Optimism in January. If youre in the ice cream business. On Friday, everyone but our father drove down to Lantanas in Randolph to visit the Taylor of New England ice cream show. Taylor sells all kinds of equipment for making all kinds of frozen desserts. They make soft serve machines, shake machines, different kinds of ice cream machines including some that were custom-designed for Steve Herrell. Events like this represent an indomitable regional spirit. For people who sell ice cream these showcases are like the newspaper stories about the Red Sox packing up their bats and balls to head south for spring training. We havent a big snowstorm yet and bad weather can occur into April but there are a lot of people planning to sell cups and cones of Moose Track ice cream to barefoot people on vacation. Along with the essential belief that the sunshine and summer people will return folks are optimistic for two reasons. The free fall of gasoline prices has lowered the costs of many things including ingredients and supplies. Even Massachusetts increase in wage rates has not offset the ripple effect of lower fuel prices. And more good news for New England ice cream stores has been delivered from China where economic problems are reducing Chinese purchases of American dairy products. A series of Upton Sinclair-like scandals in Chinas dairy industry prompted that country to make huge purchases of American milk products, usually in the form of powdered milk. Dairy prices in the US tend to rise and fall with the seasons but this year they look to be headed downward. The clean-cut, fundamentally sunny members of the American ice cream community are not immune to schadenfreude related to another decline, as the fortunes of competing frozen yogurt companies sour (hah hah). Our dairy Rosev attended the Taylor event, as did our other important vendor, Perkins Provisions. The good people from Giffords ice cream in Maine came south to show off their modern new logo and discuss Bear Paws and Moose Tracks and other innovations in far northern New England ice cream. We may still get to cross country ski along the Charles River but its time to wash those t shirts and be optimistic. Mimi and Joe pose in front of the Sacred Cake Cone. Some scheme to replace the Sacred Cod atop the Mass. State House with this more relevant symbol of industry and happiness. Outside the event future customers recovered from all the excitement.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:00:02 +0000
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