Ever wonder how the swirl is evenly distributed in each pint? At the factory level, a machine called a variegator injects the swirl into the ice cream base. At the lab level, flavor gurus (or in this case, our team) add the base to an enormous piping bag so that it can be simultaneously squeezed into an ice cream tub with the swirl component of choice.
Once the ice cream base and swirl bags were exhausted, the container was topped off with a lid and immediately whisked away to a ridiculously cold freezer (we're talking -40°F). The subzero temperature ensures that the ice cream freezes up nearly-ice-crystal-free, a large part of why commercial ice cream has a creamier texture than home batches do.
