Ice Cream Production and the Family Business with Ray Murray

In this episode we chat to Ray Murray, the chief ice cream maker at Sweet Temptations Ice Cream Grand Haven MI.

After a career in manufacturing, Ray has some great insight into batching ice cream, the family business and some good all around life lessons.

You can find out more about Sweet Temptations at:

• https://sweettemptationsgh.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/sweettemptationsgh/
• https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100038066423212

For information about the North American Ice Cream Assoc, and how you can open and grow your ice cream business with a community that will support you, go to https://icecreamassociation.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey folks, welcome to the Ice Cream Podcast. It's the official podcast of the North American Ice Cream Association. We are all about ice cream people, helping ice cream people. How are you, Ray?

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Ray's good. Our stores are in Grand Haven, Michigan, in Spring Lake, Michigan. So I'm open to Adam.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

The flowers are blooming, and most of our stores are going to be open within a week.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Can I also let you know, listeners, we don't do a whole lot of video, but Ray has dressed. Ray is wearing a coat and tie. He's making me look like I'm sort of bummed. I just walked off onto the street.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Steve is just fine. He's fine.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Although he has a lot more ice cream paraphernalia in his office than I do.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Right. Ray, um I I I spoke to you a little bit m uh before we started recording. I said you were the most famous ice cream maker that no one ever knows. Always the behind-the-scenes guy. So do you want to give us um a little bit of story? You're Kelly Larson's dad.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

I am. Most people know Kelly.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Most people know Kelly.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

When I go to a meeting, I'll say, Hey, hi, I'm Ray Murray, Kelly Larson's dad, and they'll they'll look around and they'll say, Well, where is Kelly?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Where is Kelly? Um, it's really nice to have you on, Ray. The most most we see of Ray is when Kelly is on a Zoom call. Uh Kelly famously, uh past current past president of the association, has had a lot of leadership roles, very, very influential person and someone that's really helped a lot of people uh over a lot of years in the association. Not only our association, but many associations. But when uh we have a Zoom call and and we're talking about either speakers of a convention or executive committee meeting, every now and again Ray either walks past or pops his head in and waves, usually in some form of uh or some process of making ice cream. Uh Ray, do you want to did you grow up in Michigan? Do you give me a little bit of a snapshot of what it was like uh growing up in Michigan?

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Well, uh we've been here since 79, so we've enjoyed Michigan. It was my um like fourth job move, and our oldest daughter was ready for junior high school, and my wife said we can't move anymore. So we didn't move anymore. So we've been here for 40-some odd years, and it's really nice in Michigan. We've got the waterfront, we have pretty strong winters, so the feeling around here is that our summers are a reward for putting up with Michigan winters.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

And uh last year we had record snow, but uh very nice schools on our side of the state. Our kids all went to a school system called Spring Lake High School and all graduated, and during uh their route to high school, they worked for us. All my girls have made ice cream, so uh it's our our uh thought always that they should get a good education and know how to work, and uh fortunately all four of them have uh very nice occupations at the time.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

So that's well, we have something in common because uh Michigan was our first landing point when we arrived in the country, not forty years ago, but twenty-two years ago. We actually ended up in Escanaba, Upper Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Oh wow, yeah. That's a lot more wintry, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Right. That's the reason why we're in St. Louis, Missouri. It's still wintery, it's just a little less wintry.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

St. Louis, yeah, that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Hey, you you grew up the oldest of nine boys. Where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_02 4:02

We uh grew up in Chicago, um, lived on the near north side. My dad was a meat cutter, and at first um uh so this would have been at the end of the big war, and he he got a job as a meat cutter on the uh aircraft carrier. He was a cook, and his battle station was uh machine gunner. He saw action in the Pacific, all the big battles you read about uh in the Pacific, he was in, and uh thank God he survived. Well, anyway, so he would uh at first walk or drive his bike to work, and um we uh a nice thing about where we uh started out was we were within walking distance of Lake Michigan, so he would take us to the beach and we would go swim in there. So that was uh kind of fun. But uh so we all started out in Chicago. Now I've got one brother in Florida, one in North Carolina, one in Iowa, one in Wisconsin, and uh the remainder are still in the Chicago area somewhere. So uh we had nine boys.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Your mother must must have been a saint.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

She was a saint, and um of course uh you you appreciate them while they're around, but as life goes on, you appreciate them a lot more um after they've passed and you realize all they did for you, huh?

