Y ou’ve just gotten out of class, and it’s that awkward time in the afternoon when it’s too early for dinner, but you still want a little something to keep your stomach from grumbling. It’s April and hot outside, and a nice cool treat would hit the spot.
Where do you go? Try the ’55 Exchange, Clemson University’s retail center for ice cream made and sold by Clemson students.
Offering a broad selection of student-produced ice cream flavors from basic vanilla to Brad’s Caramel Cookie Dough, along with a variety of smoothies and coffee drinks, the ’55 Exchange has made a name for itself in the Clemson world in a mere four years. “Different people have different tastes,” Dr. Johnny McGregor said, professor of food science and faculty advisor of the ’55 Exchange. “That’s why we added the Tiger Slab, which allows people to mix in whatever they want.”
Located in the Hendrix Center, the ’55 Exchange offers 16 flavors of traditional ice cream that date back to the 1920s. “The students making the ice cream decide which flavors get rotated at the store,” McGregor said. “They are responsible for which flavors get made.”
It all started in the basement of the Dairy Building, located where Martin Hall stands today. This two-story brick building was home to the Dairy Science Department as well as the Animal Husbandry Department.
An Agricultural Sales Room, about the size of a large closet, had enough space for a female attendant to scoop single or double scoops of ice cream, 16 oz. milkshakes, glass-bottled milk, 1 pound blocks of butter and buttermilk and chocolate milk by the glass. Ice cream was five cents for one scoop and 10 cents for two scoops.
Around the same time, Clemson was still a military school, and a tradition was for freshman cadets, or “Rats,” to be pranked by the older cadets. Upperclassmen would tell the new cadets the freezers had broken down and they needed to get trashcans and buckets to put free ice cream in before it melted. Hundreds of freshman cadets would stand in line for hours, some skipping class, to go into the sales room and learn it was all a hoax.
McGregor says sales were moved into the foyer of Newman Hall, adjacent to the current ice cream production area, from about 1956 until 2000. Around 1991, Clemson University’s Dairy Processing Plant operations moved from the Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Science Department to Business Services. While sales remained in Newman Hall, student production of ice cream stopped at that point.
In 2000, the sales area in Newman Hall was shut down and moved to the Hendrix Food Court under the name Tiger Treats. A poor distribution network in getting the ice cream to Clemson resulted in a lack of quality and complaints that it just wasn’t the same anymore. Due to alumni interest in having students produce the ice cream locally, the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department resumed manufacturing the product and selling it to campus food services in 2001.
Thus the Clemson MicroCreamery was born, complete with glass windows for visitors to watch the ice cream being produced at Newman Hall. Students began to manufacture the ice cream again and sell it back to Tiger Treats. At this time, the concept of what McGregor calls “Signature Flavors” started. Students producing the ice cream made new flavors and named them after their creators, such as Ashley’s Hot Apple Pie. “The most unique flavor has been Marlena’s Blue Hawaiian,” McGregor said. “It was colored blue but had a piña colada flavor and made your tongue and lips blue when you ate it.”
Finally, in 2006, the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department assumed all production and sale responsibilities of Clemson ice cream. Ice cream mix began to be specially produced with the original Clemson recipe by a Clemson graduate in the dairy industry. Collaborations with the Class of 1955 resulted in the renovation of an old hair salon on the first floor of the Hendrix Center into a retail center for the ice cream as well as Clemson blue cheese and eggs from the Clemson poultry farm.
With such an extensive history, it’s no wonder Clemson ice cream is such a big deal to current students and alumi.
“It’s part of Clemson’s history. From a historical perspective, you had that experience as a military cadet or a ‘Rat’ that you had the ice cream prank,” McGregor said. “There’s a common bonding experience centered around Clemson ice cream with a strong historical link.”
As peak ice cream season heats up between high school students going on campus tours and upcoming freshmen going to orientation, the ’55 Exchange remains a part of Clemson history that every visitor and member of the Clemson family should recognize.
“It’s a great quality ice cream for the price,” McGregor said. “It’s part of our agricultural tradition at Clemson that needs to be preserved.”So when you find yourself with a hankering for something sweet in the middle of the day, take the opportunity to visit the ’55 Exchange and take a REAL bite of Clemson history.
