Isaac Lappert / Co-owner, Lappert’s Ice Cream, Sausalito, California

Isaac Lappert lived every kid’s dream growing up in his family’s ice cream business. As soon as he could stand, he started doing small cleaning tasks and by the time he was six or seven and could belly flop over the counter, he was scooping ice cream.

“It’s always been fun,” Isaac says. “I know I’m a lucky guy.”

Now 30, Isaac works with his father, Michael, overseeing 10 Lappert’s stores in California and Las Vegas and distribution to 80 ice cream shops from Alaska to Arizona.

“We just kind of just balance each other out,” Isaac says of working with his father. “We pick up each other’s slack.”

Lappert’s obsession with premium ice cream translates to rich, creamy flavors and equally delicious dairy-free Rainbow Sorbet with The Perfect Purée Red Raspberry Puree, Passion Fruit Concentrate and Coconut Puree. Isaac says The Perfect Purée is the most consistent product he can find and ideally suited to frozen desserts.

“I’ve always been impressed by the assurance of the levels of sugar in every single batch and the consistent tartness,” he says.

Isaac’s father, Michael, worked with his father, Walter, when they founded Lappert’s Ice Cream in 1983. They served super premium locally-made ice cream at the shop in Sausalito and grew with the opening of a manufacturing facility in Richmond. Lappert’s also opened in Walter’s favorite destination, Kuai, where the story goes that Walter and his wife, Mary, dreamed of spending more than two weeks a year in Hawaii and found their opportunity one day when they bought an ice cream cone that was so awful they immediately threw it away. Lappert’s Hawaii and Lappert’s Ice Cream on the mainland always served flavors unique to each location and, since Walter died, are no longer connected.

Along with classic favorites, Lappert’s flavors channel tropical destinations such as Manila Mango, Date Casablanca, Horchata Cajeta (rice cinnamon ice cream with a Mexican-style caramel swirl) and Ube Macapuno (Philippine purple ube root with macapuno puree).

Isaac graduated from The Culinary Institute of America and brings particular zeal to the testing kitchen. Among his contributions are Hawaii Pink Sea Salt Caramel and organic Acai Sorbet Swirl in an avocado ice cream he named Brazil after a visit to Rio de Janeiro during Carnival season.

According to the ice cream fun facts Lappert’s shares on its web site, vanilla and chocolate are the most popular flavors in the U.S. but people increasingly go for offbeat flavors like avocado, garlic, chili, licorice, Stilton cheese and bacon. The country that consumes the most ice cream is the U.S. followed by Norway and Australia.

There’s no telling if Isaac’s 2-year-old son, Atticus, will go into the family business but, says Isaac, “If you ask him what he wants to do, he says, ‘Scoop ice cream.’ ”