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah. Did the Murray boys get up to a lot of trouble, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:33

We did. Um story um is that uh we were always looking for something to do, and we had some pennies, and one of one of my brothers said, well, let's go squish the pennies. So we hopped a fence and put the pennies on a railroad track, and then we s scattered back away from uh the train track, and the train would come by and squish the pennies. Well, the second chapter of that story is even though it wasn't a small town, somebody saw us doing that, and my dad got word of it, and um we got quite a spanking for doing that, we never did it again, but that's that's one of many tales. On the more fun side, we we would uh we we'd follow the sporting schedules, and so we would play football and basketball and baseball and clincher softball in Chicago was quite a big thing. A lot of fun, a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Yeah, the the North American Association American Issues Association does not condone squishing penny, putting pennies on rattles.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Not on your agenda, huh?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Oh no. Um just imagine. Nine boys. Anyway. Let's talk a little bit about Grand Haven Day. So you you've career-wise, you were in manufacturing, correct?

SPEAKER_02 7:02

I was in manufacturing um uh my whole career life was at several different um manufacturing facilities. I was in what's called um uh materials management, production, scheduling, inventory control, purchasing, shipping and receiving um were my responsibilities. I like to say if there was 110 people working in a factory, it was my job that they had all had work when they came to work that day.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

And uh I enjoyed it. Um probably got my tinnitus from walking around factories most of my life. But uh, you know, that was that was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

So the the the the turning point then and segue into ice cream was the fact that you're in Grand Haven and you don't want to move anymore. You got kids in school. How did the where did the ice cream world introduce itself?

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Well, uh the uh famous Kelly Larson um got a job in an ice cream store. And so of course we we would visit her through the summer and buy ice cream from from her store that she was at. It was called Temptations of Grandpa.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Did she ever overscoop for family? Did she ever uh topic?

SPEAKER_02 8:16

She did not overscoop. As a matter of fact, Steve, um we had a rule that you uh never gave anything away. Only the owners could do that.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

So um uh one day one of Diane's girlfriends came by to get ice cream, and I gave her an ice cream cone because she was uh the girl who uh guided Diane to special doctors when she had her breast cancer. At least I can do is give this girl an ice cream cone. Well, my youngest daughter was at the window next to mine, and uh she overheard me doing that, and she said, Dad, you're breaking the rules. You cannot give anybody an ice cream cone. So anyway, that store came up for uh sale, and we entered into a partnership with um another family, and the short story is after that we took over the ownership, and um I had to leave my uh manufacturing world and get into the ice cream world when we bought another store. Um my wife Diane said, if you buy any more stores, Ray, you gotta quit your job and just do stores. So then with Kelly, we bought the rest of the stores, and he was the spark plug to get us going into the ice cream world.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Tell me, it when you describe your responsibilities in manufacturing, I mean, obviously every every ice cream business owner is probably thinking, well, they're all the things that I do, but obviously on a probably a much smaller scale. What was that transition like, kind of moving from the you know, hustle and bustle and camaraderie and the large workplaces to then now being your own business, making your own product? Is it easy to easy to transition?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

