The trip today (Thursday, March 2nd) was to Great Barrington, MA.  Great Barrington is a town with a number of small businesses and artisan producers of diverse products.  Home to great restaurants and James Beard Award nominees, Great Barrington's community has a tradition of cooperation, and many of the small food producers work together.  We Today's post is by Morgan Yanni.

Today we went to Barrington Bagel Company to try their bagels and get a little tour of the kitchen.  We then got to go into Guido’s Market for a little while we waited to go on a tour.  SoCo Creamery for a tour at around 11, got a look around at how they made the ice cream, and their whole process.  Finally after the tour we go into the town right before lunch and walk around for a little to look at all the different shops.  We got a demo on how to cut with a kitchen knife from a local store.  After we got to walk around for awhile, we got to go to lunch at an amazing pizza place called Baba Louie’s Pizza.  Finally after all of that, we got to go to the Soco Creamery scoop shop to have ice cream and learn more about the business.  We got to talk to the manager, the CEO, a couple workers there and we had a great time.  At the factory we met Matt, the flavour master.  We learned that they have over 100 flavours of ice cream and sorbet.  They make all of their toppings, like cookie dough, caramel, and use local producers for things like their lavender, their honey, their coffee.  We learned about all of the machines in the factory, and about all of the techniques they have with making swirls in the ice cream and adding the toppings into the product as well.  They have many partnerships with different local companies.  They get most of their produce from no more 50 miles away, their honey, their maple syrup, their dairy.  Overall the day was absolutely amazing and i had a great time with everyone.