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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

ice cream

How Mini Melts Built a $150M Beaded Ice Cream Business With a Nationwide Network of Automated Kiosks

If you’re like me, you’ve probably bought a beaded ice cream at your local ballpark or fairgrounds during the dog days of summer. You know the kind, that ice cream that comes in tiny cryogenically frozen balls that melt as soon as you scoop a spoonful into your mouth.

My experience with beaded ice cream has been primarily with Dippin’ Dots, but today there are also a number of other beaded ice cream brands out there, the biggest non-Dots alternative being Mini-Melts.

After getting its start in Europe in the 90s, Mini Melts landed in the US a couple of decades ago when a one-time Dippin Dots distributor bought the North American rights to the beaded ice cream brand. After successfully withstanding a legal challenge from Dippin’ Dots, Mini Melts ice cream can be found nowadays across the country, sold primarily through automated kiosks that store the ice cream at negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The company grew from a single kiosk in 2005 to over two thousand in the field today, but the journey to wide availability was a winding one. After experimenting with a few different kiosks in the initial years, the company started working with a single third-party vendor to build the machines from 2009 to 2019. After a decade of tinkering and adapting machines, they decided to build their own robotic kiosk starting in 2019.

Recently I caught up with Mini Melts USA CEO Dan Kilcoyn to hear the story of how the company went from a Dippin’ Dots alternative available at a few storefronts to building out a network of over two thousand automated kiosks that collectively serve beaded ice cream to the tune of 30 million servings and an estimated $150 million+ in sales per year.

So how did you first roll out Mini Melts in the US?

So we used to run physical retail locations mainly in shopping malls. In 2004, we started to get out of those retail locations, and we wanted to test the automated kiosk concept. We started with one kiosk. Unfortunately, we didn’t really know what we were doing at the time. So rather than read the manual, we essentially broke the first one, but it was a good learning experience for us, and we kind of built upon that to the kiosk that we have today.

Initially, you used a third-party kiosk?

Yes. We started with a couple of different third-party options that were out there, but some just didn’t work from a temperature perspective. We really needed to make sure that we could have our remote telemetry and we have a probe that downloads our sales information as well. So we tried a couple of options. From 2004 to 2009, it was all very experimental. Then when we were with one supplier from about 2009 to 2019 before they ultimately went out of business.

So in 2019, your third-party supplier goes out of business. Was it at that point you started developing your own kiosk?

You know, while we were taking these different third-party units, we were doing a lot of the work ourselves to make it work for Mini Melts. So prior to 2019, we started to ask, ‘What would this look like if we wanted it to be our own kiosk?’

What were the key considerations?

We wanted to know what was important to the location. Most of our locations are high-traffic tourism locations like zoos, aquariums, and theme parks. And they traditionally focus on face-to-face retail. So when we started initially with the vending machines, there was a pretty steep hill to climb because typically, if someone is at a location, they expect to be served by another human being. As we started to really hit our stride in 2019, we needed to make sure that the kiosk held the right amount of units because, in a given day, we could sell 200 or more cups of Mini Melts.

Was accommodating different forms of payment a consideration?

By 2019, we saw that our consumers really shifted from a cash-based system to credit card payment, Apple Pay and Google Wallet. So we really needed to make sure that the board on our machine was able to accept all that changing payment dynamics.

How did customers pay in the past compared to today?

In 2005, about 5% paid with credit cards. By 2019 it was 50%. Today it’s 60%. in 2019, mobile pay was less than 1%, and today it’s about 5%, growing by 2% every year.

Where is your ice cream made?

So when we started out, we started in the Philadelphia area, originally, and our manufacturing facility is in Connecticut.

And that one facility serves the entire country?

Yes. What we’ve built is we have 23 distribution centers across the US. It’s our own team that’s in 23 cities across the US. It’s our trucks, our technicians, and they’re going in and handling everything from the manufacturing of the product all the way down to the retail of the product.

How do you get the ice cream across the country?

We have negative 40-degree tractor-trailer units that we own, and we pull the tractor-trailers to our depots.