I remember uh enjoying it.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

We um had Kelly and we had been managing the Temptation Store. So it was I would say and it was a transition, but it was easy. You know, it was kind of like learning the new world of ice cream and then um getting new contacts with people who either were suppliers or um you know uh people in different organizations in the city, Chamber of Commerce. I think we've always been a member of the Chamber of Commerce, so that and Kelly, of course, was a president of that eventually. She um sure enjoys doing those kind of things. And then um one day our our supplier told us oh, I'm thinking now, okay, one day our supplier told us they weren't gonna make one of our ice creams anymore. It was uh it happened to be malted milk, and uh we said, yes you are, and he said, No, we're not. Well then we bought a little ice cream machine and started making our malted milk ice cream, and uh that was a situation where we couldn't make enough ice cream.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

So then we so originally the the business that you bought was buying ice cream and scooping.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

That's correct. Okay, yeah. We bought um ice ice cream from a place I think that it was a distributor, it was Mills Mills ice cream, and um we had a really good relationship with the guy that owned that, and God bless him, he's gone now, but um he he was a good resource too, of course.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Right. So so the first ice cream you made was malted milk ice cream.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Yeah, or you get the bug then or chocolate malt, some people made.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Right, right. Did you get the bug? Was it like, oh, okay, well, this is incredible. We need to start transitioning to making everything.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

I yes, absolutely. It was it was like going from a tricycle to a bicycle, you know, make making ice cream on um what what would be called um oh a two-tub batch situation to um getting a machine that made three or four times as much ice cream in an hour was kind of a uh blessing when we didn't we didn't miss the little machine at all.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

So so that's I mean, you still are the person responsible for making ice cream, right? Me or the ice cream guy.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Pretty much. Um over the years, Kelly and I have come up with different recipes. Uh for instance, we we came up with our own Blue Moon ice cream, and what we had what I call interactive ice cream making. So uh one story is uh one of the girls that worked for us, her boyfriend, loved Blue Moon ice cream, so he kept buying it, and the first three or four times he bought it, he would say, This ice cream doesn't have enough blue moon flavor in it. So the recommended amount of blue moon flavor you put in that ice cream is two or three ounces, let's say. Yeah, so when we finally got it up to like eight ounces, he was satisfied with it. So that's and um is he still on the scene? The way I the way well, he's long gone, you know. He that was 20 years ago. So um the way I describe it is that if you made an apple pie and I made an apple pie and Kelly made an apple pie, they'd all be apple pies, right? But they'd all have be a little bit different. And ice cream making is is the same way. Our our um I'm sure our birthday cake ice cream wouldn't taste like uh the birthday cake ice cream that somebody else might make, but it would still be birthday cake ice cream. So we as ice cream makers tend to come up with our own recipes, and uh we all think our ice cream is the best.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Yeah. Without a doubt. I'm interested, so you've been making ice cream. I I'm I'm not a good math guy, but thirty thirty plus years. Well, that'd be correct in saying that.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Our uh okay, another funny story is we have two we had two ice cream machines, two original Emory Thompson ice cream machines. Our old machine was dated 1997. So that would be um close to 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Close to 30 years. And uh Steve, our new machine was dated 2000. And until Kelly sold them last couple weeks ago, we still called them our old machine and our new machine.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Oh, that's classic. Well then I I'm interested, you know, let's say 30 years of making ice cream. And what what is it still quintessentially for you the same process 30 years on? I mean, I know the formulation and experimentation and so forth, but what what's changed for you making ice cream now versus making ice cream 30 years ago?

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Oh my I would say the big thing is that we're a lot more confident in it. I mean, when when we make ice cream, we still will taste test them and make sure we use our uh formulas. You know, you want you want consistency, so we do that. And um you have to make sure you freeze it right and then you store it right and have dipping freezers, of course. But um I would I would say it's it's similar from the standpoint of how you make ice cream, but different from the standpoint of um the confidence that you can achieve over 30 years. You can imagine that the first first year with that little machine, and then getting uh a bigger machine is a whole new learning process, and then having two machines, um your anxiety levels a lot higher. Right. And now it's uh we come up with ice cream recipes um pretty regularly. We we have different new flavors every year, and so it it remains uh a challenge and uh still fun. Kelly likes to say we sell fun, and I I think that's so very true.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Yeah. I think you bring up a very good point. I mean, I'm not gonna say any old schmoke and throw mix and flavor into a batch freezer and extract it out, but the the process of making extracting still relatively rudimentary. The logistics of what happens when that product comes out and everything that is along that timeline till the customer puts that cone or that ice cream in their mouth is probably one of the the well the the process that really kind of brings a lot of people down, I think, so far as quality and mouthfeel and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

