A Tour of the 50-Year-Old Thrifty Ice Cream Factory in Los Angeles | Eater LA

"I toured the 55,000-square-foot Thrifty Ice Cream plant tucked between the 10 Freeway and Rosemead Boulevard in El Monte, less than 20 miles east of Downtown Los Angeles, and saw how this compact, hockey-rink–size factory has churned out the brand’s ice cream since 1976. The operation still leans on decades-old recipes and processes—bases for families of flavors, liquid-ammonia freezers that instantly freeze mix, a fruit feeder that adds chunky inclusions, and flash-freeze hardener tunnels—but recent modernization has speeded production (moving from two or three seconds per take-home container to about one per second) and added real-time machine and logistics monitoring. The plant’s 110 workers, many with 20+ years on the job, run 10-hour shifts to produce about 60,000 gallons (1.5 million scoops) daily and roughly 5 million gallons annually for other brands, with capacity to spare for expansion. On tour I tasted pistachio in its prefrozen, softer state—plentiful roasted nuts, a bold amaretto note up front and a lingering salty finish—and sampled a best-selling pink-lemonade seasonal that may become permanent. Thrifty’s distinctive barrel-shaped metal scoop (a proprietary, two-pronged trigger design) guarantees uniform portions, and a single scoop at retail remains an affordable $2.49 served in a cup or atop a paper-wrapped Joycake or sugar cone. Rooted in a history that began with Thrifty drugstores in 1929 and in-house production after the 1940 Borden purchase, the plant’s combination of low price, recognizable scoop shape, long-running flavors (the original trio included concord grape-pineapple, rocky road, and fruit cake), and careful modernization gives me confidence the brand can endure despite corporate changes." - Cathy Chaplin