The Wright Scoop and a 100-Year-Old, Fifth-Generation Dairy Farm

Bringing the Pasture to Providence with Cow-to- Cone Ice Cream

Sun rises over the grassy, dew-speckled green hills in rural North Smithfield, where a drove of cows mill about, their moos echoing across the valley. It’s morning at Wright’s Dairy Farm, and as it has been for more than a century, the wee hours are go-time here. With a new cow-to-cone ice cream operation that brings the pasture to Providence, Wright’s is busier than ever.

“I am dying for a cone of fresh ice cream,” coos Cathryn Kennedy, a fifth-generation Wright and originator of the farm’s reimagined ice cream program. For years, Wright’s has made ice cream alongside their legendary dairy and baked goods, but until now it was simply packed and sold at the farm’s on-site retail store. Just-churned ice cream is at peak freshness when it goes through the ice cream maker, exiting in smooth, über creamy perfection.

“I thought, ‘What if we sell this from the back door of the bakery?’” recalls Kennedy.

Following a summer of successful pop-up ice cream events in 2018, Kennedy invested in her first vintage Streamline trailer that was repurposed into a mobile ice cream shop in 2019, calling the venture The Wright Scoop. The Countess, a shiny silver 1966 Streamline vintage travel trailer, is now a permanent summertime fixture at the farm, while The Empress, debuted in 2021, is perched in the heart of Warren’s working waterfront in partnership with Blount’s seasonal clam shack. (Kennedy studied up and learned that in that era, Streamline dubbed their trailers “The Aristocrat of the Highway,” giving them majestic names including The Prince, Princess, Duchess, Duke and more.) “My joke is we need the whole royal fleet!” laughs Kennedy.

She also discovered her former employer, Farm Fresh RI (FFRI), was building a 60,000-square-foot food hub on the banks of Providence’s Woonasquatucket River in the city’s Valley neighborhood. “I worked with Farm Fresh out of college on the veggie box program, managing the pack line,” says Kennedy. Wright’s Dairy Farm was also selling wholesale milk to Market Mobile, FFRI’s local food distribution system that connects farmers and food producers, so she knew first-hand the inner workings—and successful track record—of FFRI initiatives.

Meanwhile, the popularity of The Wright Scoop Streamline trailers came with a demand for more freezer space and production space. “We were making ice cream on off shifts when the bakery wasn’t baking … and we were running out of room,” explains Kennedy. Though facing headwinds, the timing was serendipitous—the new food hub could accommodate a production area, retail for Wright’s dairy products and baked goods, and a counter where folks could cozy up to a swivel stool with a cone or sundae and watch fresh Wright’s ice cream being churned right in front of their eyes. “Like we are bringing a little bit of the farm to the city,” she says.

Here’s how the ice cream making works: Exceptional ice cream begins with happy, healthy cows, says Kennedy. “That’s really the number one thing—making sure that the cows are well cared for, that they have a good diet. From there we are getting really high-quality raw milk, which is sent to our dairy processing plant at the farm. We transport the milk via pipeline, so it goes directly from our milking parlor, where they milk the cows, right up to the plant. It never has to go on a truck, never has to leave the farm.”

From there, the raw milk is blended with cream, sugar and organic stabilizer (which adds viscosity, or thickness), and a few other natural ingredients. “[That’s] to make our base. It’s really like a crème anglaise—not flavored with anything; like a blank canvas that we use to make all of our ice cream flavors,” says Kennedy.

From there, the base is pasteurized, homogenized, then rapidly cooled, and then stored for a minimum of 12 hours. “Allowing it to age like that lets all of the molecules kind of restructure themselves so the ice cream mixes an emulsion,” says Kennedy, adding, “… we want to give it some time to set and assemble so that when we actually churn the ice cream, we’re getting a very high-quality product without ice crystals forming, or any separation.” The farm describes the base consistency as somewhere between heavy cream and vanilla pudding.

After the ice cream base rests, a batch goes to Providence where it is churned behind the glass window for all to see before they order cones, sundaes or milkshakes in all different flavors. Last summer, Food & Wine Magazine recognized Wright’s for having the best ice cream in Rhode Island, highlighting their Compost Cream flavor, which Kennedy invented.

“Whenever we make a tray of pecan diamonds or magic bars in the bakery, we trim the edges off the full sheet before we cut them, and those are my favorite pieces. They’re kind of crispy and we used to just compost them, but I thought, ‘What if we mix this into the ice cream?’”

The result? Creamy vanilla ice cream packed with the crispy bits of seven-layer bars (chocolate chips, coconut, pecans, caramel and more) with a rich chocolate ganache ribbon woven throughout.

Wright’s Creamery at the FFRI food hub opens in June. Kennedy, a new mother who called the ice cream business “her baby” until she had her daughter Flora in December 2021, describes the new location as a natural fit.

“It’s a great community vibe coming together with all the different vendors at the food hub and we are super excited to be a part of that,” she says. “It is the third year in a row that we are opening a new location. It’s a lot. It is a lot of staff and we are just trying to focus on streamlining and getting good systems in place and making sure we are doing things efficiently.”

But no doubt, making it work is non-negotiable; it’s in her DNA. “We are dairy farmers at our core. That’s how the business started over 100 years ago,” says Kennedy, and with the sixth generation of Wrights already growing, that’s how the business will stay.

Visit TheWrightScoopRI.com for more information and these locations for cones, scoops and sundaes (milkshakes Providence only);

10 Sims Ave., Providence (inside the Farm Fresh RI food hub)

200 Woonsocket Hill Rd., North Smithfield (at Wright’s Dairy Farm)

335 Water St., Warren (at the Blount Clam Shack)