Your new kiosks remind me of a game I’d see at Chuck E. Cheese. How do they compare to the older machines?

The new ones definitely more like the claw-style game that you’re referring to. The only difference is there’s a prize every time you don’t have to worry about the robot missing. The old units are either the traditional kind of a bunker freezer where one would slide up and you would just remove a unit out, or it would work off of like a pulley system.

What is the mix of new vs old machines in the field?

About fifty-fifty.

And have you updated the old machines?

Yes. We went back and retrofitted all of the legacy kiosks in the field to make sure that they were able to take the payment systems and kind of upgrade everything from a technology standpoint.

What are some examples of locations for your kiosks?

We’re at the National Zoo in Washington DC, Philadelphia Zoo, Mystic Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium. Larger family entertainment centers would be Dave and Busters. Round One, Urban Air and Sky Zone Trampoline Parks. We’re at college campuses, a lot of rest stop areas, nontraditional retail locations.

Any one that is trending up at the moment?

Interestingly enough, our rest stop business is starting to kick up more as they add more electric vehicle chargers, because those guests tend to stay longer because they’re charging for longer. We see that there’s more of a need for retail there.

Thank you for your time.

You’re welcome.

You can watch the Mini Melts kiosks below in a video provided by the company.

The Mini Melts Automated Kiosk

You Can Now Buy Brave Robot’s Ice Cream with Crypto

Brave Robot is entering into the brave new world of cryptocurrencies. The company announced today that consumers can now by its ice cream made from fermented flora with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, DAI, Ethereum, Litecoin, or USD Coin. Crypto payment is available on Brave Robot’s direct-to-consumer website and was made possible through a partnership with Coinbase Commerce.

Brave Robot’s ice cream is made using Perfect Day’s technology, which ferments micro-flora organisms to recreate dairy proteins. The result is animal-free milk, ice cream and other dairy products that closely mimic “the real thing.”

In its press announcement, Brave Robot explained the crypto move by writing:

With millennials and Gen Z adopting decentralized currencies and blockchain technology becoming one of the most significant technological innovations, Brave Robot is thrilled to integrate cryptocurrency payment options for consumers to facilitate secure online transactions through Coinbase Commerce. 

Cryptocurrencies have made headlines throughout the year because of a combination of sky-high values (one bitcoin was worth as much as almost $65,000 in April of this year) and its volatility (bitcoin fell to $29,000 per coin in July before rebounding back up to $46,000 as of this writing). This creates a bit of a dicey proposition for Brave Robot. The crypto people use to pay for ice cream today could be worth a lot more or a lot less in the coming weeks depending on the markets (excluding USD Coin, which stays at $1).

But raging volatility aside, cryptocurrencies represent a totally new way of thinking about money, just as Brave Robot/Perfect Day represent new ways of thinking about dairy. And at the very least, this stunt could help establish crypto as a legitimate payment method. So the marriage of the two actually makes sense.

Try Brave Robot’s Animal-Free Ice Cream During Its Live Tour This Summer

Nothing hits the spot quite like cold ice cream on a hot summer day. And if you want to throw in a little food tech futurism with your frozen treats, you can get free taste of Brave Robot as its ice cream truck continues its live taste tour on both coasts this weekend.

Brave Robot’s ice cream is animal free, as it uses Perfect Day’s technology that re-creates dairy proteins from microflora. The result is real dairy ice cream (so those with dairy sensitivities should take heed!) with no animal inputs.

We (and our families) tasted Brave Robot ice cream last year and enjoyed it. At the time, I found it to be just ever-so-slightly chalkier than animal-based ice cream, but that certainly didn’t stop me from polishing off the variety pack I bought.

Though Brave Robot ice cream is available at select retail outlets nationwide right now, the company has hit the road with ice cream truck to hand out free samples and merch this summer.

But most of all, who doesn’t want free ice cream — especially when it’s so futuristic? Here’s where Brave Robot’s tour will be this weekend, check out the website to see where they will head to next.

