Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams is an artisan ice cream company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Jeni's has over 40 branded 'scoop shops', and retail distributors nationally.[1]

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams
IndustryFood service
FoundedColumbus, Ohio in 2002
FounderJeni Britton Bauer
Headquarters
Columbus, Ohio
,
U.S.
Number of locations
47 storefronts, plus nationwide retail distribution
Area served
Columbus, Cleveland, Nashville, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Charleston, Washington, Charlotte, Austin, Houston, Tampa. Pints are sold nationwide.
Key people
John Lowe (CEO)
ProductsIce cream and novelties
Websitejenis.com

History

Jeni Britton Bauer is the founder and chief creative officer of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams.

Before she started Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, Jeni Britton Bauer attended Ohio State University, and studied art history and fine art. While in college, one of her friends was a chemistry graduate student who gave her vials of scented chemicals, which led her to gather essential oils, make her own perfume, and sell her perfumes for a few years.[2]

Britton Bauer experimented with the scentless but spicy essential oil of cayenne pepper, and decided to mush it into chocolate ice cream to make a spicy frozen chocolate. She realized that ice cream was "the perfect carrier of scent," and she immediately started making many other flavors of ice cream with essential oils. Two weeks later, she decided that she wanted to make scented ice cream as a business, and dropped out of Ohio State.[2]

Britton Bauer teamed up with one of her friends, and attempted multiple times to open up a stall in the North Market area of Columbus. However, the market constantly rejected them because it did not believe that an ice cream store had a place at their market. It wasn’t until PBS aired a feature about ice cream being sold at a market that the North Market reconsidered.[2]

As a result, in 1996, Britton Bauer opened the first prototype store in the North Market area of Columbus, and she called it Scream Ice Creams. Some of the first few flavors were Salty Caramel, Wildberry Lavender, and Hot Chocolate. After making her own ice cream for four years, Britton Bauer closed Scream, and decided to attend the ice cream short course at Penn State.[2]

Britton Bauer had served one flavor a day at Scream, but realized, when a coffee shop was out of her favorite orange scone, that such a limited selection could be disappointing for customers. Afterwards, she realized Scream's mistakes and wrote a new business plan. Britton Bauer got a job at the North Market, and proposed opening a new ice cream store at the market for nearly a year without success. Meanwhile, her boyfriend bought her an Italian gelato machine that she could not afford at the time, and began making her own ice cream again at home.[2]

Later, the first Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams opened in 2002, also in the North Market, which was different from Scream in several ways. While Scream offered its customers only one flavor at a time, Jeni's offered customers several flavors. From opening day of Jeni's, the store was incredibly popular. Within the first year, her boyfriend's brother joined the company, making him the third member of the company in addition to Jeni and then-boyfriend now-husband Charlie.[2]

Joe Biden at Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams' flagship location in Columbus, Ohio, to discuss fair pay efforts in 2016.

Three years later, in 2005, a state regulator alerted Jeni's that they didn't have a proper license that was required to sell ice cream in a market. As a result, Britton Bauer and her colleagues realized that they needed to open a brand new ice cream production facility instead of making the ice cream in the market. In 2006, Jeni opened her first store out of the market, and continued to expand into other locations in the area. In 2009, after Jeni, Charlie, and Charlie's brother realized that they needed a CEO, their close friend John Lowe quit his job at General Electric to become the company's first and only CEO.[2]

Product recall

On April 23, 2015, Jeni's initiated a recall of all products due to food safety concerns, due to a possible presence of listeria in their products.[3] Jeni's initiated a second listeria-related recall in June 2015, connected to the first recall.[4]

In the listeria aftermath, Jeni wrote a blog post introducing the implementation of a testing and control program, writing: "I mentioned that our program was aggressive: we did almost 200 swabs every day for two months in our 2,000-square-foot production kitchen—almost 1,000 times beyond the industry recommendation—in order to understand where the Listeria was coming from and eliminate it."[5]

