Our love affair with Kent’s Ice Cream of Fort Atkinson, Wis., started in the early 1990s just after we had purchased a classic car that needed work.

The headquarters and manufacturing plant of G.S. Gelato, Fort Walton Beach, Fla., are far from the scenic Gulf Coast views in this resort town on the Emerald Coast of Florida’s panhandle.

By most measures, ice cream is not a growing market. Production is declining, sales are stalled and manufacturers aren’t increasing prices by much. Yet there are more plants making ice cream.

Fans can like the Facebook page of their favorite ice cream brand and Tweet all day long about its flavors. But sometimes, to really understand a company’s mission, you have to meet face-to-face with the owners and watch how they make ice cream. That’s the approach Snoqualmie Ice Cream owner Barry Bettinger takes with his distributors. He invites them to tour the fully sustainable manufacturing plant in Maltby, Wash., and make ice cream. Once the visitors see the passion of the company’s 12 employees and the integrity in manufacturing a super-premium organic ice cream (19% butterfat and 15% overrun), they “get it,” Bettinger said.

Cornell University has a world-renown dairy science department. But alumnus Neal Gottlieb, the founder of Three Twins Ice Cream, graduated from the College of Human Ecology with a degree in consumer economics and housing. He did enroll in a milk quality course — for a day. He dropped the class because it conflicted with his rowing schedule. As for Cornell’s famed creamery, Gottlieb admits he was not a huge consumer of its dairy products, but he fondly remembers the 99-cent ice cream sandwiches.

Greek-style frozen yogurt is a product that emulates the properties associated with the success of cultured Greek yogurt. Those properties involve primarily protein and acidity (tartness) levels higher than those of conventional yogurt.

Ice cream is a price-driven food with little brand loyalty. Sure, consumers say they have their favorite flavors and brands, but when that moment of truth arrives and it’s time to grab a carton from the freezer, price beats brand. The best-selling national brand is “private label.” And the sad truth of it is, Americans are buying less ice cream.

New Palsgaard emulsifier/stabilizer with tara gum for extruded ice cream facilitates high, stable overruns, maintains quality, but at lower cost.

The history of America is full of famous brothers. Comedy has its Marx brothers and baseball its Alou brothers. The Wright brothers reportedly had something to do with manned flight. In the world of ice cream, there are the Gifford brothers of Skowhegan, Maine.