Keeping Ice Cream Cold’s Very Important Today
Delightful choices await customers at Cold Stone Creamery in Westerville, Ohio. Photo: Tom Berg
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Delightful choices await customers at Cold Stone Creamery in Westerville, Ohio. Photo: Tom Berg
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Wake up! If you like ice cream, today, July 17, is special! It’s been so since 1984, when President Ronald Reagan established National Ice Cream Day as the third Sunday in July. So his time in office is known for more than just spending the Soviet Union out of business and ending the, er, Cold War.
Anyway, you have to act soon to get special deals on everyone’s favorite dessert. Ice cream is a happy food, but only if it stays properly cold at all stages of its manufacture, storage and transit.
That reminds me of a story related about 25 years ago by a driver for Ralphs Grocery in the Los Angeles Basin. Barry (his real name) said he backed a reefer trailer into a dock at a cold storage warehouse, where he was picking up a load of ice cream.
“I carry a thermometer to stick loads like that,” he said. “Most other drivers don’t, but I do. So before I let the forklift driver start loading my trailer, I stuck the load on a pallet” — probed between boxes, I think he meant – “and it came up too warm. I stuck some others, and the same thing. So I rejected the load.”
I don’t recall the numbers, but I think ice cream is supposed to leave a warehouse at minus 10 to minus 20 degrees or so. This load was closer to zero, and a trailer’s reefer unit is not designed to pull down temperatures in the deep-freeze range. And Barry wasn’t about to take any heat if it was turned away by a receiving clerk at a Ralphs store.
At the warehouse, “The guy moaned, but I told him, ‘Now, you know and I know what you’re gonna do with this load,’” he said. “’You’re gonna move it to the coldest place in the freezer, and it’s gonna cool down and in maybe eight hours, you’ll bring it out and ship it. But I can’t take it as it is now.’”
Thanks to drivers like Barry and workers all along the “cold chain,” there have been very few instances of food spoilage, say people in that business. Contamination, yes, but those cases are usually traced to tainted processing equipment or farm workers’ soiled hands. But thanks to vigilance and modern equipment, food safety during transport has a very good record.
It’s likely to stay that way because the federal government has promulgated a long list of new requirements for handling and monitoring food while it’s in transit, and some have already gone into effect.
So when you go to your favorite store for a package of ice cream, or to your favorite shop for an ice cream cone or cup of the delicious stuff, you can be assured that it’s healthy in condition, and never mind the calories.
And you’ll want to make that visit today because, like I said, it’s National Ice Cream Day. Many shops and restaurants are offering free or discounted deals on helpings of ice cream and other sweets. I went on-line and found this list.
If today’s out of the question, don’t fret, because President Reagan also designated July as National Ice Cream Month. Many of the same deals will be good for a couple of more weeks. Get your treats while they’re… properly cold.
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