Three Twins Ice Cream was an American organic ice cream company based in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, established in 2005. Three Twins owned and operated three brick and mortar

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as ...

shops in Northern California and was a nationwide wholesaler of ice cream products. It closed in April 2020.

History

Three Twins was established in 2005 in Terra Linda,

San Rafael, California San Rafael ( ; Spanish for " St. Raphael", ) is a city and the county seat of Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's populatio ...

. It was started by

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

graduate Neal Gottlieb and was named for Gottlieb, his twin brother, and his brother's wife, who is also a twin. It was the first organic ice cream shop chain in the U.S. The company began distributing its products nationally after

Whole Foods Whole Foods Market IP, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon, is an upscale American multinational supermarket chain headquartered in Austin, Texas, which sells products free from hydrogenated fats and artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. A US ...

found them selling their ice cream at the Berkeley Farmers Market. Three Twins opened a factory in

Petaluma, California Petaluma (Miwok: ''Péta Lúuma'') is a city in Sonoma County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 according to the 2020 census. Petaluma's name comes from the Miwok village na ...

in 2010. In mid-2019 it moved all manufacturing operations to the former plant of Zurheide Ice Cream in

Sheboygan, Wisconsin Sheboygan () is a city in and the county seat of Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 49,929 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Sheboygan, Wisconsin Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a populati ...

(which it had purchased in 2014); its corporate headquarters remained in Petaluma. On April 17, 2020, the company announced it was closing due to financial problems compounded by the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identifie ...

Locations

By November 2017, the company owned and operated four shops, in San Francisco, Larkspur, and Napa in addition to San Rafael, and licensed stores in Berkeley,

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to i ...

, and at the San Francisco airport, and was exporting to South Korea. A licensed location at Fisherman's Wharf had closed. The San Francisco shop, in the

Lower Haight The Lower Haight is a neighborhood, sometimes referred to as Haight–Fillmore, in San Francisco, California. Location Referred to as "Pine Valley" in the 70s because of all the pine trees, the Lower Haight lies generally along Haight Street east ...

, closed in January 2018. By April 2020, the Santa Monica location had also closed and the company had licensed/franchise locations in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

and

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...

Products

Three Twins' flavors rotated between core offerings such as Mint Confetti (mint ice cream with flecks of dark chocolate) and Strawberry Je Ne Sais Quoi (strawberry with a hint of balsamic vinegar), and specialty flavors such as Cookie Jar (vanilla with three types of cookies). Its original shop garnered attention with some offbeat offerings, such as Mutton Vindaloo and the"most expensive sundae in the world" (no takers yet) and a " Sergio Romo Mexican Chocolate" flavor with the motto "It only tastes illegal." The expensive dessert was an Absurdity Sundae that cost $3,333.33 and included banana split drenched in syrups from rare dessert wines (German

Trockenbeerenauslese ''Trockenbeerenauslese'' (literal meaning: 'dried berry selection') is a German language wine term for a medium to full body dessert wine. ''Trockenbeerenauslese'' is the highest in sugar content in the ''Prädikatswein'' category of the Austrian ...

, 1960s vintage port, and a Chateau D’Yquem).

References

External links

*{{Official Website, http://threetwinsicecream.com/ Food and drink in the San Francisco Bay Area Ice cream parlors in the United States Companies based in Sonoma County, California 2005 establishments in California 2020 disestablishments in California Dairy products companies in California