Francisco “Paco” Magsaysay, founder and proprietor of Carmen’s Best Ice Cream, has won the Keeney Award of the Ice Cream Short Course of Pennsylvania State University College of Agricultural Sciences in the US.

Named after Phil Keeney, professor emeritus in food science at Penn State who served as director of the course from 1953 until his retirement in 1985, the annual award is given to one student in the course who shows the most potential to succeed in the ice cream business.

Magsaysay said the course taught him to make “a perfectly balanced product.”

The week-long course, according to him, “has helped me come up with a better product. Production, freezing and handling have been adjusted [for] the best possible outcome.”

Despite the course’s  “age” (it has been offered for the last 121 years), Magsaysay said it keeps ice cream makers updated on the technology and techniques so that even such major global brands as Baskin Robbins and Ben & Jerry’s send their people to the annual program.

Magsaysay said the Penn course is all about the “science” of the dairy product.

“The course [covers almost every aspect of the process including] milk composition, ice cream composition, dairy ingredients, mix calculations, sugars and sweeteners, allergens, mix processing, novelties, principles of refrigeration, ice cream freezing, ice cream physics, stabilizers and emulsifiers, ice cream hardening, sensory evaluation of ice cream, chocolate, ice cream flavors, vanilla, labeling, microbiology, sanitation, soft serve, sherbets and water ices,” said Magsaysay.

For more information on Carmen’s Best and where it is available, visit www.carmensbest.com.