Lick the Heat

There’s nothing better than a cold ice cream cone in your favourite flavour on a hot summer day. Unless it’s a creamier cone in a new flavour. And Mackay’s Ice Cream offers 10 new varieties every year. The 50-year-old company makes its frozen delights in small batches to ensure quality. Its ice cream has a higher percentage of milk fat and less air, meaning it’s creamier and tastier.

Mackay’s Ice Cream began as a general store that James Mackay opened in 1946. After Highway 1A was rerouted, bypassing Cochrane, James developed a recipe for ice cream and started selling it to attract visitors. On Sundays, he sold from a window, technically obeying Sunday closure laws.

Robyn and Rhona, James’s daughters, have maintained standards set by their “mad scientist” father. The sisters took over the business after James passed away suddenly in 1982. They were left with no recipe, supplier lists or even keys to the store.

“We were really young, in our early 20s, and I had just graduated from the Alberta College of Art and was working for my dad,” Robyn says. “My sister and I had no business training. I had never written a cheque before. In those days it wasn’t that common for young women to run a business. But we survived.”

Without a recipe, the business nearly fell to disaster. The dairy that mixed the ice cream started using cheaper ingredients. So the sisters called health inspectors, who told the dairy to stop skimping on the butterfat (if the milk fat is below a certain percentage, it must be called ice milk). Then they took a course in ice cream technology at the University of Guelph and added the highest quality ingredients they could find. They’re now developing an organic line. By keeping current, Mackay’s has carved a niche in a competitive marketplace.

Among old favourites, this year Mackay’s offers avocado, Nanaimo bar and green tea.

Visit Mackay’s at 220 First Street West in Cochrane or take some home from one of 25 stores and restaurants in Calgary, southern Alberta and southern BC. For more information, Visit www.mackaysicecream.com.