ice cream

Ice Cream Cone Patents

Now the question is: Who invented the first commercial ice cream cone? Up until recently, historians seem to think that Italo Marchiony's patent in 1903 was the inventor (see 1903 - Italo Marchiony below). Recently Steve Church of Ridgecrest, California discovered a long forgotten patent for an Apparatus for Baking Biscuit Cups for Ice Cream by Antonio Valvona of Manchester, England. This patent, by Antonoio Valvona, clearly shows that the ice cream cone had been around prior to Italo Marchiony's patent.

1902 - Antonio Valvona of Manchester, England received Patent No. 701,776 on June 3, 1902 for an "Apparatus for Baking Biscuit Cups for Ice Cream." The patent says:

"By the use of the apparatus of this invention I make cups or dishes of any preferred design from dough or paste in a fluid state this is preferably composed of the same materials as are employed in the manufacture of biscuits, and when baked the said cups or dishes may be filled with ice-cream, which can then be sold by the venders of ice-cream in public thoroughfares or other places."

Antonio Valvona (A.Valvona & Co. Ltd) was firstly an ice cream manufacturer and in 1901 was listed at Glasshouse Street, Ancoats Manchester. In 1907, he moved his biscuit operation to The Bridgewater Mill, Rodney Street, Ancoats. In 1919, the families Colaluca and Rocca opened a factory in Mill Street, Ancoats later trading as the Colroc Biscuit Co. Ltd. Colroc closed in the late 1950's, and Valvona having sold to new owners moved to Oldham north Manchester but closed in the late 1970's.

1903 - On September 20, 1903, Italo Marchiony (1868-1954), an Italian immigrant living in New York, NY, filed a patent application for a "molding apparatus for forming ice-cream cups and the like." U.S. Patent No. 746,971 was issued to him on December 15, 1903. His patent drawings show a mold for shaping small cups, complete with tiny handles - not a cone. His invention in his patent application is described as:

"This invention relates to molding apparatus, and particularly such molding apparatus as is used in the manufacture of ice-cream cups and the like."

Marchiony always insisted that he had been making cones since 1896 where he sold his homemade ice cream (lemon ice) from a pushcart (hokey-pokey) on Wall Street in New York. He originally used liquor glasses to serve his ice cream in. To reduce his overhead, caused by customers breaking or wandering off with his serving glasses, he baked edible waffle. While the waffles were still warm, he folded them into the shape of a cup (with sloping sides and a flat bottom). His waffle cups made him the most popular vendor on Wall Street and soon afterward, he had a chain of 45 carts operated by men he hired.

When cones became popular after the 1904 St. Louis Fair, Marchiony tried to protect his patent through legal channels but failed. Since Marchiony's patent was for only the specific mold construction and there were lots of other ways to mold cones, his patent was not much good. Marchiony's ice cream and wafer company thrived at in Hoboken, New Jersey until his plant was destroyed by fire in 1934. He retired from his business in 1938. It wasn't until Marchhiony's obituary was printed in the New York Times on October 29, 1954, that this story was made public.

1912 - According to some historians, cones were rolled by hand until 1912, when Frederick Bruckman, an inventor from Portland, Oregon, patented a machine for doing the rolling. In 1928, Nabisco bought out Bruckman's company and rights. Presently, I can find no patent record for this.

1924 - U.S. patent No.1,481,813 for an ice cream cone rolling machine was issued to its inventor, Carl R. Taylor of Cleveland, Ohio on January 29, 1924. He described it as a "machine for forming thin, freshly baked wafers while still hot into cone shaped containers" for ice-cream. Multiple dies were designed on a turntable, such that when formed, the cone had time to cool and harden before rotating into position for release. The whole machine was to be set up beside a batter baking machine which provides the supply of the hot, flat wafers.

Ice Cream & Sorbet

There is much controversy over who invented the first ice cream cone. From my research, I feel that the first cones were not invented in the United States. Both paper and metal cones were used in France, England, and Germany before the 19th century. Travelers to Düsseldorf, Germany reported eating ice cream out of edible cones in the late 1800s.