Cape Cod, MA:
7/9 Boston’s Vanderbilt Hall, 11a-2:30p
7/9 Stop & Shop Quincy, 4:30p – 7p
7/10 Falmouth Heights Beach, 10a-2p
7/10 Horseneck Beach, 3p-7p
7/11 Reggae On The Beach, New Bedford MA, 3p-7p

LA & Orange County:
7/9 Ralphs Tustin, 13321 Jamboree Rd, 11a – 4p
7/10 Gelson’s Laguna, 30922 South Coast Hwy, 11a-3p
7/10 Emerald Bay Community, Laguna Beach, 5p-9p
7/11 Gelson’s Newport Beach, 1660 San Miguel Dr, 11a-2p
7/11 Gelson’s Rancho Mission Viejo, 30731 Gateway Pl, 3p-7p

South Korea: Lounge Lab Opens Brown Bana Robot Ice Cream Shop

South Korean robotics company Lounge Lab announced today that it has opened Brown Bana, a robot-powered ice cream store in Seoul.

Technically, Brown Bana is more of a co-botic setup, as the articulating robot arms just move cups and capsule-based ice cream around while a human adds the toppings (see the video below) and serves the finished product. But based on the information Lounge Labs sent to The Spoon, the robots are equal parts labor and entertainment.

From Lounge Labs’ press announcement:

Brown Bana’s ice cream robot Aris provides an interactive experience in which customers and robots communicate through emotional motion functions and animated characters that express various emotions with faces. A total of seven motion contents, including ‘greeting,’ ‘calling,’ ‘rest,’ ‘drowsy,’ and various dance movements, are applied, as well as facial expressions suitable for each motion through a mounted display with character animation.

로봇이 아이스크림을?! 한국 최초의 로봇 아이스크림 스토어 '브라운바나' 오픈!

Theatricality is certainly part of a food robot’s appeal, especially since the technology is still novel for most audiences. Watching a robot make you food is still enticing enough to make passers-by stop and watch. Cafe X added waving and other gestures to its articulating robotic barista arms, and even set up its see-through kiosk on a busy downtown San Francisco street corner (though, those locations later shut down).

Lounge Labs believes Brown Bana’s robot hook will be appealing to both millennials and gen z customers, and is targeting cafes, amusement parks and pop-up spaces as target installation locations.

Brown Bana is just one of the automated experiences that Lounge Labs has developed. The company also makes the LOUNGE’X robot barista that makes pourover coffee, as well as the MooinSangHoei AI-powered vending machine.

Swedish Brand Nick’s Raises $30 Million for Its Sugar-Free Ice Cream and Snacks

Nick’s, a Swedish brand of sugar-free ice cream and snacks, announced today that it has raised a $30 million round of funding. The new round was led by Stockholm-based investment group Gullspång Invest and European food tech fund Capagro. Khosla Ventures, DNS capital, Djursholm Investment Group, and Skandrenting AB also participated in the round.

Nick’s creates a wide variety of healthier snacks that have no added sugar, gluten or palm oil. The company says its most recent product, an ice cream, has 70 percent fewer calories than other leading brands on the market. Nick’s has the exclusive license to use EPG, a plant-based fat replacement ingredient created by Epogee. Nick’s also worked with Perfect Day to launch a vegan ice cream collaboration.

Nick’s is among a rising cohort of smaller CPG brands looking to reinvent the ice cream space. As noted, Perfect Day’s animal-free dairy proteins are being uses in ice creams with Nick’s and also through Perfect Day’s own Brave Robot brand. Oatly’s oat milk-based ice cream is firmly ensconced in stores. And Eclipse has its own line of plant-based ice creams.

At the height of the pandemic last year, many consumers turned to snacks and other comfort foods. As the pandemic continues to rage on, consumers could be looking for “healthier” snack alternatives that still provide solace without so much of the waistline side effects.

Nick’s products are currently available in 15 markets across Europe and the U.S. The company said it will use the new funding for international expansion, primarily in the U.S. and Germany, and that it will build a production facility in Europe.

