Last month, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams , which operates three scoop shops around Atlanta, as well as a national retail and wholesale business, recalled all of its products after a random sample of its ice cream turned up the Listeria bacteria. Later, the company destroyed over half a million pounds of ice cream, at an estimated value of $2.5 million.
Now comes the word that Jeni’s is back to making ice cream again in its Columbus, Ohio production kitchen. The company also announced that all scoop shops in Ohio, Nashville, Chicago, Atlanta, Charleston, and Los Angeles will reopen in time for Memorial Day weekend.
Jeni’s scoop shops in Atlanta, will open their doors at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 22, with normal business hours resuming the following day.
More from the press release:
The Jeni’s kitchen team was back at it this morning, making caramel from scratch in preparation for a run of Salty Caramel ice cream. On the schedule for tomorrow: steeping Intelligentsia Black Cat espresso beans in cream and grass grazed Ohio milk.
When the shops open, the dipping cabinets will feature Salty Caramel and other signature flavors, throwbacks such as Root Beer, and the new, limited edition ice cream, Sun-Popped Corn. Additional flavors will be added in the coming weeks as the kitchen returns to full production and the summer progresses.
“The support from the community here in Columbus and throughout the country has kept us going these past few weeks,” Jeni says. “We’re excited to be making ice cream again and can’t wait to share it with everyone.”
Jeni adds that everyone at the company is thrilled about having the full team back to work after the temporary kitchen and shop closings.
“There are three qualities we celebrate in our employees above all else: talent, hustle, and guts,” Jeni says. “You invest in culture specifically for times like these. Our team came together in a crisis. We will come out of this stronger as a company than we went into it.”
The Jeni’s kitchen team will be working hard to get back to full production.
“We had been ramping up production for months to prepare for summer,” Jeni says. “We had recently made our Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk from Hirsch Fruit Farm strawberries that we had frozen and banked from last summer’s harvest—all of that is gone. As a result, we won’t have strawberries until they are ripe in the field for our Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk ice cream until midsummer.”
In order to meet the demands of opening fully stocked shops as soon as possible, for the first time in the company’s history, Jeni’s has allowed another dairy to make a few flavors of its ice cream—Smith’s, the 110-year-old dairy, in Orrville, Ohio.
Smith’s, which has sourced Jeni’s cream and grass grazed milk in recent years, is making a handful of flavors with Jeni’s original recipes and the same ingredients. This partnership allows Jeni’s to focus exclusively on producing the flavors that require specific skills, technique, and hands-on expertise—flavors that can be made only by the Jeni’s team in the Jeni’s production kitchen.
"Smith's had already been sourcing raw cream and grass grazed milk and pasteurizing it for us," Jeni says. "While we are getting back on both feet, Smith's will use our recipes primarily to make our frozen yogurts. They will use the same ingredients we've always used: Ohio grass grazed milk and biodynamic organic yogurt from Seven Stars Farm in Pennsylvania. What they make will have the same texture and flavor.
“Meanwhile, we will focus on the flavors that only we can make, in terms of equipment, ingredients, and expertise—flavors that are impossible for others to do.”
In addition to Smith’s, Jeni says her company owes a “top-of-the-mountain shoutout” to the Ohio ice cream and dairy world at large.
“Ohio is a community of people who stick together. I have always known that. And throughout these past three weeks that has been proven especially true, especially in the realm of dairy and ice cream.
“Handel's, Pierre’s, Toft’s, Velvet, the Columbus gems—each of these heritage ice cream companies, and even more outside Ohio, reached out to lend a helping hand or voice of support. Johnson’s invited us to use their kitchen. Pierre’s, Toft’s, and Velvet—as Smith’s did—offered to make our ice creams to our specifications with their equipment. Ohio isn’t just a dairy state, it’s an ice cream state. There are so many great ice cream makers, and I’m convinced it’s why Ohio ice cream is so good. We know ice cream in Ohio.”
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