Before the invention of the cone, ice cream was either licked out of a small glass (a penny lick, penny cone, penny sucker, or licking glasses) or taken away wrapped in paper which was called a "hokey pokey." The customer would lick the ice cream off the dish and return the dish to the vender, who washed it and filled it for the next customer. As you can guess, sanitation was a problem. An even bigger problem was that the ice cream vender couldn't wash the dishes fast enough to keep up with demand on a hot day.

Ice cream in a cup also became known as a "toot," which many have been derived from the Italian word "tutti" or "all," as customers were urged to "Eat it all." They were also known as "wafers," "oublies," "plaisirs," "gaufres," "cialde," "cornets," and "cornucopias."

icecream cone

an early printed reference to an edible cone is in Mrs A. B. Marshall's Cookery Book, written in 1888 by celebrated cookery writer Agnes Marshall. Her recipe for "Cornet with Cream" says that - "the cornets were made with almonds and baked in the oven, not pressed between irons". She adds - "these cornets can also be filled with any cream or water ice or set custard or fruits, and served for a dinner, luncheon, or supper dish". Mrs Marshall was an influential innovator and greatly popularised ice cream in Britain. She published two recipe books^[1][2] specifically about ice cream and also patented an ice-cream making machine.

Strawberry ice cream in a cone.

Chocolate ice cream in a "kiddie cup"

In the United States, ice-cream cones were popularized in the first decade of the 20th century. On December 13, 1903, a New Yorker named Italo Marchioni received U.S. patent No. 746971 for a mold for making pastry cups to hold ice cream; he claimed that he has been selling ice cream in edible pastry holders since 1896. Contrary to popular belief, his patent was not for a cone and he lost the lawsuits that he filed against cone manufacturers for patent infringement.

The ice cream cone was invented in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904 at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition-- not in New Jersey. According to one legend, a Syrian pastry maker, Ernst Hamwi, who was selling zalabia, a crisp pastry cooked in a hot waffle-patterned press came to the aid of a neighboring ice cream vendor (perhaps Arnold Fornachou) who had run out of dishes; Hamwi rolled a warm zalabia into a cone that could hold ice cream. However, numerous vendors sold pastries at the World's Fair, and several of them claimed to have invented the ice-cream cone, citing a variety of inspirations. Hamwi's story is largely based on a letter he wrote in 1928 to the Ice Cream Trade Journal, long after he had established the Cornucopia Waffle Company (later the Missouri Cone Company). Nationally, by that time, the ice-cream cone industry was producing some 250 million cones a year.

The owners of Doumar's Cones and BBQ in Norfolk, Virginia claim that their uncle, Abe Doumar, sold the first ice-cream cones at the St. Louis World's Fair. Other World's Fair vendors who claimed to have invented the cone include Nick and Albert Kabbaz, David Avayou, and Charles and Frank Menches.

The first cones were rolled by hand but, in 1912, Frederick Bruckman, an inventor from Portland, Oregon, patented a machine for rolling ice-cream cones. He sold his company to Nabisco in 1928. Nabisco is still producing ice-cream cones, as it has been since 1928. Independent ice-cream providers such as Ben & Jerry's make their own ice-cream cones.

The idea of selling a frozen ice-cream cone - so that the cone and the ice-cream could be one item, storable in a freezer - had long been a dream of ice-cream makers, but it wasn't until 1959 that Spica, an Italian ice-cream manufacturer based in Naples, conquered the problem of the ice-cream making the cone go soggy. Spica invented a process, whereby the inside of the waffle cone was insulated from the ice-cream by a layer of oil, sugar and chocolate. Spica registered the name Cornetto in 1960. Initial sales were poor, but in 1976 Unilever bought out Spica and began a mass-marketing campaign throughout Europe. It is now one of the most popular ice creams in the world.^{[citation needed]}

In recent years, some brands have started to produce something very similar to the traditional ice-cream cone, but with a flat bottom, which enables it to stand upright without danger of falling. These new types of wafer cup are called "kiddie cups" or "cool cups".