Dandy Don’s HomeMade Ice Cream entered some of its super-premium ice cream in the Los Angeles County Fair’s dairy products competition. The ice cream was judged against a standard of excellence. Those flavors which scored 100 out of 100 points received a Gold Medal. Dandy Don’s took home six Gold Medals.

“We submitted some of our off-the-wall flavors and our new Chocolate made with Schokinag German cocoa,” said Dandy Don. The winning not-so-standard flavors are Banana, Cinnamon, Cookies & Cream, Dulce de Leche, and Green Tea. The new version of their classic Chocolate ice cream also won Gold.

Dandy Don’s HomeMade Ice Cream is made in Van Nuys and delivered to fine restaurants, hotels, country clubs, and markets all over Southern California.

If you want some of our Gold-Medal-winning ice cream, please call us at 800 DANDY DON or 818 994 0111.

Dandy Don’s HomeMade Ice Cream participates in the fundraising activities of long established charities like Planned Parenthood, Children Affected by AIDS, Special Olympics, the Concern Foundation, the Starlight Foundation, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

“Hot fudge sundaes are our bullets in the battle of the diseases we want to vanquish,” says Dandy Don’s owner Don Whittemore. He loves to do community service work “because it’s a fun way of giving.” Whittemore also donates discount coupons for ice cream sundae bars to the charities for their silent auctions.

In October Dandy Don’s will be serving hot fudge sundaes at the Children Affected by AIDS Dream Halloween party, Bon Appetit’s fundraising event, and the Special Olympics. “We use the opportunity to promote ourselves and we give of our services gladly,” says Dandy Don. “It’s always better to give than receive.”

The folks at Dandy Don’s HomeMade Ice Cream have themselves a new ice cream truck and they’re just burstin’ with pride over it.

It’s big (about 20 feet long), red (fire-engine style), and hand-painted (by American Sign Company in Van Nuys) with Don’s picture and the gold medals garnered by the ice cream since 1996.

The truck, made by the Johnson Truck Body Company out of Wisconsin, can hold a ton of ice cream—literally. The freezer unit gets charged up overnight and will keep its contents frozen all day. Drivers can take ice cream as far as Las Vegas and Palm Springs.

The big red truck delivers Dandy Don’s HomeMade Ice Cream to restaurants and hotels all over Southern California Monday through Friday.

If you want a visit from the big red truck (along with an order of homemade ice cream), please call us at 800 DANDY DON or 818 994 0111.

Dandy Don’s HomeMade Ice Cream has been busy making ice cream sundae dreams come true for casts and crews of television shows, movies, and plays.

We recently set up a sundae bar for the construction crew who built Jay Leno’s new set for “The Tonight Show.” (Jay has had plenty of visits from us in the past, so don’t feel sorry for him.) We also dished out sundaes for “The West Wing,” “The Weakest Link,” and “Access Hollywood.” The cast and crew of “Malcolm in the Middle” also got a visit from us–one of the perks of working on a show with kids.

We brought a sundae bar to the set of Disney’s new movie “The Dog Catcher” and the film “White Oleander.”

We have plenty of experience catering television and movie sets, and we also went out to serve sundaes recently to the cast and crew of a play called “Pasadena.”

If you would like our servers to create a sundae bar for your set, please call us at 800 DANDY DON or 818 994 0111.

By Brent Hopkins
Daily News Staff Writer
Friday, June 1, 2001

In the latest, cruelest, twist of the ongoing energy crisis, superpremium ice cream makers face higher costs for the high percentage butter-fat mix used to produce the upscale treat. According to Don Whittemore, owner of Dandy Don’s HomeMade Ice Cream in Van Nuys, supplies are tight as dairies sell their cream to avoid the high energy costs associated with freezing. So tight, he’s seen the wholesale costs climb 13 percent per gallon in the last two months - the greatest jump he’s seen in nearly three years.

“It’s a crisis of a different kind,” he said. “A fat crisis.”

To concoct his designer dessert, sold in upscale markets and restaurants, Whittemore needs fat, and lots of it. And prices are soaring, out pacing the upward trend of the past year. The price of his mix is state-regulated, set by the California Food and Agriculture Board, and varies in two-month cycles, the latest of which will be announced today. But while big ticket producers can normally conserve the fat, made from cream and milk solids, a tight worldwide demand and rising energy prices have made the usually sweet business bitter.

“Normally, you’d stockpile all this by freezing it away,” Whittemore said. “But with the energy costs, people don’t want to be storing, but they want to get it out right away. When the costs recede, then you can stockpile again.”

And it’s not just ice cream. Anything with a high fat content, from heavy whipping cream to premium cheese has been creeping upwards in recent months, according to Jeep Dolan, vice president of the El Monte-based Driftwood Dairy that supplies Whittemore.

“Butter supplies are lower than they were last year,” he said. “But the demand has been constant.”

This translates into higher prices, which are particularly troublesome for superpremium operations like Dandy Don’s, which relies on 14 percent fat mix. All of a sudden, Dolan said, they’ll see two months’ worth of supply tightening compressed into one day, when the price hike hits today.

“It affects people like (Whittemore). They see the chain whipping even faster,” Dolan said. “They’re impacted a lot more than someone running a 10 percent ice cream operation.”

Despite his increased costs, Whittemore pledges no further price hikes on the consumer side. After raising prices earlier this year, he’s decided to eat the cost for the meantime, to keep his customers happy.

“We’ll bite the bullet and absorb this as long as we can,” he said. “We’ll let other people raise their prices first and maintain our relationships with our customers. Everyone’s going to get hit, and we want to be the good guys.”

Ice Cream Partners, which produces superpremium for both Haagen-Dazs and Nestle, has been hit by high prices, as well.

“The energy situation certainly hasn’t helped things,” said Al Briggs, vice president of operations. “We took the prices up 3 percent for grocers, and how they pass it on goes accordingly.”

Even if consumers may find higher prices in the dairy case soon, they’ll likely keep on indulging.

“There’s a real market for superpremium ice cream, and it keeps growing,” said Nancy Fletcher, director of communications for the California Milk Advisory Board. “It’s for people who want the Cadillac lifestyle, but they can’t quite afford the Cadillac, so they buy the best in other things. When you look at it compared to high priced wine, ice cream’s still a real deal.”

Download the PDF of this article.