The "little creamery in Brenham," as the company markets itself, doesn't let anyone outside the company touch its product from the plant to the freezer case. Everything from R&D to distribution is handled in-house. The company cannot meet the demand for its ice cream and it doesn't even try. Blue Bell commands 60 percent of the ice cream market in Texas and Louisiana and 47 percent in Alabama, where it opened a plant 1997. People outside the region often pay $85 to have four half - gallons packed in dry ice and shipped to them. Despite demand, management refuses to compromise quality by expanding into regions that cannot be satisfactorily serviced or by growing so fast that it can't adequately train employees in the art of marking ice cream.