After freezing the mix to a nice and creamy 22 degrees, we have a choice: if we’re just making chunkless flavours, like Vanilla or Chocolate, the ice cream is pumped directly to the pint-filling machinery, but if we’re making chunky flavours, the ice cream takes a turn through the Fruit Feeder.
Back in the days before Ben & Jerry’s, the only thing ice cream manufacturers ever put into their ice cream was fruit. That’s why the machine that “feeds” chunks into our ice cream is called a “Fruit Feeder.” We could come up with a newer name if we wanted to, but frankly we’ve always been a lot more interested in coming up with new chunky things to feed the feeder with, from gobs of chocolate chip cookie dough to fudgy brownies, to cookies and candies and nuts and everything in between…in addition to fruit!
Quite simply, the Fruit Feeder “feeds” chunks into the ice cream stream. Chunks are top-loaded into the Fruit Feeder hopper, at the bottom of which an auger regulates a steady chunk-flow into a star-wheel. As the star-wheel turns, it pushes the chunks into the stream of frozen ice cream flowing through the feeder. The be-chunked ice cream finally passes through a special blender attachment, which mixes the chunks throughout the stream of ice cream, ensuring an even ”chunk dispersal”.
Favourite Flavour:
"Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough"
Best Part About Ben & Jerry's:
"I work with great people who care enough to do their best and we make the world’s best ice cream."
Pint Confessions:
"I mostly just dig out the chunks and swirls and leave the ice cream behind."
– Kathy Jochim
2nd / 3rd Shift Maintenance Supervisor