Choopan dairy of Iran has set its eye on snagging an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for producing the largest carton of ice cream on Earth.
In a televised report by Press TV, a large group of men are seen hoisting the monstrous ice-cream carton from a truck amid confetti and fanfare, before a crowd of thousands near the ski resort of Tochal north of Tehran on Monday.
The enormous tub (6.5 feet wide by 5.2 feet tall), which contained five tons of chocolate ice cream, cost the firm $30,000 to produce.
The dairy firm was motivated by a desire to put Iranian dairy on the map with a new Guinness World Record and boost ice cream consumption among Iranians, who eat an average of 1.5 kilograms worth annually.
“Right now, we are breaking the record which was registered in 2005 by Baskin-Robbins for about four tons,” event organizer Khashayar Baheri told Iran’s state-run Press TV. “We’re breaking that record by one ton.”
While some reports seem to indicate that the record has been secured, Guinness representatives have not yet confirmed the official results. At present, United States ice cream empire Baskin-Robbins holds the record after scooping out 8,865 pounds of vanilla ice cream on September 13, 2005, the company’s 60th birthday.
According to the BBC, the conservative website Baztab-e-Emrooz reported that the crowd’s initial enthusiasm dwindled when the organizers handed out ice cream that did not come from the tub, raising suspicions about the ice cream’s safety, as well as the legitimacy of the record.
Choopan, Farsi for “shepherd,” launched its ice cream line last year and claims to be among the nation’s three top producers of dairy products, with plans to expand into the Gulf, Middle East and Russian markets.
Alas, even if Choopan manages to dethrone Baskin-Robbins as the producer of the largest tub, the American ice cream giant still holds the Guinness World Record for the “World’s Largest Ice Cream Scoop Pyramid,” an 800-pound, four-feet-tall structure ambitiously built on May 18, 2000, with 3,100 scoops.