Bulk tubs are not packaging. Nothing leaves the building in one. They are freezer furniture, and they get treated as an afterthought right up until the week a shop loses a batch and starts paying attention.
What this format is for
Three gallon plastic ice cream tubs are a bulk storage format for batch production and freezer holding, sold ten to a pack. They are sized for shops making their own product, not for customer service, and the distinction matters more than it sounds.
They ship without lids. That is deliberate rather than an omission. A tub in a working freezer spends most of its life open, being scooped from or filled, and shops running them typically cover with whatever their kitchen already uses rather than a fitted lid per tub.
Rotation is the whole discipline
A freezer of identical white tubs is a freezer where nobody knows what is in anything. This is the failure mode, and it is not a storage problem, it is a labeling problem wearing a storage problem's clothes.
Date and flavor go on every tub, in the same place on every tub, written by whoever fills it rather than whoever finds it later. Newest goes to the back. It is unglamorous and it is the difference between a freezer that runs itself and one that produces an argument on a Saturday.
Or let the tub do the work
There is a translucent version of the same three gallon format, and the reason to choose it is entirely practical. The translucent wall lets staff see how much product is left without opening the tub, which in a busy freezer saves both time and cold air.
If your team is constantly lifting lids to check levels during service, the translucent option pays for itself in a season. If your batches are labeled well and your rotation is tight, plain white is fine.
Sizing the tub to the batch
Three gallons is the largest of the bulk formats. There is a 2.5 gallon and a 1.5 gallon below it, and the right one is decided by your batch size rather than by your freezer.
A tub filled two-thirds full is wasted freezer space, and freezer space is the most expensive real estate in the building. If you consistently make less than a full tub, drop a size. If you routinely split one batch across two tubs, go up. The smaller pack sizes exist precisely so that smaller operations are not forced into a format built for someone else's production run.
Where the bulk format ends
The tub holds product. It does not sell it. The moment something leaves the counter it needs a takeaway format, and confusing the two is how shops end up handing customers something that was never designed to travel.
The takeaway sizes, from half-pint through to half-gallon, sit alongside the tubs in the pints and to-go container range. Bulk in the back, portioned at the front, and the two never swap jobs.