The Gifford’s Ice Cream processing plant is tucked into a hillside on Hathaway Street in Skowhegan, Maine. This unassuming little band box of a building gives no hint that inside, production workers are creating super premium ice cream that is sold in company-owned and independently owned scoop shops and by retailers from Maine to Maryland.
The company’s tagline refers to its ice cream as “famous,” a bit of hyperbole created by the owners when they established the company in 1980. But there is no challenging the claim that the Gifford family makes a “world championship” product. They have the hardware to prove it. Gifford’s is the first ice cream maker to win the Grand Champion prize two years running in the Wisconsin Dairy Products Association contest. WDPA honored Gifford’s chocolate ice cream as the “best of the best” in 2010 and 2011.