The Ben & Jerry's Visit: Part 2a

Our excellent Ben & Jerry's visit can be broken down into several distinct sections so let's jump to Thursday morning which was our visit to the Waterbury, VT production facility. Everyone knows this as the place where you get to take the plant tour. It's not the biggest plant, but it is the original one and was financed by selling stock options to Vermonters only.

Doors open at 10AM to the public, but we were snuck in for an early 9:30 tour.

You head upstairs to start with a quick moooo-vie about the company,
then you head further into the building to see the real show.

Wait, what? I didn't come this far not to peek!

Here is our tour guide John. He does a mean cow impersonation.
(He's also been with the company for a very long time)

That's Americone Dream on the left, Cookie Dough on the right.

Each line is fed by two tanks (they can use one while prepping the other)

We head downstairs and finish the tour with a fresh sample of Milk & Cookies.

After sampling, everyone else has to make a right turn, walk past the top ten flavors,

and head back to the gift shop...

...but not us. Instead we take a left through a locked door and head back to a conference room. There's a long table covered with cups, spoons and napkins. Guess what? It's sampling time!!! Woohoo!!!

Stay tuned for Part 2B!