Brewers games to be ‘much sweeter’ this season

Chris Rugowski

Contributor

April 21, 2025

SHEBOYGAN – Gelato has officially made its way to American Family Field, home of the Milwaukee Brewers, for the 2025 season.

Baron Gottsacker and his wife Emily – who have owned and operated Baron’s Gelato out of Sheboygan since 2007 – recently announced they secured a spot in the ballpark’s The Alley Food Truck Park.

Getting into American Family Field

Gottsacker said Baron’s Gelato has a history of working private events with the owners group of the Brewers – a relationship that led to them reaching out about the prospect of having their gelato at the stadium.

“The owners of the Brewers, the Attanasios, have been to Italy a bunch of times, and they’ve had good gelato – they know good gelato,” Gottsacker said. “They kept inviting us back because they love the product.”

Gottsacker said he thinks that as stadiums are looking for better food offerings to keep up with one another – as well as keep up with customer demands in general – offering world-class gelato from a Wisconsin company makes perfect sense.

Throughout the season, Gottsacker said fans can expect to see a rotation of gelato options.

Currently in April and May, he said, they have pistachio, Door County cherry, cold brew Heath, cookies and cream, strawberry sorbet and mint Stracciatella. 

Gottsacker said he expects more growth with being in the stadium as it gets the Baron’s Gelato name out to an even larger audience.

Gelato will be available in $8.99 cups or $9.99 souvenir helmets at every home game.

In terms of scaling the business, Gottsacker said he has no desire to become the size of, say, Ben & Jerry’s.

“(Baron’s Gelato is) a Wisconsin company,” he said. “We sell in Wisconsin for Wisconsinites.”

Falling in love with gelato

Gottsacker said he was a professional chef for many years before falling in love with frozen desserts – gelato being his favorite.

As he started making frozen desserts for his restaurant, Gottsacker said his friends in the business began asking him to make flavors for dessert menus they were working on. 

As one thing led to another, he said, the business began growing organically.

Though he didn’t start experimenting with frozen desserts until later in life, Gottsacker said his history with gelato actually started much earlier.

As a child, he said he remembers going to Italy a few times and seeing gelato cases with all the bright colors and flavors.

“If Grandpa was taking me out for ice cream or custard, you had chocolate, vanilla and possibly a flavor of the day,” he said. “So unless it was artificial coloring and flavoring, we didn’t have it in the dessert culture here.”

Seeing the cases in Italy and understanding what the ingredients were, Gottsacker said, made him want to bring it here, for himself and his family – recognizing that you can have “amazing gelato or fruit sorbet where the No. 1 ingredient is fruit without fillers added to it.”

Gottsacker said there is “great agriculture” in Wisconsin, from the milk and cream to things like hazelnuts and fruits like cherries, strawberries, blueberries and more.

He said his philosophy has always been: “why not incorporate that into our gelatos?”

“The thing with frozen desserts is that the moment it’s made is the best it will ever be,” he said. “When you’re making a product that requires shipping it around the country, from the time that it’s made to the time that it’s consumed – that’s a lot of time and need for filler ingredients.”

Gottsacker said he’s not afraid to try different flavors and styles.

“If it’s edible, I can make gelato with it,” he said.

Though he started to experiment with some frozen dessert recipes in his restaurant, Gottsacker said he fully leaped into the frozen dessert world, specifically gelato, in 2007, after becoming severely ill.

He said his doctors told him if he stayed in the restaurant business, it would only get worse because of the stress.

Gottsacker said he found frozen desserts as a low-stress way to stay in the industry, but in a healthy way.

“The frozen dessert world still gave me the creativity to be able to really showcase some very chef-driven flavors, and have a more stable, 9-5 environment,” he said. “More often than not, I get to take my son to school and pick him up.”

A chef foundation

Being a chef with years of experience, Gottsacker said, has benefitted him in different ways with Baron’s Gelato – mainly, being able to understand ingredients and how they play together to create all the flavors he’s offered.

In total, he said he’s created around 400 flavors, partly due to their custom, one-off work for restaurants around the state.

One of the most unique creations Gottsacker said he’s made was for a high-end restaurant in Milwaukee – a beef-flavored gelato of sorts.

After thinking about it for a while with Emily, he said they decided to use a bone marrow flavor that was caramelized, and added some acidity with fruit.

More than just gelato

Gottsacker said he does a lot of industry consulting for gelato, frozen yogurt and soft serve.

He said he’s helped open gelato shops in Canada, the Bahamas, Mexico and many other areas with a focus on recipe development.

For example, in March, Gottsacker said he was in Miami working with two frozen yogurt companies that wanted to launch a product.

This month, he said he’ll be in California for a soft serve project.

Gottsacker said he also hosts classes in his facility, and has been a chef for nine years at Carpigiani’s Frozen Dessert University.

At the university, he said they teach the fundamentals on how to start your own frozen dessert business and how to keep it going successfully.

“Between that and teaching at Penn State, I would say we’re in the upper echelon of dessert professionals here in the U.S. and worldwide,” Gottsacker said.

He said when he started the business, he didn’t expect any of this to happen, and really had no genuine plans for it.

However, Gottsacker said knowing his personality – when he gets into something, he acknowledges that he goes all in – it was a natural progression.

Whether he’s fine-tuning a new flavor, mentoring future gelato artisans or consulting with dessert entrepreneurs worldwide, he said his passion for perfection shines through in every scoop. 

“Baron’s Gelato isn’t just dessert – it’s an experience crafted with care, creativity and a touch of magic,” Gottsacker said.

Find out more about Baron’s Gelato at baronsgelato.com.