Blue Bell - The Best Ice Cream In The Country :)

Friday, at about 6 am we took off for a day trip to the Blue Bell factory. It was a long day trip. We finally arrived about 10:30. The line wasn't long, we stood there for less than 5 minutes and then our tour was in the next 10 minutes. It seemed pretty easy to get in and out of. It was interesting for all of us to hear about the facts of our entire family's favorite ice cream. Here are some we thought were neat:

*It takes 50,000 cows per day to supply enough milk for a day's production.
*All of the cows are located within a 200 mile radius
*One line which they have 4 lines in each room can make 54 1/2 gallon buckets of ice cream per minute.
*You know how the lid is difficult to get off when you first open a tub of ice cream from the store? Well, it has actually been done on purpose to get a good quality seal on the product. They immediately flip the carton after the ice cream has been squirted into it.
*When the ice cream is squirted into the tub it actually spins in a circle really fast to keep any air pockets from forming.
*They freeze blast the ice cream for up to 6 hours after the ice cream is inserted at 100 degrees below freezing.
*The brown lids cost more than the gold because they have nuts, fruit, or candies in them.
*Employees really do get to eat all the ice cream they want for free...so they do "Eat all they can and sell the rest"
*And our guide...she NEVER gets tired of ice cream. I knew right away I liked her :)
*At the end of the tour you get a large scoop of ice cream. I chose the new flavor Nutty Chocolate - really pretty good. It had lots of texture and tons of chocolate (milk, dark and white) covered nuts ( all types) in a Dutch Chocolate ice cream - yum!

Now, when we left the tour the line to get in was not only outside the building it was winding in front of the plant and growing...quickly. It was fun. I am not sure we would do it again for just going there - other than the Blue Bell factory there wasn't much else to do in the area. And in the song..."the best ice cream in the country" it could mean out in the country - like not the city...just a thought.

In the ice cream shoppe
They gave these cute little free hats for the tourists to wear...the girls loved them.

I love this pic of Love...the rest were far too interested in the eating portion of our tour.

After her Dutch Chocolate ice cream...notice the ring around her mouth.

The grounds were beautiful...and so is Love :)

The little girls chose these temporary tattoos for their memento. The big kids chose Blue Bell pencils that were scented with ice cream flavors. We bought a coffee mug.

I can tell you after seeing the plant...I love Blue Bell even more. I love that they break down all the piping and tubing to clean it every day!! Hey, you never know ;)