Americans love to eat frozen desserts such as ice cream, gelato, and frozen custard, and for decades, these treats have been produced and eaten all over the nation. Sometimes, someone may appreciate a classic ice cream scoop on a waffle cone, or they want something more trendy like gelato or frozen custard or sherbet. Whatever kind of frozen dessert a person would like to have, ice cream shops and parlors across the United States are fully stocked to serve them all. A good ice cream parlor will have not only the food itself and the mixer machines to make it all, but also gelato spoons, paper cups, plastic spoons, and even custom cups to go with gelato spoons or frozen custard. This lets the shop serve a wide variety of customers who all have different tastes. What are some trends of frozen treats and their accessories today? When will someone wnat gelato spoons or a waffle cone?
Americans and Frozen Treats
Plenty of statistics show that Americans love ice cream and gelato as much as ever. According to research done by the NDP Group, as many as 40% of all Americans will eat ice cream within a two-week period. This means that the average American is eating 28.5 servings of ice cream every year, and around 90% of American households regularly have sweet, frozen treats like these. Most often, such treats are eaten during the summer, and June is the most productive month for ice cream making. Around 9% of all milk produced on American dairy farms is dedicated to ice cream and related products, and around 1.5 billion gallons of ice cream and related desserts are produced every single year across the United States.
How might someone eat these desserts, and what are they like? Traditional ice cream may be either hard serve or soft serve, based on the amount of air churned into it and its temperature when served (hard serve is colder). Regular ice cream comes in many flavors, but today, it has some competition. Gelato, for example, is composed of 2-8% milkfat as well as 25-30% mixed-in air, among other ingredients, and it tends to be thicker and creamier than regular ice cream is. Gelato comes in a wide variety of flavors like ice cream does, and do does frozen custard and sherbet. Meanwhile, frozen yogurt may have live bacteria cultures in it for added flavor (which are edible). But even the finest ice cream and gelato needs the right accessories to be eaten, and a good ice cream shop will have them all stocked.
Supplies at the Parlor
A responsible ice cream parlor owner will regularly buy wholesale stock of ice cream and gelato products for consumers to use, as well as the serving utensils and the ice cream makers, among other hardware. Ice cream, for its part, may be served either on waffle cones or in paper cups with an ice cream spoon. In the former case, many Americans like the classic look of an ice cream cone, and the waffle cone itself is mildly sweet and crunchy, making it a pleasant contrast with the ice cream itself. The problem is that ice cream cones are also known to be messy, and they can drip or even have ice cream scoops fall of of them. For some customers, this mess is something to be avoided. And besides, a waffle cone doesn’t make for very good leftover storage.
Some customers may want paper cups and spoons for their ice cream, and while not edible, these containers will prevent any messes inside, which many customers may appreciate. These cups are also a ready-made container for leftovers, and they allow consumers to mix together ice cream flavors if they like. Gelato spoons and cups for frozen custard may also be a staple at an ice cream parlor, alongside regular waffle cones. And of course, employees there will be responsible for cleaning out the ice cream makers daily. They can rise the machines clean with water, then take them apart as intended and wash the parts with soapy water. Once dried, the parts can be put back together again for another day’s work.