1. To learn about how ice cream was invented.

2. To learn about the chemical changes in the creation of ice cream.

3. To learn about the Tip Top brand and how ice cream is manufactured on a grand scale.

Ice Cream is a frozen dessert usually made from milk or cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners.

Hundreds of years ago, Charles I of England hosted an amazing banquet for many of his friends and family. After the main courses, the King's French chef had created an apparently new dish. It was cold and resembled fresh-fallen snow but was much creamier and sweeter than any other after-dinner dessert.

The guests were delighted, as was Charles, who summoned the cook and asked him not to tell anyone else the recipe for his frozen cream. The King wanted the delicacy to be served only at the Royal table and offered the cook 500 pounds a year to keep it that way.

Sometime later, however, poor Charles was beheaded in But by that time, the secret of the frozen cream remained a secret no more. The cook, named DeMirco, had not kept his promise.

The Roman Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar is said to have sent slaves to the mountains to bring snow and ice to cool and freeze the fruit drinks he was so fond of.

Centuries later, the Italian Marco Polo returned from his famous journey to the Far East with a recipe for making water ices like sherbets.

In 1936 two friends, Len and Albert, opened an ice cream parlour in Manners St, Wellington. Len and Albert soon began making their own ice cream. They launched their first novelty ice cream bar in the early 1950’s – Eskimo Pie. Then came their first ice cream on a stick, Topsy (named after one of Len’s favourite cows), followed by Memphis Meltdown – the first triple dipped ice cream on the planet!

In 1962, these Kiwi upstarts built the Southern Hemisphere’s largest and most advanced centre for ice cream excellence. The Tip Top factory included staff houses and 20 acres of farm land overlooking Auckland’s Southern motorway. Over time, the Tip Top factory became a New Zealand landmark known to generations as ‘Tip Top corner’.

By blending only the freshest New Zealand milk and cream with real fruit and quality ingredients Tip Top creates the creamiest tasting ice cream that New Zealanders’ love. Best of all, it’s made right here in New Zealand.

Choose from 19 yummy ice cream flavours from creamy Cookies and Cream and zingy Lime Swirl to delicious Boysenberry made with fresh Nelson boysenberries!

At Tip Top we mix our passion for ice cream with Kiwi ingenuity and real ingredients to create the most loved ice cream for every Kiwi, for every generation.

Trumpet has been part of New Zealanders lives since 1964 and it’s still one of our most popular ice creams. Kiwis buy more than ten million Trumpets every year.

This product combines the creamy taste of ice cream with the benefits of yoghurt, creating a treat that's better for you without compromising on taste.

The refreshing fruit hit on a stick. Allowing you to enjoy that summer feeling the whole year round.

The ingredients used include: a)a concentrated source of the milkfat, usually cream or butter; b)a concentrated source of the milk solids-not-fat component, usually evaporated milk or milk powder; c)sugars including sucrose and "glucose solids", a product derived from the partial hydrolysis of the corn starch component in corn syrup; and d)milk.

The fat component adds richness of flavour, contributes to a smooth texture with creamy body and good meltdown, and adds lubrication to the palate as it is consumed. The milk solids-not-fat component also contributes to the flavour but more importantly improves the body and texture of the ice cream by offering some "chew resistance" and enhancing the ability of the ice cream to hold its air. The sugars give the product its characteristic sweetness and palatability and enhance the perception of various fruit flavours. In addition, the sugars, including the lactose from the milk components, contribute to a depressed freezing point so that the ice cream has some unfrozen water associated with it at very low temperatures typical of their serving temperatures, -15 o to -18 o C. Without this unfrozen water, the ice cream would be too hard to scoop.