The Babcock Hall Dairy Plant, which makes Babcock ice cream and cheese, closed in late September 2019 to accommodate a major remodel and renovation construction project. This project represents the first major upgrade to the teaching and research pilot plant since it was built in 1951.

The university contracted with the Chocolate Shoppe in Madison to produce some of the most popular Babcock ice cream flavors while the plant is closed. The Chocolate Shoppe needed to work with suppliers to obtain ingredients to make Babcock ice cream following the traditional recipe, and they expect to be up and running with Babcock ice cream production before Thanksgiving.

The Chocolate Shoppe will produce 11-12 flavors of Babcock ice cream, which will be available at the Babcock Hall Dairy Store, Memorial Union and other regular campus and community outlets. Those flavors are: vanilla, chocolate peanut butter, chocolate chip cookie dough, orange custard chocolate chip, Union utopia, salted caramel toffee (top selling feature flavor), praline pecan (high selling feature flavor), super premium Badger blast (vegetarian), super premium vanilla blueberry swirl (vegetarian), sherbet (vegetarian), blue moon and a rotating seasonal flavor.