Two million servings of ice cream
Because ice cream: Stewart's had a sale on half gallons of its ice cream last week. And this week Stewart's president Gary Dake tweeted it was a record sale for the company, with an average of 769 half gallons sold per shop.
So, that's...
+ 259,153 half gallons of ice cream sold.*
+ $774,867.47 in half gallon ice cream sales.
+ Enough ice cream for almost 2.1 million individual servings. **
* Stewart's has 337 shops, according a January company press release.
** The FDA's official serving size for ice cream is 2/3 of a cup, but who are they kidding? So that number of servings is based on 1 cup per serving. (If you want to use the FDA measurement, the total would be more than 3.1 million servings.)
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By the way, we stumbled across the remarkably thorough Stewart's FAQ page today, which covers everything from why there's not an ice cream club card, to the source of the company's eggs, to why the shops carry "adult sophisticate" magazines.
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Comments
Artificial color, artificial flavor (I'm surmising the latter from the taste -- no ingredients list on their website -- which they would include if they had nothing to hide). When purchasing gas last week I succumbed to the siren song of their Key Lime Pie flavor (limited edition) and found it sweet and green, nothing more. I'm assuming the record sales is based on Stewarts ice cream being cheap and ubiquitous.
... said chrisck on May 10, 2017 at 3:18 PM | link
Well, if you really want to know what's in your ice cream, you'll have to make it yourself. Even the best brands will usually have "natural flavor", which is just as lab-derived as "artificial flavor" -- if strawberry flavor actually came from real strawberry puree, instead of some extracted compound that may or may not have come from a strawberry originally, they would just list "strawberry puree" as an ingredient.
While Stewart's ice cream may have processed ingredients to a higher degree, you do get what you pay for and even Cherry Garcia has "natural flavor". Your choices are to embrace the food that science has provided or get busy in your own kitchen.
... said -B on May 11, 2017 at 8:47 AM | link
-B -- I agree with you that "natural flavor" is the equivalent of mystery meat. The brands of ice cream I usually buy at the co-op don't have it. And I am looking forward to u-pick strawberry season next month to make the best strawberry ice cream in my Cuisinart ice cream maker.
... said chrisck on May 11, 2017 at 9:22 AM | link
The artificial vs natural flavor debate is sort of a red herring, particularly when it comes to ice cream. Same with other additives. People assume that gums and stabilizers are "toxins" or some other straw man, when in fact they are necessary to the production of commercial ice cream.
I worked in ice cream for many years at a place that made their own. Stewarts is great and their process isn't any different than the place I worked at, just on a larger scale, which is probably why they win so many national awards for their product. They deserve the success they have, thanks to their commitment to quality dairy and dairy processing. You really can't get better dairy than the Stewarts range.
... said Justin on May 11, 2017 at 9:55 AM | link
We love Stewart's ice cream. It's creamy and delicious, and they have inventive flavors (I still think about Nutty Irishman) as well as old reliables (Peanut Butter Pandemonium). I'll only buy milk at Stewart's. I love that they offer non-ethanol gas. I support and appreciate their holiday fund raiser for community organizations.
... said Kathy on May 11, 2017 at 4:47 PM | link
My personal favs are Crumbs Along the Mohawk and Cream and Coffee Fudge.
... said Justin on May 12, 2017 at 11:45 AM | link
@chrisck: I tried the key lime flavor out of curiosity and... should have listened to you instead. It evoked a sort of lime jello flavor for me, and not in a good way.
... said Greg on May 17, 2017 at 11:16 PM | link