In 1978, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield forked over $5 to take a Penn State University correspondence course on ice cream making. They then went on to invest $12,000 — $4,000 of it borrowed — to open their first ice cream shop in a former gas station located in Burlington, Vt.
Now, almost 40 years later, there are 577 Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shops worldwide. And the company’s three U.S. factories churn out pints, in total, at a rate of 400 per minute. The pints are delivered to 38 countries in 50 to 75 available flavors at any given time.