2019. Your tour will begin in the tasting room where you’ll sample Dixie Lager and Blackened Voodoo Lager while learning the history of Dixie Brewery and brewing in New Orleans. You’ll see the beer museum of historical memorabilia, the main production spaces from the mezzanine overlooking the brewing and fermentation tanks, and the automated control room and quality control lab. You’ll also see high-speed canning and bottling lines.

Hilton Behind the Scenes
Tour the Hilton New Orleans Riverside, the 29-story skyscraper and ASCM CONNECT headquarters hotel overlooking the Mississippi River, to learn how this busy convention hotel in one of the largest cities in the country handles the influx of day-to-day demands. Join the regional manager of field operations with Hilton Supply Management, to learn about the brand’s supply chain processes, including systems management, purchasing, production scheduling, inventory management, warehousing, and more. Walk through the loading docks and food and beverage storerooms with Hilton Hotels purchasing manager, who will describe efforts to responsibly source the freshest seafood for the property’s restaurants by partnering with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. The tour concludes with a toast at the popular Public Belt bar, a piano bar serving craft cocktails, wine and beer.

Aquarium of the Americas - Audubon Nature Institute
Join Audubon Nature Institute staff on a guided tour through the Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans with multiple behind-the-scenes opportunities. Interact with the caretakers who tend to the animals and get a glimpse into where they are fed and cared for. You will also have the chance to go above certain exhibits and get a bird’s eye view not seen in normal admission. You’ll also see aquarium exhibits like the Great Maya Reef walk-through tunnel, the penguins and the Southern sea otters. Marvel at gigantic sharks and rays in the 400,000-gallon Gulf of Mexico exhibit, and learn how the aquarium, as coordinator of the Louisiana Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Rescue Program, prepares sea turtles for release to the wild.

Port of New Orleans
Tour the Port of New Orleans aboard the Port NOLA vessel General Kelly as you travel 15 miles along the vibrant working riverfront of the Mississippi River and return. The Port of New Orleans handles containerized cargo (coffee, plastics, apparel, food products and consumer merchandise) and breakbulk cargo (steel, non-ferrous metals, rubber, wood and paper). A modern multimodal gateway for global commerce, the port can deliver seamless, integrated logistics solutions between river, rail and road by being uniquely located on the Mississippi River near the Gulf of Mexico. It is also the sixth largest cruise port in the United States. During your tour, you will view some of the 13,511 feet of berthing space available, six dedicated breakbulk terminals, and a 140,00 square foot cold storage facility. The port generates $100 million in revenue annually through four lines of business – cargo, rail, industrial real estate, and cruise ships.

NASA Michoud Assembly Facility
Tour the NASA facility where space shuttle components have been constructed and tested over decades of space exploration. The Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans provides vital support to NASA exploration and discovery missions. Owned by NASA and managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center, this is one of the largest production buildings in the nation. Its vertical assembly building served as a critical resource for stacking components of the space shuttle external tank, which was constructed, tested and delivered to NASA's Kennedy Space Center by Michoud throughout the space shuttle program. Between 1979 and 2010, the facility produced 136 tanks; only one of these was never used for space flight. Today, Michoud supports projects for America's next generation of space transportation vehicles, including NASA's Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket, managed by Marshall, and the Orion spacecraft, managed by Johnson Space Center.

Laitram Machinery
At the Laitram Machine Shop in New Orleans, stainless steel sheet stock comes in one door, and high-quality industrial cooking and food processing equipment goes out the other, bound for customers around the world. Laitram’s business divisions design and manufacture automated equipment for shrimp, seafood, vegetable and nut preparation, cooking, steaming and roasting. This tour focuses on the unique workflow at Laitrum’s production control office, entirely different from most manufacturers, which paves the way for operational excellence. You’ll also see the quality control process and the machine shop with laser fabrication, sheet metal deburring and leveling, brake operation, tig welding final assembly, controls, and factory acceptance testing underway.

Craft Kettle Brewing Equipment
This tour takes you behind the scenes of two flourishing businesses in the craft beer industry located next door to each other. The tour begins at Craft Kettle, where you’ll see the operations behind the design and manufacture of craft brewing equipment and Craft Kettle’s team of experienced designers, fabricators, welders, control technicians and brew masters at work. Next, you’ll visit Urban South, a local brewery and taproom that uses Craft Kettle equipment. You’ll learn about the brewery's founding, see how the beer is made, and conclude with a sampling and a take-home souvenir glass. With Craft Kettle’s unique supply chain and Urban South’s expert team of brew masters, both companies have helped each other flourish and grow into key suppliers in the Louisiana craft movement.

Port of New Orleans
Tour the Port of New Orleans aboard the Port NOLA vessel General Kelly as you travel 15 miles along the vibrant working riverfront of the Mississippi River and return. The Port of New Orleans handles containerized cargo (coffee, plastics, apparel, food products and consumer merchandise) and breakbulk cargo (steel, non-ferrous metals, rubber, wood and paper). A modern multimodal gateway for global commerce, the port can deliver seamless, integrated logistics solutions between river, rail and road by being uniquely located on the Mississippi River near the Gulf of Mexico. It is also the sixth largest cruise port in the United States. During your tour, you will view some of the 13,511 feet of berthing space available, six dedicated breakbulk terminals, and a 140,00 square foot cold storage facility. The port generates $100 million in revenue annually through four lines of business – cargo, rail, industrial real estate, and cruise ships.

INTRALOX
Intralox has grown from a small Louisiana belt manufacturer into the leading global provider of conveying solutions, while remaining family owned. During your tour of the Intralox facility in Hammond, La., you will view production operations with over 60 plastic injection molding machines, 60 percent of them being fully automated workcells. You’ll see mold and equipment maintenance areas, and plastics material distribution systems including storage, blending, drying, conveyance, and scrap recapture. The tour continues into warehousing operations where you will see the 6,000-pallet VNA warehouse and the 23,000-pallet capacity Automated Storage and Retrieval System warehouse with three fully automated cranes for pallet picking and put-away. At 105 feet high, the warehouse footprint occupies only 30,600 square feet, uniquely designed for storage density rather than pick speed.