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Press, 14 June 1983, Page 18

even with vanilla icecream. This is usually in the form of a fruit pulp or a sweet syrup.

Large beaters take care of the mixing job very quickly, but do not manage to blend the fat properly with the milk and the sugar. So the mixture passes through a heater to a machine called a homogeniser, which breaks down the globules of fat so that the mixture is smooth.

The mixture is then pasteurised to kill off any germs or bacteria. This is done by heating it very quickly, and then cooling it again.

The icecream mixture now makes another journney, to storage vats where it is kept cool until it is ready for the next stage.

When the icecream is ready to be frozen, it is pumped into big freezers where it is cooled by streams of cold air. As the freezing process takes place, steel blades whisk air into the icecream to keep it light. It is frozen quickly so that big ice crystals do not form and make it too icy. After freezing, the mixture is still rather soft so it can be packaged easily. It is pumped to a packaging machine, where it is squeezed into cardboard cartons or plastic containers by metal nozzles. Icecream which is to go to dairies to make icecream cones goes into bigger boxes. The filled cartons now go to the hardener, where after about half an hour the icecream becomes firm.

Between leaving the factory and arriving at the shop, the icecream must be kept firm, so it is kept in freezer stores and transported in refrigerated container trucks.

And that is how it stays — firm and cool — until that moment when it melts on your tongue.