Chef Interview

Scooping up Goodness at The Ice Cream Barn in Swansea

One couple’s ice cream making plans became a reality

The Bay Magazine ·

Tom and Jocelyn Seiter are tag team ice cream making extraordinaires. Swansea’s Baker Farm is home to The Ice Cream Barn, the duo’s pride and joy, producing high quality New England ice cream made with only fresh and locally grown ingredients. We talked about favorite flavors, life on the farm and being part of special occasions.

So, how do two college grads start their own ice cream making operation?
Tom: For me, it was always about local ingredients. I got my degree in Environmental Studies, which I never seriously felt would land me a great job. So, I began focusing on the way we produce food nowadays, and the importance of maintaining local food systems. I went to school at Denison University in agricultural-rich Ohio, and was shocked at how little you could actually buy at the grocery store that was produced locally. I thought that was a problem which needed to be addressed, and sensed real opportunity in creating a future around using local ingredients.
Jocelyn: Tom and I both graduated from college and didn’t want to get nine-to-five kind of jobs. Tom really got into local foods in college and I worked in an ice cream store for years through high school and college. We put our heads together and decided that local ice cream was the way to go. Our original idea was to make lots of money, pay off our college debt and go traveling. Needless to say it didn’t work out exactly that way. The whole ice cream business has grown organically and we have been opportunistic about the paths that the business has taken us. It has landed us in the most awesome spot imaginable: on a working dairy farm doing it all from the cow to the cone.

There’s a lot of ice cream out there; what makes yours exceptional?
Tom: The simplicity of [using] real ingredients. I don’t think you could ever make strawberry ice cream taste better than by selecting fresh, local strawberries at peak ripeness and blending in the perfect amount of sugar, milk and cream.
Jocelyn: The love! We try to use local where possible [because] good stuff in gets good stuff out. Every flavor is something special, even the standards.

Would you describe the process as farm-to-table ice cream making?
Tom: Most definitely. A catchier phrase might be “from cow to cone.” That’s literally what we do. We built the Ice Cream Barn with the intention of processing everything on site – pasteurizing and homogenizing – in addition to milking cows and making ice cream. Currently, however, we have the Winsor Dairy of Johnston pick up the milk from our farm, pasteurize and
homogenize it, and sell it back to us to churn into ice cream. This is useful because they are able to get extra cream from other local Rhode Island farms to add into our base so that we’re not worrying about having an excess of skim milk or a dearth of cream once our own milk is separated and mixed back together.

I’m sure it’s hard to choose, but if you had to, what are some of your favorite flavors?
Tom: My all-time favorite is Cranberry Jubilee. We boil cranberries down, add the juices to the base of the ice cream, add in the perfectly sweet cranberry pieces with sliced almonds and chocolate chunks. I love it. But recently I’ve been on a Key Lime Pie kick.
Jocelyn: It changes all the time, but seasonal flavors like RumChata Toasted Coconut, Lemon Cheesecake and Charles Dickens are my go-tos when they are around.

What do you love most about the business of ice cream making?
Tom: Well, typically speaking, no one is usually upset when they’re buying ice cream. Even when people are having a bad day, they’re usually buying ice cream to cheer themselves up. You definitely feed off of the good atmosphere.
Jocelyn: I love making people happy. Ice cream is happy, so our customers are happy. People celebrate with ice cream and it makes us happy to make so many people smile with good ice cream.

The Ice Cream Barn
289 Locust Street, Swansea
508-567-6278

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