Ben and Jerry’s is a big name brand full of big name ice creams.

Their flavors range from the fruity “Cherry Garcia” to the dense chocolatey taste of “Chocolate Fudge Brownie.” Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is the No. 1 selling Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor, according to the Ben and Jerry’s website. Going by our class’s conclusion, those customers could be doing much better by selecting the Dryers brand, or the local Piazzas market brand. Both of these would be better choices if you were looking for a top notch taste on a lower budget. Although many people would say that Ben and Jerry’s has superior flavor and taste to other ice creams, our class agreed that it was only the third tastiest ice cream behind Piazza’s and Dreyers.

Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough flavor was right up there with the other competitors for the “best” cookie dough ice cream as chosen by our journalism class, but just didn’t cut it. We began our taste testing as the many different ice creams were put around the room on plates. We then made our way around the room trying all of the ice creams and writing down our initial reactions to each one. They were not labeled, so our opinions were not biased and we changed plates as we tried each one, so that the flavors would not mix. As some of the taste testers agreed, the ice cream was too rich and the cookie dough had a bad aftertaste. The ice cream wasn’t the highest quality, but it was among the highest in cost per pint. It also was the highest in the fat(per half cup) and calories(per half cup) categories as well as among the leaders in sugar(per half cup), falling behind only “Rick’s Rather Rich”. Dishing out four dollars for this particular ice cream just didn’t seem like a great idea.

Next, we moved on to Piazza’s homemade brand of cookie dough ice cream. According to the class statistics, it ranked first in overall taste and third to last in cost per pint, at around $2.80 per
pint. This is one of the better buys out of the eight different brands of ice cream we tasted. The statistics on how many grams of sugar(per half cup), fat(per half cup), and calories(per half
cup) were not available. It is possible that the numbers in these categories may have swayed my decisions from this being one of the better all around ice creams that we tested.

The overall winner as an "all-around cookie dough ice cream" was the Dreyer’s brand. Although it came in second in the flavor score, following behind Piazza’s, it was the clear winner when you factored in all of the remaining aspects that make up an ice cream that you would want to purchase. It had the lowest number of calories(per half cup) and grams of sugar(per half cup), and was also close to the bottom in grams of fat(per half cup). The deciding factor that put this particular ice cream over the edge and pushed it to the finish as the clear winner was the cost per pint. Dreyers only charged $1.25 per pint, the second lowest behind the Safeway Select brand. When being compared to cookie dough ice creams such as the Coldstone Creamery brand, it costs over three dollars less and is ranked above it in every single category.

I believe that if I were to choose which ice creams would be the best before I tried them all, I would have picked Dreyers and Piazzas to be at the bottom of the list, while the big names such as Ben and Jerry’s and Baskin Robbins would be sitting at the top.
I was fooled by many different things. Places such as Ben and Jerry’s and Coldstone Creamery gain many of their customers with what goes on at their stores. Ben and Jerry’s uses their clever names to capture an ice cream lovers mind and sometimes this clever title is chosen above the higher quality ice cream sitting next to it. Coldstone Creamery uses the store as a way to get customers by having their “add-in” system where their employee’s add in your favorite toppings to your not as tasty cup of cookie dough ice cream. Piazza’s and Dreyer’s don’t have any gimmicks to get you to buy their ice cream, just the facts. They are better tasting, better for you, and cost less.