The Independent Dairy is a local company based in Monroe, Michigan. It has been around since 1934.
There are two divisions of the Independent Dairy; the ice cream factory, and the stores. The CEO of the company is Mike Cheney (no relation to the Vice President of the US) after inheriting the business from his father. His cousin, Jeff Hutchinson, runs the ice cream factory.
The ice cream is what the corporation is most famous for, churning out at least 50 different flavors year-round. The factory employs about 20 people. From the factory, trucks distribute the frozen confections to Monroe County and beyond. The business has reached as far south as Alabama, and as far west as Jackson, Michigan, although not in any large amounts.
The other half of the business, the stores, has been in financial trouble recently. They are your run of the mill convenience stores. Mike was running around 6-7 stores, but has sold about half of them off to entreapaneurs due to them not running a profit. About the only thing different in these stores is the owner; they still sell Independent Dairy Ice Cream, and use the same distributors for their other items. Oddly enough, the only store running in a profit is the store in Maybee, Michigan (where I happened to work during high school). Perhaps it's because it's the only store within 10 miles of anything. Or perhaps it's because Maybee is so stuck in its ways that the inhabitants don't leave the village limits for anything short of a nuclear holocaust. But I digress...
Favorite flavors of ice cream include Pumpkin (during Halloween and Thanksgiving), marble fudge, mint chocolate chip, and Moose Tracks. The prices as of April 2003 are $1.69 for a pint, $4.49 for a half-gallon, and $6.89 for a full gallon. (All prices in American Dollars.) A bit pricey, sure, but the quality is excellent, if my several years of free samples has anything to say about it :)