Ben & Jerry's Factory Tour, Waterbury, Vermont

We made it! After several visits to New Hampshire over the years and much talk about when we would make it to the Ben & Jerry's Factory Tour, we did the two hour drive to Waterbury, VT and decided to visit. I was a bit disappointed to be honest. Your $3 gets you a 20 minute tour. For 6.5 minutes you watch a video. Here is a sneak peak of the video.



Then you go into the factory room and watch a small handful of factory workers do their thing on two lines. The most exciting part is the machine that flips the pints over since they are top heavy then are easier to pack then. Of course they wouldn't let you take photos of the cool stuff.

Then they get you into this room that feels like a typical Ben & Jerry's store and they give you a sample scoop of a predetermined flavor. Which I thought was entirely bogus. I have had dreams of being at the Ben & Jerry's factory and having the opportunity to try a bunch of new flavors that no one else had. Well they make it seem like that, but then a dude comes out with a tray with their new apple pie flavor. Which is good. But not like what I see in my dreams. Here is a guy showing our group what pints have been introduced for 2006.



The best part of the tour is the flavorgraveyard. Its over and around the hill from the factory in a little field and it's an actual graveyard with tomb stones of all the retired flavors. Some people had left flowers I noticed, or the factory workers put them there for dramatic effect.





Here is bill cow tipping a trash can



This is the factory



This is the Main Entrance