Kickstarter: CUPPLE Churns Ice Cream on Your Countertop

One of the wedding gifts I got lo’ those many years ago was an ice cream maker. Between the heating of the cream, getting the ingredients just right, storing the churn bowl in the freezer overnight, we used the machine all of two times before deciding ice cream was just much easier and tastier, to buy it from the store.

So I’m curious about the CUPPLE, currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, which promises to let me make fresh-churned ice cream directly on my countertop anytime I want.

Think of the CUPPLE as a Keurig for ice cream. You put a shelf-stable cup of base ingredients in the countertop machine and push a button. The CUPPLE automatically chills and churns the base to produce ice cream and sorbet in roughly three minutes.

The advantages of this system, according to the CUPPLE creators, is that you get better ice cream because it isn’t stored frozen for weeks (the self-contained ingredient cups don’t need to be frozen), and you get a denser, more velvety ice cream because air isn’t whipped into the ice cream.

The CUPPLE has dual chambers to churn two servings at once. The machine itself is roughly a foot and a half long by 14 inches wide and nearly a foot high. Initial flavors being offered are Belgian chocolate, Madagascar vanilla, traditional cookies, Chilean raspberry, Colombian passion fruit and Bengal mango.

Backers can pick up a CUPPLE machine for €250 (~$300 USD, plus $44 shipping to the U.S.), which comes with 24 cups of ice cream and is supposed to ship in June of 2021. Additional cups can be purchase in multi-packs that cost between €2.5 ($2.95) to €2.10 ($2.48) per cup. The CUPPLE has already blown past its Kickstarter goal of $47,000 to raise more than $86,000, with 12 days still left to go in its campaign.

As much as I like ice cream, I don’t think CUPPLE will count me as a backer. First, that’s a lot of money for a single-use device (okay, dual use if you count sorbet as a separate thing). But more importantly, I’m not a huge fan of proprietary, Keurig-style machines. What happens if CUPPLE shuts down? What can I do with it then if there are no cups to re-order?

Additionally, as with any Kickstarter hardware project, there are concerns about whether the product will ship on time. There’s a big leap between building a prototype and building at scale (just ask Cinder and Rite Press). Plus in the Risks section of the campaign, the company says that its still perfecting the sterilization of its ice mix packaging and may only ship sorbets at first.

I’d love for a company to create an easier (and affordable) way to for at-home consumers to make ice cream, but I don’t think CUPPLE is the solution for me.

Eclipse Foods Believes It Has The Secret Sauce for The Best Plant-Based Ice Cream

One of my favorite culinary memories was walking through the heart of Buenos Aires sampling Italian-style “helado” from myriad shops, one scoop better than the next. In going vegan 10 years ago, I had to push experiences such as that ice cream crawl away for my health and growing concern about the issues related to animal welfare. The absence of that flavorful, rich, creamy taste of goodness left a hole in my diet as I soldiered on into the vegan lifestyle.

Thanks to the founders of Berkeley, California-based Eclipse Foods, those on a plant-based diet can enjoy the look and taste of ice cream that replaces even the best dairy products available in scoop shops and freezer cases. The secret is a platform/process devised by experienced chefs in a kitchen using a form of bioengineering that blends plant-based ingredients.

Eclipse Foods believes the answer to satisfying the ice cream cravings of the plant-based food crowd is not to create a substitute, but to create a replacement. Company CEO Aylon Steinhart saw the impact Beyond Meat had on the vegan food scene, creating an actual replacement for those craving hamburgers rather than yet another bean burger that acts more of a substitute for meat lovers.

The Eclipse Food story is bigger than ice cream, its first product to hit the market. Working alongside CTO, Thomas Bowman, an accomplished chef and former head of product development for JUST, the result was to learn the characteristics of the microbe in casein, the main protein in milk, and replicate that leaving the diary properties behind.

“We figured out the magic of milk,” Steinhart said in a recent interview with The Spoon. “The secret sauce is our secret sauce.”

Eclipse has made a lot of progress since The Spoon’s Catherine Lamb wrote about the launch of the company’s limited edition flavors less than a year ago. Lamb compared the Eclipse non-dairy process to that of Perfect Day, a significant competitor in the space whose product also avoids the use of nuts.