And um we use good quality mix and um flavors and mix-ins, and um we like I said, we try to stay uh as consistent as we can. So it's you're right though, it's it's half art, half science. I have a sign in my uh ice cream room that says I'm a magician, not an ice cream maker. So um it uh it that's kind of one of the cute quotes of Ray, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

You you famously hate rinsing that machine. You're the uh the the word on the street is you will you will organize your production so you have minimal rinsing, disassembling, reassembling, running. What's uh what what's the secret in that? Is it is it uh forecasting? Is it is it production time? What what uh what can what pearls of wisdom can you share with us mere mortals who get stuck rinsing our machines out uh two or three times a day?

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Well there's a few there's a few things. Um one is don't don't have your eyes be bigger than your stomach. So don't uh your tendency is okay, I gotta make all this ice cream, you know. I'm gonna need this and need this and need that. Well, once you start making ice cream, you can make a lot of ice cream in a day. So if you spread your schedule over a couple three days, um and you know what flavors can overlap other flavors, then you don't then you can avoid rinsing. I don't like to rinse any more than once a day um for two reasons. One is that it just takes time to do it, and you by the way, you rinse and sanitize, you don't just rinse. Um but uh the other thing is the ice cream maker gets into his um routine of what what he or she is going to do, and then you say, Okay, time out, you gotta rinse the machine, gotta sanitize the machine, uh flush out the sanitizer, and then start making ice cream again. So it's um my grandson played volleyball last night, and a couple of times our team started to do pretty well serving, and the other coach called time out to ace our ice our um servers, you know. And that that is you know, you're still gonna serve, but the the um process of rhythm. You lost your rhythm, and not every time, but several times the server will slam the ball into the net, you know, and there'll be a side out.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

That's true. That's true. I don't I don't like to rinse. It's not too hard. But um you do want to make sure you rinse such that the first ice cream that's coming up, it's it's okay to make from the standpoint of like I would never rinse um um ice cream that has wheat in it and then make another ice cream that wouldn't have weed in it. So you you want you want to watch your allergens pretty closely so that um you you don't do that kind of thing. I've asked some of my uh scientific friends in testing if I rinse And sanitized my machine and it had wheat in it, and then I did another flavor. How much wheat residue would be left in the machine? And every one of them said, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

So I don't want to take that risk. It's just a little phobia that we have.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Well, so it's it's a good phobia to have. Do you kind of dovetail inventory into that equation too, looking at what you've got in storage, what you've got in a case, and then backfilling on your production days based on the need.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Yeah, absolutely. Just like in the old manufacturing business, you know, the inventory kind of drives your schedule. Right. And then your knowledge of what flavors uh sell better than others, you might do a batch of this and two or three batches of another flavor, um, and and then just put the the day's run together. And once once you make the schedule, even I, if I make a schedule for me, I run the schedule. I don't editorialize it. But I do teach uh, and Kelly does too. She's doing most of the ice cream making now because I um had a shoulder replacement. But um you you want to make sure that you follow the schedule. And if you make the schedule and you're making the ice cream, you follow your schedule. You don't editorialize it, you just punch it out, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Do you uh was it hard to let go of ice cream making or release a little of it?

