About Us

Berkey Creamery

The Berkey Creamery, as it is now called, was named for the generous donation from Jeanne and Earl Berkey. The couple owned the Berkey Milk Company in Somerset until 1968 and continued in the retail ice cream business until 1977. Over the years, Jeanne and Earl helped many Penn Staters gain a foothold in the dairy industry. Five Berkey Milk Company superintendents were Penn State graduates and their plant was used for University milk testing. The new Berkey Creamery store is two and one half times the size of the old Creamery. With all the extra space, it now can seat 80 people inside, 60 outside under the canopy, 72 under the umbrella tables, and countless others on the seat walls that border the landscaping around the new Food Science Building.

Today the Creamery occupies the first floor of the new Food Science Building on the corner of Bigler and Curtin Roads. Along with the Creamery Store, individual areas for the processing of fluid milk and the manufacture of sour cream, various cheeses, and the famous ice cream, frozen yogurt, and sherbet, also call the new location home. A quality-control lab, refrigeration equipment, office space, and dry storage areas occupy part of this space.

Another portion accommodates the Creamery's dairy processing wet and dry processing pilot plants. Its modern processing equipment enables the Creamery to serve as a laboratory for food science faculty and students conducting dairy research and for dairy industry professionals testing solutions to technical problems. Researchers use the Creamery's facilities to study the effects of processing and storage on a dairy product's microbiological makeup, nutritional value, and flavor.

Every day many people--including famous celebrities such as President Clinton, Tom Ridge, Joe Paterno, Lynn Swann, Bob Costas, Bill Cowher, and Martha Stewart, just to name a few--stop at the Creamery to enjoy their favorite ice cream flavors.

The top five individual flavors in terms of share of segment in the United States are: vanilla (26%), chocolate (12.9%), neapolitan (4.8%), strawberry (4.3%) and cookies n' cream (4.0%). (Source: The NPD Group, a New York based international consumer research firm)