Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream

Our last stop in Vermont was the Ben and Jerry’s factory. 

In 1977 lifelong friends  Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield completed a correspondence course on ice cream making from the Penn State 's school of Creamery.  On May 5, 1978, with a $12,000 investment the pair opened an ice cream parlor in a renovated gas station in downtown Burlington, Vermont.  In 1979, they marked their anniversary by holding the first-ever free cone day, now an international annual celebration.

They helped form the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery in Vermont and they are the main supplier of their milk and cream.   None of the farmers treat their cows with growth hormones used to increase milk production. 90% of the eggs used are from ‘cage free’or free range chickens.

Their ice cream is known for its swirls of different flavors and chucks of different things.   There most famous flavor is Cherry Garcia but on the day of our tour we got samples of a new flavor that is taking over the number 1 spot.  It was called Americone Dream and it was a vanilla ice cream with Carmel swirls and chucks of chocolate covered waffle cone.  It was awesome!!!

     
That day we drove almost 250 miles!  It was a very long day but one filled with lots of memories for Savannah.  This was her summer of factory tours since before they arrived they stayed in Hershey and went to Chocolate World.