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A Danish Ice Cream manufacturer

In this post, you can read more about what an ice cream dairy is, as well as about Kastbergs Gourmet Ice Cream

What is an Ice Cream manufacturer?
An ice cream dairy is a food production facility that processes milk and cream into ice cream products. This type of business became popular in the post-war era, when ice cream production moved into dairies. With the widespread use of centrifugal machines in dairies, it became possible to produce “pre-mixed” milk – that is, milk and cream centrifuged at high speed, allowing the cream’s fat to be evenly distributed throughout the milk.

The pre-mixed milk could then be blended with other ingredients, stirred in ice cream machines, and thereby turned into ice cream.

Kastbergs is a Danish Ice Cream producer
Kastbergs Gourmet Ice Cream is a Danish ice cream dairy that produces more than 40 flavors of cream-based ice cream from its facility in Herning. The method is based on the same principles as early ice cream production: the Kastbergs dairy in Herning receives pre-mixed milk from Them Dairy Cooperative, which is heated and blended with other ingredients to form what is called the “ice mix.” This ice mix is then cooled down and stored in refrigerated tanks before being processed in the ice cream machines.

When the ice mix is stored in the cooling tanks, it is kept at a temperature between 0.5°C and 4°C. At the Kastbergs dairy, only batch-type ice cream machines are used, which must be filled with ice mix before each batch. The liquid ice mix hits a cylinder cooled to -30°C, where it freezes instantly, and the machine’s scraper begins to “massage” the hardened mass into soft ice cream. The scraping continues until the ice cream reaches the desired consistency at around -8°C.

Freeze in at the Ice Cream Dairy

The next step in the process, called blast freezing, is extremely important. During this stage, the temperature is rapidly lowered, which minimizes the risk of ice crystal formation. At Kastbergs, we use efficient blast freezers for this purpose. These freezing units generate extreme cold and high ventilation, ensuring fast and effective freezing.

Kastbergs has a number of trolleys that are filled continuously and then rotated from the blast freezers to the freezer storage room, where the finished ice cream is repackaged and later distributed.

There are also other technologies used for freezing, typically found at large-scale industrial ice cream dairies where speed and uniformity are critical. These systems have significantly higher capacity than the blast freezers used at Kastbergs.

Handcrafted Danish Quality

Back in the day, ice cream dairies relied heavily on manual labor with very limited access to technical equipment and automation. At Kastbergs, production is still quite manual. For example, the batch machines are emptied by hand, and many surrounding processes are also entirely or partially done manually—such as hand-swirling jam, chocolate, or caramel sauce into the ice cream.

If you’re interested in learning more about Kastbergs, you can read more about our ingredients or our story.