Locations and distribution

As of March 2020, "Scoop Shops" are located in twelve states and the District of Columbia. Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams pints are also distributed in over 3,000 high-end groceries and markets nationwide, as well as through mail order.[6]

Reviews

Jeni's received a positive review on the "Hot and Spicy" episode of Food Network's show The Best Thing I Ever Ate (2010).[7] It was reviewed in The Washington Post (2011),[8] The Huffington Post (2012),[9] and US News & World Report who ranked it #1 in America in 2012.[10] The Chicago Tribune (2011) said "Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams is gaining a national reputation for producing superior desserts made of milk sourced from a family farm in Ohio's Appalachian region."[11] Time magazine said it "has a large cult following among Ohio émigrés and ice cream geeks."[12]

The Atlantic positively reviewed it saying "Jeni's flavors are not successful simply because they are irreverent and ground-breaking. They work because a great deal of effort has gone into their crafting--what at first glance seems whimsical, upon first bite is proven artisanal."[13] It has also been positively reviewed in The New York Times (2011),[14] and by Today (2012).[15] In 2007, The New York Times said Jeni's had "surpassed the creativity of all other ice cream makers with its versions like goat cheese and Cognac fig sauce."[16]

Awards

In 2012, Jeni's received a sofi Gold Award in the "Dessert or Dessert Topping" category for Lemon Frozen Yogurt.[17] In 2013, Jeni's won another sofi Gold Award in the "Outstanding Product Line" category.[18] Beginning with her early days at Scream and continuing to the present, Britton Bauer's ice cream has incorporated products local to Columbus and Ohio, including milk, fruit, and whiskey.[2][19]

Fast Company named Jeni Britton Bauer one of the Most Creative People in Business in 2018.[20] In 2019, Inc. listed Jeni's as #2329 on its Inc. 5000 list.[21]

Britton Bauer received an honorary doctorate in business administration from Ohio State, the university she had attended but left in her sophomore year to pursue a career in ice cream, after serving as the commencement speaker at the summer 2016 graduation.[22][23]

Jeni's cookbooks

In 2011, Jeni Britton Bauer published her first cookbook, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home, which became a New York Times best-seller and The Wall Street Journal called the "homemade-ice cream-making Bible." Britton Bauer won a James Beard Foundation Award, the highest honor for writing about culinary arts and food, for her cookbook.[24] The book was also nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards Best Food & Cookbooks that year.[25]

Britton Bauer published Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream Desserts in 2014 "to provide an audience with the tools to craft their own ice cream-based creations".[26]

In March 2019, Britton Bauer published her third cookbook, The Artisanal Kitchen: Perfect Homemade Ice Cream: The Best Make-It Yourself Ice Creams, Sorbets, Sundaes, and Other Desserts.[27]

Select list of flavors
  • Almond Milk Cortado[28]
  • Bangkok Peanut[29]
  • Brambleberry Crisp[30]
  • Brown Butter Almond Brittle[30]
  • Coffee With Cream and Sugar[31]
  • Cold Brew with Coconut Cream[32][33]
  • Cream Puff[34]
  • Darkest Chocolate[35]
  • Gooey Butter Cake[35]
  • Honey Vanilla Bean[36]
  • Pistachio and Honey[37]
  • Queen City Cayenne[38]
  • Salty Caramel[39]
  • Salted Peanut Butter with Chocolate Flecks[35]
  • Texas Sheet Cake[40]
  • Wildberry Lavender[41]