SPEAKER_02 23:42

It it was, you know, because I love making ice cream. So when I go into the ice cream room, you know, I I put on my apron and cap and wash my hands and uh I help, quote unquote. I think they like my help. They're the ice cream makers are uh pretty pretty good young people.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I say that I have uh a number of my children working with me in the office here, and I say to people, I think they like working with their dad. Yeah. I can't be sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Well, there you go. There you go. But my title has gone uh from from Ray to uh Grandpa Ray.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Right, right. Um that that's probably a good segue. Um so you've obviously had many, many years of working with family. Um Kelly notably, but I'm sure other other family members. Tips for those either getting in or those in the trenches with family. What's worked for you?

SPEAKER_02 24:41

What's worked with for me is um just to welcome them and not not worry about it, not go, oh, what am I gonna do? I've got my daughter or my grandson working for me. It's it's just to welcome them in and let them learn how to work and let them go as far as they want, because um they've all worked for us at one point in time or another, and um we want them to have take over responsibility and um help us manage and lead the shifts that they're working on, and the ones that wanted to made ice cream. So it's boy, it I um don't envy somebody who gets all uptight about having family work for 'em. It's just like enjo enjoy it because you don't know how long they're gonna keep working for you.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Yeah, very true. Do you what is it hard not to talk shop at home or at family gatherings?

SPEAKER_02 25:42

No, we don't we don't uh have any rule about not talking shop, you know. We it's it it might just be come up as part of our conversation, you know. Hey, did you try s salted uh Oreo ice cream, you know? Well yeah, I did. And and then we'll you know, generally uh it'll come out whose favorite is what and who doesn't like what kind of ice cream. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

What do you like doing now in your spare time, right? I mean, apart from ice cream making, you're kind of enjoying some other uh time out hobbies?

SPEAKER_02 26:18

The uh well in the in the uh summer we have a little boat, so we like I like to take the kids um water skiing or swimming whenever whenever they would like to do that. And uh my hobby has been to follow my grandkids around and watch them do whatever um activities they're they're in, you know. Um Monday we have a piano concert to go to, and last night I went to a volleyball game. But in a couple years, I don't know how I'll answer that question because uh uh one of my buddies told me, Ray, you gotta find a hobby, and my hobby has just been enjoying my family.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

See, so so uh Do you still get up on the skis, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:07

I can. I'm going to try again this year. Um and the big thing uh they do ski here, Steve, a little bit, but uh one of the bigger things is tubing. Right. Where you uh hook a tube up to a line and instead of skiing, they go tubing. Not many, a couple of my grandkids know how to ski, and um you you need uh to wait for someone to ski and until they have the upper body strength to pull themselves out of the water. But anybody can tube. You throw them on a tube and um off they go. So we're actually we're gonna put the boat in the water. Um my uh son-in-law's Andy is the guy who helps me put the boat in the water. We're gonna do that hopefully uh next week.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Mate, do you uh when you're at the with the wheel, I'm assuming that's the right term. I'm not a boating guy, but when you're at the wheel, is it your challenge to get kids off the tube or are you pretty sedate in uh making sure that everyone's gonna do it?

SPEAKER_02 28:15

The challenge is to keep them on the tube, if you will, but um to to give them a uh good ride because they they don't like going straight. They they have for some reason they have to jump over the waves on their tube, and um if they fall off the tube, it's their fault. Uh my uh focus is to for them to have a good time, but I I'm a little my phobia about that would be I don't want to hurt anybody.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Because if you if you hit the water at the wrong angle at 30 miles an hour, let's say, it it's not comfortable. No, no, it's but uh if if they goofing off and they end up in the water, that's that's on them.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Yep, it's on them. You can wash your hands of the incident. Ray, um, I've really enjoyed chatting today. I think that um I I I just love I love the the process of making ice cream, and it's kind of almost comforting to know that you know those who love making ice cream can make ice cream for 20, 25, 30 years and still have a passion for it. I have a top ten list here, Ray. Rapid fire top ten.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Rapid fire top ten, okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Okay, straight off the top of your head. Here they go. Now the first one's a bit controversial. Cake cone, waffle cone, or sugar cone?

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Waffle.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

What are your thoughts on sugar cones?

