August Newsletter

Greetings!

Under the heat of the August sun we wanted to give you some refreshing news on what's going on at Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream!

If you would like this newsletter sent directly to you each month please contact Sarah at sarah@chocolateshoppeicecream.com and she would be happy to send it out for you!

Sundae Specials

Each month, we offer a featured sundae in our stores in order to change things up a bit and keep our menu up-to-date.  For the month of August we are featuring a Caramel Quest Sundae.  This sundae includes our Caramel Chaos ice cream topped with caramel topping, chocolate covered pretzels, almonds, whipped cream and a cherry. If you are interested in featuring this sundae in your store feel free to contact us for ordering the special ingredients needed or a poster to promote the sundae.

During the month of September, we will be featuring an Apple Pie Daydream Sundae.  For this sundae, we will use our seasonal Caramel Apple Pie ice cream covered with apple topping, caramel, pecans, whipped cream and a cherry.  All supplies needed for promoting and selling this sundae will be available to ship starting the week of August 23th.

Check Out Our New Website!

The Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream website has gotten a face lift! The web address is the same at www.chocolateshoppeicecream.com but the layout has been revamped and more useful content for wholesale customers has been added.

On the website you can find events, monthly newsletters, store locations and current flavors, along with pictures, descriptions and nutritional information. Look around, have fun, and check out our link to your store. Soon to come will be the ability to edit your store's information as well as tons of great resources for wholesale customers.

Let us know what you think, and also make sure to let us know about your celebrations, events, and special recognitions and we will add the good news to our front page!

Debit/Credit Cards Now Accepted

Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream is now accepting credit cards! Call us at 800.466.8043 to pay your bill via MasterCard, Visa, or Discover. A processing fee of 3% of the charged amount will be added to all transactions.

Quality Assurance Column: Help Keep Food Safe! Part 2

What is this foodborne illness?  We can't see it, so why should we worry about it?  As mentioned in last month's article, the CDC estimates that 76 million Americans are affected by foodborne illness each and every year.  Washing your hands can help reduce the risk of spreading disease greatly.  What else can we do to fight foodborne illnesses?  How many of you wash down your kitchen sink or counter at home?  Everyone, great!  How many of you sanitize after?  If hand-washing is a good first step to fighting/preventing foodborne illness, washing food contact surfaces and utensils is a great second step.
What's the third step?  #3 - SANITIZING!
These three steps can help all of us prevent foodborne illness from spreading.

Now to help understand what we are fighting against, we'll explore it a little.  Foodborne illness comes from bacteria that bear names like Listeria Monocytogenes, Escherichia Coli, Staphylococcus Aureus and Salmonella just to name a few of a long list.  All of which can be spread by not properly washing and sanitizing food contact surfaces and utensils.  I wouldn't like to get tangled up with names like those.  These bacteria live and grow in the Earth, water, soil, plants, animals and in us.  They are all around us.  A healthy individual may not have a problem with consuming food tainted with low levels of bacteria.  Those who are most susceptible to illness or death are pregnant women, young children, elderly persons and those with lowered immune systems.

Washing food contact surfaces and utensils gets rid of all the dirt and grime.  What about the things we cannot see, like harmful bacteria, where does it go?  After washing food contact surfaces and utensils traces of harmful bacteria can be left behind.  With the right conditions (temperature, pH, oxygen, water activity, sunlight), bacteria can double every twenty minutes.  Imagine this, you have one lonely bacteria spore cell or vegetative cell all by itself.  Sort of like a seed from a plant.  Now give it some water, the right temperature and watch it grow.  Twenty minutes later that one bacteria cell is now two.  Forty minutes later those two bacteria cells are now four.  After one day, the bacteria count is now 4.7224E+21 (A LOT).  Now that's a dangerous exponential growth curve.

Don't just wash food contact surfaces and utensils, but sanitize them as well.

What type of sanitizer should we use for food contact surfaces and utensils?  There are a wide variety of food contact sanitizers that can be used.  Here at the Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream Company we use 100-200ppm sodium hypochlorite (parts per million bleach/water ratio).

Sodium hypochlorite otherwise know as household bleach, is not only an effective but inexpensive sanitizer that requires only a short contact time.  It kills 99.999% of bacteria!  USE BLEACH AS DIRECTED.  It can be extremely irritating to skin and extremely corrosive to metals, causing pitting and rust when not used properly.  Also, increasing strength of a sanitizer in places that manufacture or sell food violates EPA regulations and may actually result in less effectiveness.  Bleach based sanitize solution is unaffected by hard water salts.  Sodium hypochlorite is one of the widely used sanitizers.  Sodium hypochlorites effectiveness was determined during WWI and became widely used during the 1920's and 1930's.

YOU can help prevent foodborne illness from spreading by properly washing, rinsing and sanitizing food contact surfaces and/or utensils.  First, don't forget to wash your hands!

Quick Tips:

USE BLEACH AS DIRECTED

Always read warning labels when dealing with chemicals.  This may save you a trip to the emergency room.

When using bleach, optimum water temperature is between 60-100°f.  Bleach will gas off at temperatures above 120°f, which decreases its effectiveness dramatically.

Food contact surfaces or utensils must be cleaned prior to sanitizing.

New & Feature Flavors

Summer is here and we've started up our refreshing summer seasonal flavors! All the following flavors are available immediately.

Door County Cherry is our vanilla ice cream mixed with real Door County Cherries from Sister Bay, Wisconsin.

S'mores is our vanilla ice cream filled with chocolate-covered graham crackers, chocolate fudge, and a marshmallow ripple.
 
Root Beer Float is our vanilla ice cream swirled with root beer Italian ice.

Lemon Meringue is our lemon and marshmallow ice creams swirled together with a lemon ripple.

Along with our new additions to the Chocolate Shoppe flavor list, we will be discontinuing Dark Side of the Moon.