Erik,
Regarding the "One tub" of Chapmans, the parlour we use has 3 separate freezer units. Each one holds 10 tubs of icecream.
The owner's idea was to have ALL Chapman's flavours in ONE freezer unit. That way there would be minimal chance of stuff getting from a "contaminated container" into a safe container. There would be separate scoops to be used for this freezer unit.
Also, obviously they have to be TOLD you are PA. What they do now, is boil water and wash the scoop before they serve my daughter.
They are happy to do this and if there's a huge lineup, we wait, so as not to be rude.
Again, it's a comfort zone thing. She's 11 and has been going to this same parlour for 6 years without incident. That doesn't mean it's 100% safe.

Hi McKenziesMom,
A separate freezer unit and separate scoops for the Chapmans freezer unit sounds great. I wish other ice cream parlours could do this.
Baskin Robbins, Laura Secord, etc all have the peanut butter, maple walnut, butter pecan, mocha almond, etc all spread out randomly with the same scoops used for all flavours so I can't eat it.

Because of Ethan's milk allgery along with the peanut, we have always given him "Toffuti" ice cream and ice cream sandwiches. They are delicious. We've never had a nut problem. I am proud of McDonalds for starting to serve their peanuts in individual packages. The Dairy Queen does have a notice up that products may have come in contact with ice cream. This bothers me.
When and if he ever gets to have milk based ice cream, I would probably opt for the yogurt out of the yogurt machine. It seems as this would be safe, unless they had a peanut yogurt in it at one time, but most seem to have a dedicated vanilla machine.
One problem I have is the open nuts at Ryans and Golden Coral. We can't have any of the other goodies on the dessert table because the peanut spoon may have been stuck in them.

As far as I know, you can only get Blue Bell in Texas. We get their Mint Chocolate chip and Katie has never had a problem with it. We have not tried Blue Bunny as she really loves the Blue Bell.
bunkysmom

I got an e-mail from Blue Bunny today. Their ice creams are all run on shared lines so it's back to the comfort level. My pa daughter has never had a reaction from it but I will re-think it before letting her have it at birthday parties and other places away from home.
We get Blue Bell here in Arkansas and it is wonderful. I let Sara have the homemade vanilla and the homemade vanilla with strawberries. It is rather expensive so that's why she's had so much Blue Bunny. I was told by Blue Bell a few years ago that all their products are run on the same lines but was comfortable with the cleaning info they gave me as well as the order that they run the flavors. The flavors we buy are run on a schedule so that many flavors are run between them and the peanut flavors.
Do you think we're being too lax? I really want your input on this.

I called Blue Bunny ice cream today. They told me that they have shared equipment and do not have dedicated lines. They run the vanilla first, but there is still a risk. My suggestion when it comes to ice cream is to buy an ice cream maker and make it yourself, at least that's what I'm doing. They sell them at Target for $20.00
Let me know if you find a safe ice cream.

[quote]Originally posted by erik:
[B]Keeping one tub in an ice cream parlour with a safe ice cream (ie Chapmans) when the rest of the ice cream is not safe will not work too well. The reason is how can you guarantee that the same scoop that is used to scoop the "unsafe" ice cream won't be used to scoop the "safe" ice cream.
A scoop used to scoop peanut butter ice cream might be used afterwards to scoop the "safe" ice cream , making it unsafe. Even if the scoop is quickly rinsed in water, there will likely be residue on the scoop
This won't solve the problem of a bit of an unsafe flavor ice cream falling off the scoop into the bin of a safe flavor, but I do have a solution to the problem of scoops being used in unsafe flavors, then being barely rinsed before scooping your portion of a safe flavor: bring your own scoop.
I keep a clean ice cream scoop in a ziplock bag in the glove box of our family car so it's always available if we want to stop at the local Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop for ice cream. I have had the person doing the scooping stop to ask their supervisor for permission before using my scoop, but so far it's worked out well. The Ben & Jerry's scooper even thought of first scooping away the top layer of ice cream to be sure there weren't any bits of other flavors in the area where he was scooping.
This has worked out for us, but, of course, YMMV.
Debbie

Quote:Originally posted by Mike and Missy:
[b]We always buy Chapman's ice cream. I'm not sure if anyone on this thread is from Canada. Chapman's has a website and it lists their peanut and nut free lines. There are nut products in the facility, but all of the ice cream products I buy are on "nut free" lines.
Hope this helps. My son absolutely loves it. He's nine and he just started having ice cream this year after I found out about this company.
They make popsicles, sandwiches and much more.[/b]
Hi,
I'm very interested in the ice cream you mentioned and I live in Alberta. I've recently found Foremost ice cream as a friend of my with 5 pa kids told me about it. Do you know if I can get Chapman's here or do you have a 1-800 number for them? My email is [email]jalexma@aol.com[/email]. Thanks.

Chapman's website is [url="http://www.chapmans.ca."]www.chapmans.ca.[/url] Good luck to you, I hope you can get this ice cream. I love supporting companies such as these.
They have approximately 30 products which are made on dedicated lines. Other areas of the plant do have nuts.