HERMITAGE, Pa. – When David George became president and CEO of his family’s business, he knew the company needed to diversify to grow.
That was in 2007 and the Joy Cone Co., founded in 1918, became the Joy Baking Group.
The new name represents the product variety.
“You can only grow so much in the cone industry. We’ve been fortunate, but now if we want to keep growing like we have, we’ve got to expand into some other products,” says George, the third generation to run the company.
That’s where sandwich cookies came in. Company employees bake them and chop most of them up to include in ice cream. The company also makes wafers for ice cream sandwiches. Some of the cookies are sold in bulk to ice cream shops, which mix them with other items as toppings.
To add products, Joy Baking had to add space. A cookie plant was built near the Hermitage, Pa., cone plant in 2018 and the company expanded the cookie plant last year. It spans more than 300,000 square feet.
The manufacturing process uses automation – large silos for flour and sugar allow for automated dough mixing and ovens in rooms longer than football fields allow the plant to bake cookies around the clock.
And George says the company has room to expand the operation.
“We have room for another oven to go right here,” George says during a recent tour of the factory. “We built the expansion to hopefully grow into it, so when we’re ready to buy the oven, we have the spot and everything set up, ready to go.”
The Joy Baking Group does not sell packages of cookies for consumers, but that is something George hopes to see in the future.
Another area of future expansion is a pie spinning line, the process for making graham cracker pie crusts. George says the company makes them in the cone plant for a few customers. But in September, that operation will move into the cookie plant.
The Cone Operation
In 2025, the International Dairy Foods Association reports 1.23 billion gallons of ice cream were made in the U.S. The cookies and cream variety, the main ice creams that uses cookies made by Joy Baking, was the fourth most popular flavor behind chocolate, butter pecan and vanilla.
Production at the Joy Baking Group cone plant gears up to make enough ice cream cones for higher demand in the summer months. The company’s website joycone.com also lists ideas for using Joy brand ice cream cups, sugar cones, waffle cones and bowls to create seasonal desserts, treats for family gatherings and pet-friendly goodies.
Cone making, however, remains Joy Baking Co.’s largest division.
“We’re already selling to just about every single grocer in the country, either with our Joy brand or our private label or both,” George says. “So now we could take some more products to those same customers.”
Company History
The George & Thomas Cone Co. started in 1918 with a single oven to make ice cream cones. The company has faced economic downturns, fires and rebrands, as well as partnerships with companies like Dairy Queen. Since the pandemic, supply chain concerns, inflation and tariffs on ingredients have been some of the challenges George and the company have had to navigate.
David George’s grandfather, Albert George, a Lebanese immigrant with a fourth-grade education, came to America with an entrepreneurial spirit, George says. Within a few years, he owned a small grocery store in Brookfield, Ohio, and put a cone making oven in the back.
The plant later moved to Sharon, Pa., but in 1964, shortly after David George’s father and uncle, Joe and Mike, took over the business, fire destroyed it. The brothers bought a former dairy farm and rebuilt in Hermitage where the company remains.
David George’s father introduced the Joy label and started selling packaged ice cream cones to retail stores. Before that the cones were sold to food service companies.
Between the cone plant and adjacent cookie plant, the Joy Baking Group employs nearly 900. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry’s Center for Workforce Information and Analysis, the Joy Cone Co. was the fourth largest employer in Mercer County in the fourth quarter of 2025 behind only the state, Wabtec U.S. Rail Inc. and Wal-Mart.
Joy Baking Group also owns and operates a cone plant in Flagstaff, Ariz., and a cone and cookie wafer plant in Le Mars, Iowa, giving them strategic locations to make their products and ship them across the country.
In 2016, the Joy Baking Group acquired BoDeans Baking Group, which was headquartered in Iowa. That plant was making sugar cones for premade ice cream novelty products, wafers for ice cream sandwiches and cookies for inclusion in ice cream.
“So it was overnight we got into that business when we bought them,” George says. “We jumped right in.”
The addition of BoDeans nearly doubled the size of Joy Baking Group and the LeMars plant was at its cookie making capacity. So to create redundancy, Joy Baking built the Hermitage cookie plant and the company operates both.
Between the three plants, Joy Baking Group employs nearly 1,500 people.
ESOP and Benefits
With an Employee Stock Option Plan, Joy Baking Group’s employees have ownership in the company. Employees take part in profit sharing and the stocks boost their retirement plans.
“When they retire, the company will repurchase those shares off of them,” George says. “Fortunately, the stock price has gone up almost every year, so when they get those shares, they’ve grown over time.”
Employees can also participate in the 401(k) plan.
“They can leave with a really comfortable retirement plan from Joy Baking Group,” George says.
And George isn’t the only person at the company with family history. He says there have been many families with multiple generations who have worked there.
Although not an easy job, those who get through the training and stay for a few years find their ESOP is growing. The company also offers flexible scheduling.
“People stick around,” George says. “We don’t get much turnover once they get through that initial first year or so and figure the job out. We hang onto people. We’ve been fortunate, really fortunate.”
Employees also help the Joy Baking Group contribute to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital each year. To celebrate 100 years in business in 2018, company representatives decided to donate $100,000 to the charity.
The employees and customers liked the effort and it has grown to an annual $100,000 donation from the company, with additional money added by employees. Total contributions since then have topped $1 million.
Pictured at top: Third-generation leader David George is guiding the 118-year-old Joy Baking Group into its next chapter, building on the company’s ice cream cone legacy while expanding into cookies, wafers and other products.
