Dippin' Dots is an

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 ...

snack invented by Curt Jones in 1988."Curt Jones"
Dippin Dots Website, accessed 14 Dec 2010 The confection is created by

flash freezing In physics and chemistry, flash freezing is the process whereby objects are frozen in just a few hours by subjecting them to cryogenic temperatures, or through direct contact with liquid nitrogen at . It is commonly used in the food industry. Fl ...

ice cream mix in

liquid nitrogen Liquid nitrogen—LN2—is nitrogen in a liquid state at low temperature. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of about . It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is a colorless, low viscosity liquid that is wid ...

. The snack is made by Dippin' Dots, Inc., headquartered in

Paducah, Kentucky Paducah ( ) is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky. The largest city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Miss ...

. Dippin' Dots are sold in 14 countries, including Honduras and Luxembourg. Because the product requires storage at temperatures below , it is not sold in most grocery stores, as most cannot meet such extreme cooling requirements. Dippin' Dots are sold in individual servings at franchised outlets. Many are in

stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

s, arenas,

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that ...

s, and in

vending machine A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The fi ...

s, though there are also locations at

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to z ...

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make th ...

s and

theme park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

History

Dippin' Dots was founded in New Grand Chain, Illinois, in 1988. Jones began the company in his parents' garage. It was originally invented as cow feed when Jones, who specialized in cryogenics, was trying to make efficient fodder for farm animals. The company is now headquartered in

. In 1992, Dippin' Dots received for its ice cream making process, and in 1996 sued its main competitor, Mini Melts, for infringement. Japan became the first international licensee of Dippin' Dots in 1995. In 2007, the

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alex ...

ruled against Dippin' Dots because the process of creating the ice cream was "obvious" rather than proprietary. On November 4, 2011, the company filed for

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...

protection, after failing to reach an agreement with their lender,

Regions Bank Regions Financial Corporation is a bank holding company headquartered in the Regions Center (Birmingham), Regions Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The company provides retail banking and commercial banking, trust, stockbrokerage, and mortgage se ...

. Regions Bank, according to ''The New York Times'', had been trying to

foreclose Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mort ...

on Dippin' Dots for over a year. On May 18, 2012, U.S. Bankruptcy Court approved the purchase of the company by Scott Fischer and his father Mark Fischer. The Fischers had co-founded Chaparral Energy in

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, and ...

. They retained company founder Curt Jones as CEO, and planned to expand from 1,600 sales locations to 2,000 locations, keeping the production and headquarters in Paducah, where it employed 165 people. In mid-2014, the company purchased gourmet popcorn franchisor Doc Popcorn, which had about 100 stores. On February 10, 2015, the company announced they would co-brand stores with both products. The 1,000-square-foot stores would sell Dippin' Dots and Doc Popcorn, with a common selling counter, register, and employees. In May 2022, J&J Snack Foods Corp. announced that it will acquire Dippin’ Dots for $222 million. Dippin' Dots was acquired by J&J Snack Foods Corp. on June 21, 2022.

Charity work

Dippin' Dots has sponsored the "Celebrity Grand Slam Paddle Jam" celebrity

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

tournament in Hollywood, whose proceeds benefit

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is a pediatric treatment and research facility located in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1962, it is a 501(c)(3) designated nonprofit medical corporation which focuses on children's catastrophic diseases, par ...

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mo ...

. The company is a contributor to the charity

Give Kids the World Village Give may refer to: making someone get or receive something from someone Places * Give, Denmark, a small town ** Give Municipality, a former municipality Music * ''Give'' (Balkan Beat Box album), 2012 album by Balkan Beat Box * ''Give'' (The Bad ...

Kissimmee, Florida Kissimmee ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Osceola County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 79,226. It is a Principal City of the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida, Metropolitan Statistical Area, wh ...

DD Cryogenics

Dippin' Dots are stored and transported at –40 degree Fahrenheit (–40 °C), which is colder than most frozen foods require. The companies' development of ultra low temperature freezers, proper storage, and transportation got the company involved from about 1988 with selling their equipment for other uses, such as preserving

microbiological Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, pro ...

cultures for fermentation. To expand this side business after the 2011 bankruptcy and sale, a subsidiary company, Dippin' Dot (DD) Cryogenics LLC, was established in May 2019. DD Cryogenics did contract freezing and

pelletizing Pelletizing is the process of compressing or molding a material into the shape of a pellet. A wide range of different materials are pelletized including chemicals, iron ore, animal compound feed, plastics, waste materials, and more. The proces ...

of microbiological products out of their Paducah plant. In August 2020 a new dedicated 6,000 square foot, 3.2 million manufacturing plant came on-line in Paducah. Their services now include, contract design and manufacturing, cryogenic processors, and ultra low temperature freezers.

Vaccine storage

DD's creation of ultra low temperature freezing for their own food products, and commercial freezers going as low as , sparked interest when vaccines were developed for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

that required storage at -94 °F (-70 °C). Pharmacists and distributors of those vaccines reached out for those freezers.

References

External links

* {{Food chains in Japan Companies based in Kentucky Food and drink companies established in 1988 Restaurants established in 1988 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011 History of Lexington, Kentucky Ice cream brands Molecular gastronomy Paducah, Kentucky Restaurant chains in the United States 1988 establishments in Illinois 2022 mergers and acquisitions