Today we drove up to the Ben & Jerry’s factory in northern Vermont for a factory tour. Photography was forbidden, but we got a good view of the factory from above and saw ice cream being made and packaged. Obviously many of the machines are automated now, and it was cool watching the process.
The sample flavour we got to try was ‘Half Baked’ which is a mix of chocolate ice cream and brownie. I didn’t try it (of course) but I had a sample of mango which was delicious.
They have three factories worldwide (two in Vermont and one in The Netherlands) and while they have 80+ flavours only seven are made in this location, to the tune of 400,000 pints a day. Amazingly enough they ship ice cream worldwide including to Australia! If you’re in Oz and get some Ben & Jerry’s from the supermarket it may have been made here.
Outside they have a comedic ‘graveyard’ of retired or failed flavours including the three very short-lived ones above. The biggest failure they ever made was ‘sugar plum’, which sold only a single pint in the first three weeks it was on sale! Apparently the popcorn ice cream was delicious, but suffered from the popcorn getting soggy too quickly 🙂
The drive was lovely, through the mountains and past ski slopes of northern Vermont. We half expected this part of Vermont to be quiet this time of year but it’s the exact opposite, with lots of people out enjoying the sun and the views.
We’re staying in an interesting motel with a bowling alley and mini golf course, and our room has a loft! A relaxing place to write a few postcards and watch trash on tv…
A weird thing we noticed today was the presence of Jaws merchandise in a few shops we stopped at, including T-shirts, stickers and even the above Vermont scratchie! There’s no link between Vermont (a landlocked state) and Jaws so we can’t really explain this.