WILDWOOD, MO (KMOX) - Frozen treats are not just a taste of summer. Locally crafted ice creams, custards, soft serves, gelatos, and ices bring people together. Steve Christensen, brought Scoop School to the St. Louis region. He's Executive Director of the North American Ice Cream Association based in Wildwood. "Can you make more money in another business? Probably, but we find that the members of the association and your local ice cream shop owners just love the process of being a focal point or a connection point in the community."
Christensen tells KMOX, he doesn't believe people go to an ice cream shop just to get a cold treat. "They're going for the experience or for a memory or a commiseration or a celebration. So a lot of our ice cream shop owners really kind of lean into that. You know, you're not going to get the same feeling of community and taking the family out from buying a pint at the grocery and taking it home."
Scoop School's Steve Christensen teaches ice cream shop owners how to make the perfect frozen treat
Megan Lynch/KMOX Radio
Christensen hasn't always been in the ice cream business. His first passion was policing. "Do you know, it's crazy. I was a policeman in Australia for a long time. And all I wanted to do was be a policeman. Anyway, the world's getting crazier. I got stabbed and I thought, well, maybe I don't want to be a policeman anymore." At the same time some good friends decided to leave aviation and open a custard business. "And they came back with this cockamamie scheme of we're going to open up custard stores. And so I left the police. We opened up custard stores in Australia. The company that we bought our equipment from was based here in the U.S., in Upper Michigan. And they came out and said, we love your passion. Would you like to move to the States and maybe help grow our business?"
More than two decades ago, Christensen moved from Michigan to the St. Louis region and started Scoop School. "So it's crazy in this kind of little, what I call a nondescript gray building in Wildwood, which we like to kind of keep under the cover. We've become this kind of hub of the ice cream industry." He was then asked to lead the North American Ice Cream Association. The association boasts roughly 2,000 members that gather every year for their annual convention called "Cone Con". That's also where shops compete for flavor of the year, an honor that's been awarded to St. Louis-based creators including Clementine's and Serendipity
"The industry is full of great people. They love their customers. They love the community."
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