References
  1. "Scoop Shops". Jeni's Official Website. Archived from the original on 2012-05-23.
  2. Raz, Guy (February 28, 2018). "How I Built This: Jeni Britton Bauer". National Public Radio: How I Built This.
  3. "Recall". Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams.
  4. "Public reacts to second listeria-related recall at Jeni's". The Columbus Dispatch.
  5. "Change, Listeria, and the re-opening of our kitchen". Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. 2015-08-31. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  6. Communication, Belle. "Belle Communication Named Agency of Record for Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2020-03-23.
  7. "Hot & Spicy". The Best Thing I Ever Ate. The Food Network. September 23, 2010. Archived from the original on December 2, 2013. Retrieved November 23, 2013. See further:
  8. Jane Black (June 14, 2011). "An ice cream wizard brings the magic home". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  9. "The Best Ice Cream Flavors For Summer: Our Editors' Picks, 2012". The Huffington Post. June 10, 2013. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  10. Liz Weiss (May 29, 2012). "America's Best Ice Cream". US News & World Report. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  11. Wendy Pramik (September 3, 2011). "Columbus shows Ohio's adventurous side". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  12. Josh Ozersky (March 9, 2011). "Can the Best Ice Cream in America Be the Biggest?". Time. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  13. Terrence Henry (August 31, 2009). "An Ice Cream Surprise in Columbus". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  14. Florence Fabricant (December 20, 2011). "Jeni's Ice Cream in Holiday Flavors". The New York Times. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  15. Katie Quinn (February 8, 2012). "Is ice cream the ultimate aphrodisiac?". Today. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  16. Marian Burros (November 28, 2007). "The Gift Is in the Mail, and on the Web". The New York Times. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  17. "2012 sofi Gold Winner: Outstanding Dessert or Dessert Topping". Food Spring. 2012. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  18. "2013 sofi Awards: Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams Product Line". Specialty Food. May 28, 2012. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  19. Malone, JD. "Jeni Britton Bauer overcomes setbacks on way to ice-cream success". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 2018-03-09.
  20. "Jeni Britton Bauer, Most Creative People". Fast Company. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  21. "Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams". Inc.com. Retrieved 2020-03-23.
  22. Knox, Tom (August 29, 2016). "Jeni's founder nominated for honorary degree from Ohio State". Columbus Business First. Retrieved March 9, 2018.
  23. "Ohio State honors three at summer 2016 commencement". Ohio State University. August 5, 2016. Retrieved March 9, 2018.
  24. "Cookbooks by Jeni Britton Bauer". Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  25. "Announcing the Goodreads Choice Winner in Best Food & Cooking!". Goodreads.
  26. "Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream Desserts | Bake the Book". www.seriouseats.com.
  27. Barnes & Noble. "The Artisanal Kitchen: Perfect Homemade Ice Cream: The Best Make-It-Yourself Ice Creams, Sorbets, Sundaes, and Other Desserts|Hardcover". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2020-03-23.
  28. "Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams Serve Rich New Dairy-Free Flavors in Scoop Shops". November 25, 2017.
  29. "Artisanal Ice Cream Is Taking Over L.A." Food & Wine.
  30. "Florida's first Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams location is now open at Tampa's Sparkman Wharf". Creative Loafing: Tampa Bay.
  31. "Jeni's Scoops New Location in Buckhead". October 23, 2019.
  32. Nutrition, Center for Food Safety and Applied (June 5, 2020). "Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams Issues Voluntary Recall of Cold Brew with Coconut Cream". U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
  33. "Jeni's issues recall on vegan ice cream for potential dairy allergen". wkyc.com.
  34. "'One scoop at a time': How a failed ice cream shop became a sweet sensation". TODAY.com.
  35. "Nationally acclaimed ice cream shop picks The Heights for first Houston location". CultureMap Houston.
  36. El-Waylly, Sohla. "I Make My Own Ice Cream, But I Fully Endorse Jeni's Pints". Bon Appétit.
  37. "The 10 Best Jewish Ice Cream Flavors | The Nosher".
  38. "Inside the Production Kitchen of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams". The Daily Meal. November 14, 2013.
  39. Leonhardt, Megan (July 21, 2019). "Meet the woman whose name is on 2 million pints of ice cream". CNBC.
  40. "Jeni's Dairy-Free Ice Cream Review (Vegan Frozen Dessert Pints)". March 21, 2019.
  41. Nelson, Dustin. "Jeni's 'State Fair' Ice Cream Flavors Include Popcorn, Lavender & More". Thrillist.
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