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KEEP
IT SIMPLE!
My family
has been building our American made batch freezers for 104 years –
ever since my Grandfather, Emery Thompson, invented the world’s
first modern day batch freezer back in 1905. Our goal is to
manufacture the most durable machine that we can build and to make
it simple to operate as well as inexpensive to maintain. I thought
I’d briefly share with you what we don’t add on to our batch
freezers and why we don’t do what we do. In simpler terms,
KEEP IT SIMPLE!
We have purposely left
items off of our machines because we have found they:
- Cost too much
- They break
- They really
serve no useful purpose
- We feel our way
makes more sense
The first thing we leave
off is a timer.
Of course you need some kind of timing device to assist you in
making frozen desserts, but if a timer were to be put on to an Emery
Thompson Batch Freezer and if said timer were to meet NSF, UL and 3A
Dairy standards, that timer would cost you $250.00! And when it
wears out, it will cost you $250.00 plus $125.00 to get an
electrician to install it. My way is to buy a $12.00 Kitchen Aid
brand timer and when it breaks, throw it out and go buy another one.
By my calculations you could do this 35.9 times before you match the
cost replacing one timer on your new machine. Plus, if you leave the
room while making ice cream, Gelato or Sorbet, you can take the
timer with you!
The next thing to go is
the cam action
lock. Yes I’ve
heard that the cam action is convenient – just one pull down lever
and your door is closed. I agree. But have you heard that 99% of all
cam action doors don’t last to their 5th birthday? And
you talk about expensive! With my four hand made stainless steel
knobs, you’ll still have them in place and working 30 years from
now. Durability and longevity…I’ll take that over a tiny bit of
convenience any day!
How about that
cold water hose?
Does it reach around to the sides or top of the machine? No? How
about mixing cold water and slippery dairy products? Does that work?
No? Then why would you want an item that has a hidden cost of over
$350.00 (remember NSF, UL and 3A) just to slosh around cold water
and dairy fat. I recommend a hot and cold water connection on your
wall where you can hose down the entire machine as well as the
surrounding area and any annoying onlookers. Did you know that the
Emery Thompson is the only batch freezer that you can put hot water
into? All the others are greatly concerned that their freezing
cylinder will bubble and warp. Not an Emery Thompson. Our cylinders
are six times thicker than the competition. That’s why our freezing
chambers never wear out!
Can I interest you in an
auto shut off
for the freezing cycle? Me neither! I recently attended an ice cream
“bake off” where they ran an Emery Thompson and two other Italian
made batch freezers. Both of the Italian machines had automatic shut
offs for their freezing cycle. Only problem was they had to turn
them back on again not once but twice. It seems the automatic brain
did a whole lot of thinking------it just kept coming up with the
wrong answers! To put it simply, I could easily give you an auto
shut off by merely measuring the resistance on the drive motor as
the product gets thicker. Only problem is every ice cream,
Gelato and Sorbet has a different freezing time. The more sugar in a
product, the longer the freezing time. I.E. vanilla may take 7
minutes, but strawberry with the additional fructose from the
strawberries will make the batch take 9 minutes. So two things here:
-
If the machine
always shuts off based on vanilla, your peach ice cream is going
to be runny.
-
When someone tells
you they make a batch of product in 8 minutes, ask them what
exactly are you making – vanilla? Blueberry? Lemon sorbet? They
all have different freezing times.
Have you heard the one
about next
business day service?
Why do you have to wait till the next business day when the CEO of
Emery Thompson Machinery (me) gives you his home telephone number –
914-643-7391. The reason I do this is multi-faceted.
-
On any given day we
have 30,000 machines running all over the world. On a weekend I
average less than one repair phone call – our machinery is built
just that good!
-
The other guys will
show up on Monday to repair your “machine not freezing.” They
will change the expansion valve for $490.00 and then quietly fix
the real problem – you ran over the flexible water line with the
back wheels when you were cleaning the floor. If you had called
me, my first question would have been “when did you last make
frozen desserts without a problem?” Next I would have asked you
did you have any really bad weather in the area recently. The
problem is almost always user failure or a popped circuit
breaker. I know I don’t want to pay $490.00 to flip a circuit
breaker!! Do you
Electronic displays.
One of my
competitors is advertising that their machine now features an
ON/OFF switch! How novel. I like to tell my customers that I own
virtually every electronic gadget that man has ever invented --- but
I don’t put them on my machines! If a simple on/off switch is all
you need to control the refrigeration, then that’s all that should
be on the machine. Granted, my Infinite Overrun Control is
digital, but it consists of only green-on, red-off, plus an up or
down arrow. Pretty simple. And it’s NEEMA 4 water proof! That means
you can shoot a fire hose at it and it won’t get wet. Very logical
to me but not so of other manufacturers.
The bottom line
regarding KEEP IT
SIMPLE is the less
you put on (a machine), the better off you’ll be. Please call me
with any and all questions that I might help you with. Our factory
phone number is 718-588-7300**
**P.S.
Yes, our phone numbers are indeed our old New York City numbers. The
reason we kept them is our machines don’t
break down and we often don’t hear from our customers for
5 or more years! We were worried that they might forget we moved our
manufacturing facilities to Sunny Florida.
Steve
Thompson |
