Johnson's Real Ice Cream

Our business began in 1915 by my dad and my grandfather, Johnson, and that's where the Johnson's name came to be. And together they were working and supporting a supermarket, which was right next door to this piece of property. My dad was cutting meat for my grandfather at that point in time. He decided one day that he had a huge freezer, that they were putting lots of beef in to keep cold and frozen for their customers, and they had extra space where they could put maybe some ice cream. So he bought, back then, bought a little batch machine, sat it in the middle of the grocery store, and you would come in and order your ice cream flavor, and he would make it and have it ready the next day. Every ingredients is very important to us and our families and with our family being involved in every step of the process. I think that makes us very unique. We try to source as many Ohio ingredients as possible. We do have an ice cream mix that's formulated specifically to our specs that nobody else can duplicate. We are part of Ohio Proud, which is tied with the Ohio Department of Agriculture. It's been a great advantage to us, I think, in our market today. Different people, different companies have contacted us because we are made in Ohio, grown in Ohio, and I think that's been a great selling feature for us. When my wife and I came into business in 1973, realized that we needed something else to round out our year, to make it more feasible and supportive for two families. That's when we added the deli to the business. Then we recently established that, hoping that the deli would also help us serve more ice cream. There are six inspectors in the state, counting myself, that are responsible for all the dairy plants in the state. We do all the sampling, equipment testing, all pasteurization equipment is tested every three months. We do the sanitation inspections on a quarterly basis. There was a lot of consultation involved with new products. We get into labeling, and we do all the milk tanker inspections in the state, and also the people that collect samples in the state, which are over a thousand. We inspect them. Our involvement with Johnson's Ice Cream, they are under what's called a HACCP plan, hazard analysis critical control point. We help them develop their program, and we do routine inspections here, and also the sampling. We do check for the cleaning of the equipment. We review their HACCP plan. When we wanted to grow our business, that was a situation where we had to develop a plan, which was the HACCP plan. The ODA was extremely helpful with us, as far as getting that established. Us being small, not knowing much about it, they pretty much walked us through the program and helped us out. It was very instr The benefit to the public for having ODA involved with these dairy plants is public health. We want to be sure that there's a wholesome, safe product on the market for the general cons One of the most satisfying things about this job is watching these new businesses get established and watching them succeed. That just makes your day. And no one can put them down to a safe product, and they develop a good business.