SPEAKER_02 29:46

Um, well, they're a substitute for a waffle cone. We we sell them in some of our stores. One of our stores we just sell waffle cones. So we've been making waffle cones for 35 years, and we're gonna keep doing it.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Chocolate or vanilla?

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Uh vanilla.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Visual or non-visual dipping cabinets?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Uh both.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

You gotta pick one. You gotta lean towards one or the other. Oh, visual. Okay, good. Uh when you're blending a shake, are you using a jug or using a spindle?

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Um we use a blender.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Blender. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Um, best flavor you ever made.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

I love turtle ice cream and birthday cake ice cream.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

And as you said earlier, you have the best.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Uh well, the best ice cream I ever had was sweet temptation, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

What's the worst flavor you ever made?

SPEAKER_02 30:47

I j I just I like them all, but the ones I like the least are Blue Moon and what you would call kids' ice creams.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

The rest of them I um I can go to a dipping cabinet and and I do this, go to the dipping cabinet, and if I'm on my way out of the store, I'll have a cup or cone of any one of the flavors that we serve.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Uh, the best primary you ever did, best marketing idea.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

Um, Kelly has a um thing called Cool Schools. She's been doing it for years where she gives 20% of what she sells that day. In other words, you don't have to say, Oh, I'm here for Spring Lake School. It's whatever she sells that day, she gives 20% of that away to um the school, and the winner um gets uh a little bit more uh based on if they had the best day that year. And she has given well over a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to all the schools in our area, so that's pretty good. Another fun one was we have breakfast um once a year we have the I think it's on that national breakfast ice cream day or something, but anyway. And that's that's kind of fun because a lot of people come to the store in their pajamas and they they get flavors like uh cinnamon roll or um maple bacon or um she make she makes um cereal ice cream and they're all fun. So that's it's a fun, fun uh morning. Usually it tapers off just as you get to the noon hour, but it's uh we get actually we get some long lines waiting waiting to have their breakfast ice cream, you know. You get your ice you'd like this, Steve. You get your ice cream served on a uh donut or a waffle, so it's it's uh kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Well, as an ex-policeman, I'm always I'm all about the donuts. Ray, what was your first cone con? What was your first uh um Nycro convention? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_01 33:09

I do not.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Um Do you remember the last one? When was the last one Kelly allowed you out of the production space?

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Well, the last one was when I won my Iron Scoop Award, and I I think that was um 20 or 21, wasn't it? Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

It's been a while. It's been a while. It's funny, you talk about the iron scoop. I was um I was also roped into that. We I was working for Stolting at the time. We had a batch freezer, and they selected us as one of the hosts you were talking about putting peanut butter into Steve's.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

What was your flavor? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Well, I I do remember it was um it was in Lexington, Kentucky was the location of the um was the of the cone con. And the secret ingredient in the basket was a bottle of Kentucky whiskey.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Oh yay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

And I don't I don't drink, so I I was kind of in this group of as as you mentioned, like three or four random ice cream makers. And the first thing they did was just they put the mix in, they poured this whole bottle of whiskey in. And then I said, Well, I'm out. I I I I I can't I can't eat I can't eat it, I can't taste it. Anyway, it w it wasn't uh a great scenario.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

It wasn't your best uh no.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Um yeah, that was uh I think we've still got the old um uh I'll have to look at the the names on that um Iron Scoop uh uh trophy. Your name might be on it, I won't be able to tell you. Uh what would be your dream convention location, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

My dream location would be one one that was close.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Grand Haven.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Grand Haven, yeah, or yeah, so uh Yeah, I I would I would put distance over temperature. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Because you can you can enjoy the convention wherever you are. You know, the the you know, the convention is the main thing. Yeah, a lot of ice creamers love going to them.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Yeah, although I I think they had one in St. Louis here and it was kind of a bummer. It's like, uh, you don't get to kind of come home to your own bed and get you. Oh yeah. I like the exotic nature of going these places. Ray, finally, what's the best advice? Someone's getting into the business, they say, Ray, you've been in this business 30 plus years. What's the best advice you'd give to somebody?

