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Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams

Columbus, OH

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Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams was founded by Jeni Britton Bauer in Columbus, Ohio in 2002, built around a distinctive base recipe using a small amount of cornstarch rather than eggs, giving the ice cream an unusually smooth, dense texture that became the brand's signature technical innovation. The company built a devoted following around inventive, often locally sourced flavor combinations, and its expansion from a single Columbus scoop shop into a nationally distributed grocery-store brand reflected a broader 2010s trend of artisanal, chef-driven food brands successfully scaling beyond their original single-city origins. Jeni's voluntarily recalled all of its products nationwide in 2015 after a listeria contamination was discovered, a costly and dramatic response that the company's founder framed as a demonstration of its food-safety commitment, and the brand successfully rebuilt its reputation and distribution in the years afterward. Jeni's combination of its distinctive eggless ice cream base and its successful growth from an independent Columbus shop into a national brand has made it one of the most respected artisanal ice cream brands in the country.

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