The average American puts away about 23 pounds of ice cream a year, and most of that damage happens right about now. July is the busiest month in the business, and Ronald Reagan made it official in 1984 when he named it National Ice Cream Month. A survey this year found 95% of us eat at least one scoop a week. We are not moderate people about this.
Most of it comes from the grocery freezer and gets eaten on the couch. The tub is the workhorse. But the shop is the occasion, and that's where the personalities come out.
First, the label thing, because it explains everything downstream. To be called "ice cream," a product needs at least 10% milkfat — real cream. Miss that mark, and it's legally "frozen dairy dessert," the quiet fine print on a lot of cheaper cartons. Those stretch the cream with milk, whey, and extra whipped-in air the trade calls overrun. It's cheaper, and your spoon knows.
That's why Graeter's tastes like a different food group. The Cincinnati company still uses its French pot process, tiny batches with almost no air, which is how you get those boulder chocolate chips folded through its signature Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip. Jeni's, out of Columbus, bets everything on cream and charges for it. Velvet, made up in Utica, has been the quiet Ohio default for generations.
Which brings us to the great divide: soft serve people and scoop people.
Scoop people read the butterfat. They'll stand in a Graeter's line in August because the density is the whole point, and they treat a good pint like a tasting flight. Most came to it slowly, through one really good cone that ruined the cheap stuff for them forever.
Soft serve people are loyal to a ritual, and the ritual usually has a Dairy Queen in it. The wrinkle: DQ's soft serve runs about 5% butterfat, half of what the law wants before you can say "ice cream," which is exactly why the menu says "soft serve." Doesn't matter a lick to the faithful.
Half of them swear by the gleaming remodels with the digital menu boards, and the other half will drive past three of those to reach the crumbling 1970s walk-up Brazier with the flickering sign, because everybody knows that machine makes the best curl in the county.
They're not wrong.
Most people fall on one side or the other. The rare exception is someone like our friend Jeff J. from Troy, Ohio, who swears he loves scoop and soft serve exactly the same. Scientists call these people bi-conal.
Nationally, Ben & Jerry's, based in Waterbury, Vermont, still outsells everyone — which is a little funny, because Ben and Jerry are long gone. They sold to Unilever in 2000, then spent the next 26 years feuding with the people who'd handed them 326 million reasons to get along.
Closer to home, Ohio leans toward Jeni's, Graeter's, and Velvet.
One cloud over the aisle: Cincinnati-based Kroger is buying Giant Eagle. The volume king in that case isn't a fancy pint — it's plain store-brand vanilla, still America's top-selling flavor. Giant Eagle swears its own label, and its Market District line survives the deal. We'll believe it when we taste it.
Then again, this is a state that serves its chili over spaghetti. We were never going to take dessert orders from anybody else.