SPEAKER_02 35:51

You you have to network. Uh one of one of the folks we went to see in Ohio, um uh well obviously uh you got you have to ask if you can come and if they'll work with you. But uh the the networking to me was the key thing. Um John Paulson, who owned National Flavors, was the first guy who helped me out, and uh he owned the company. So um this uh older gentleman, God bless him, he's gone, but he he came into my store and he um had his own hat, his own apron, and his own spoon, and he said, Okay, we're gonna make some ice cream. So um he spent a few batches worth of time with me, uh, giving me some advice on how to make ice cream and how not to, even though I was just probably starting out making vanilla ice cream for that day. And uh we went to uh the one in Ohio that we went to that I started talking about um showed us how they added their ingredients and what they did to the um flavors and such. And I was most impressed by there was two young men there. And Kelly can do it, but I can't. The um guys would fill a half gallon uh you know container of ice cream for sale every time, right to the top. I I mean like slam dunk, you know, it's like hitting 25 free throws in a row. These guys would and they knew exactly how many half gallons they would get. I was most obviously most impressed by that. That really helped out. And we saw a guy um in Michigan who had a machine, and his machine was so old it was uh being the the coolant was ammonia. So he had this yeah, he had this huge ammonia. I can't tell you how old his machine was at the time, but it probably was older than our old machines. And so you you you know, you learn a lot and you get tips from everybody, and then you start making it yourself, and you have a little confidence if you've seen somebody else do it.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

So um and Kelly's Kelly's really good at that too. She'll she'll g tell people things and send as you know, she'll make videos of making ice cream and uh ice cream people helping ice cream people. Yeah, we all that we still do it today and it's it's quite fun. We are younger.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Sorry, are you gonna go? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

Yeah, we had a guy in the store uh from Massachusetts, um Luke. And uh he was the guy who bought our our um older ice cream machines. And we spent a day making ice cream with him and had a you know, it's fun. It was a good day. We and he told us some things that that uh he knew and we showed him some things and how how we did it, and uh it was it was a good day.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

So it is there's this special bond, I think, that kind of keeps us together. It's um almost like a fraternity of you know, ice cream makers and ice cream people who it just does business that's unlike any others, and um the connection between ice cream folks, makers, non-makers, suppliers, I think is just such a wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

Isn't it amazing? And it and it uh and like you say, if you go to a convention or a uh some of the um people who distribute around here will have open houses and you go to those things and uh you're just open. You know, there's there's maybe you don't tell um something that you think is really proprietary, but as far as um how you do things and why you do things and what kind of promotions do you have, um that's uh that's all good stuff, I think.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Yeah. Well, Ray, it's been great chatting with you today. Steve, I enjoyed it. I think we need to uh we what is there plans to come to a con if look if if we don't get to Grand Rapids in November, which is I think a bit of a crapshoot so far as weather is concerned.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Yeah, it's probably not high on everybody else's list.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

W when can we see you at a cone con? When's Kelly gonna unshackle you from that uh Emery Thompson machine and have you come along again?

SPEAKER_02 40:41

Well, I'm unshackled now. I'll talk to her and see what kind of plan she's making.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Well, you tell her that the executive director gave you a golden ticket.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Any cone con you want. Hey, we're gonna put uh all the details for uh Sweet Temptations and uh all of the the business links down there and all of your socials. Uh very much appreciate uh your your legacy and the the Again the the process of uh sharing your family with the association. I know Kelly is uh near and dear to us and uh has had some great uh influence for the good for a lot of people over a lot of time.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

So like I said, she was the spark plug that got us going, so um that was cool.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

Okay, good luck with getting the boat in the water, mate.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Next week. Okay, thank you. Come this way, we'll give you a boat ride.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Okay, we'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Ray. Take care.