Cold Economics

There are literally hundreds of pages in the new tax act, 900 or so depending on your printer. Not wanting to rely on just the headlines, I downloaded the actual bill and scanned the text from beginning to end. In it I see lots on tariffs and taxes, on prices and payments. There are references to housing and energy, to agriculture and health. It would seem that almost every corner of economic activity is mentioned, except one that touches us all. 

You may come down on one side or the other as it relates to investing in clean energy or domestic chip production, but it's summer. And in this season, if there's a singular topic that unites left and right, it's our key consumable. While we may disagree, indeed, quibble passionately about the best variety, delivery system and embellishments, I am frankly amazed that the bill's writers didn't include protection and controls for the only ICE that really matters at this time of year, ice cream.

We're talking a market worth over $18 billion last year, one expected to grow nearly 4% annually over the next 8 years. It's a product consumed enthusiastically by every demographic regardless of gender, age, ethnicity or geography. It covers every type of manufacturing entity, from corporate conglomerates to mom-and-pop shops. And while we produce 1.3 billion gallons of the stuff every year, we have a trade imbalance, importing more than we export. All of those factors should make it as least as important as those other economic segments. Yet while the tax bill put aside $10 billion to go to Mars, it made no mention of subsidizing a cone with sprinkles.

The economics and options make it ripe for oversight. Start with variations. Doesn't matter whether you are from Durham or Dallas, Chicago or Chattanooga. Walk into your local grocery store and there's a dizzying array from Moose Tracks (vanilla ice cream, chocolate peanut butter cups and fudge swirl) to Chunky Monkey (banana ice cream with fudge chunks and walnuts) to New York Strawberry Cheesecake (cheesecake ice cream with a swirl of strawberry sauce and spiced graham cracker crust pieces). Look a little harder and you can find Bubble Gum, Mac n'Cheese and Bacon, flavors which require a rationale but no explanation. All of that in spite of the fact that survey after survey shows that vanilla, chocolate and strawberry are America's favorite flavors. Yet if you are lucky you'll find those on the bottom shelf behind the Dulce de Leche. 

The pricing is equally disparate. A container of Breyers vanilla will cost you $4.00, or 8 cents a fluid ounce. Meanwhile, a tub of the same flavor from Turkey Hill works out to 11 cents a fluid ounce, while the Ben & Jerry's version costs triple that. And that's in package form. Go to an ice cream emporium, and the cost goes up yet again. Since your local King Kone doesn't sell anywhere but at their stand, it's hard to make a direct comparison. But go to current darling Van Leeuwen and you can match it up. The cost of a typical serving at the storefront is about the same a pint at the store, while containing three quarters or so of the volume. If you throw in the cone for free that's a 50% premium. Yes, you can argue that there's a difference for all those brands and form factors, just as there is between a Fiat, a Ford and a Ferrari. But if it's 90 degrees out, do you really care about the fat content? And will your eight-year-old appreciate the distinction once she covers it with hot fudge and jimmies?

Still, while I might sneer at the increasingly bizarre flavors, or grouse about the price of a cup or cone at the shore, I've never not bought one when the opportunity presented itself. For while there is no rule against consuming gelato or sorbet or ice cream in February, once the calendar ticks past Memorial Day, and certainly after July 4th, it is all but a staple. And using a metric of "satisfaction per dollar spent," whatever the serving, it's hard to go higher on the scale. So just lick it up and buy the cone. Or as runner and writer Don Kardong put it, "Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos."

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Marc Wollin of Bedford has a Turkey Hill chocolate peanut butter jones he can't kick, and doesn't want to. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.