“Unlike Perfect Day, which ferments actual dairy proteins using genetically modified microbes, Eclipse’s dairy is made from a combination of everyday plant-based ingredients that the founders claim do a much better job imitating dairy than plain old oat or almond milk,” Lamb said.

The idea to use this magic milk as a building block for ice cream was based on several factors including market opportunity and the decision, as Steinhart said, to go with a product that was “in the center of the plate, not a co-star.” With the ability to create replacements for cheese, sour cream, and cream cheese, Eclipse will likely move forward with those products after they have established a beachhead in the ice cream space. With the plant-based shoppers representing only 18% of consumers, Steinhart believes his products are not in a “winner take all market” with a lot of opportunities.

While I can attest to the sensational taste of Eclipse Foods chocolate plant-based ice cream—which is as good as any traditional dairy product—the company has gone through several blind taste tests to underscore the success of their product.

Eclipse had an independent thirty-party firm conduct a 100-person blind taste test with 73% of those sampling Eclipse versus the best selling ice cream in the U.S. said the plant-based dessert was creamier. While still early in the game, Steinhart is pleased with uptake from consumers who can purchase the product online and the growth in sales for the products on the shelves of independent grocery stores in the Bay Area. Retail has been an important part of the company’s distribution strategy with the closure of restaurant partners due to the pandemic.

 Steinhart agreed that the vegan frozen dessert space is a crowded one and given the current market conditions due to the pandemic, product marketing has its challenges. He describes marketing vision as wanting to create “an aspirational product—the best of the best.” The approach to fulfill that idea is to use leading chefs and influencers whose praise and endorsement create a trickle-down effect. The inability to offer in-store product sampling is a thorn in the side of any new product, especially one whose taste and experience is a strong selling point.

As far as a product distribution strategy goes, in addition to retail and direct-to-consumer, Eclipse has created foodservice partnerships with existing brands OddFellow in New York and Mitchell’s Homemade Ice Cream in San Francisco. And it doesn’t stop there.

“We want to be in every Sonic, Wendy’s, Dairy Queen, and Carl’s Jr.,” Steinhart said. This milk product will spin in any type of ice cream machine, meaning it can be used for soft serve and milkshakes. With time and taste on its side, plant-based ice cream lovers have a lot to look forward to.

We Tasted Brave Robot, The Ice Cream Made From Animal-Free Dairy

Last month when the founders of Perfect Day announced they’d launched a spinout called The Urgent Company to create science-forward food products that are earth-friendly, I got an email asking me if I’d like to try their first product: Brave Robot ice cream.

I figured why not? While I may not be a professional ice cream critic, the hundreds of gallons I’d logged in my life solidly place me in the ice cream enthusiast category.

In case you’re not familiar with the concept of animal-free dairy, here’s how Catherine Lamb described Perfect Day’s dairy, which is the same formula used in the new Brave Robot line up:

Perfect Day makes its dairy by genetically modifying microflora to produce the two main proteins in milk: casein and whey. They combine the dried proteins with plant fats, water, vitamins and minerals to make a lactose-free product that has the same properties — taste, consistency, and nutritional breakdown — of milk.

A few days later, the flavor lineup that landed on my doorstep was as follows: Vanilla, Buttery Pecan, PB ‘N Fudge, and Hazelnut Chocolate Chunk. I immediately got to “work”.

Any combo of peanut butter and chocolate usually can’t miss, so that’s where I started. It didn’t disappoint. The thick veins of fudge and peanut butter were as yummy as they sound, and maybe more importantly, the science-forward ice cream didn’t taste weird, or well, science-y, at all.

A scoop of Brave Robot vanilla

The other flavors were just as tasty. The nutty flavor of Hazelnut with big chocolate chunks was my son’s favorite, and my wife liked the crunchy Butter Pecan. Vanilla was vanilla, but in a good way.

After trying all four, I can say all were smooth and creamy, flavorful and, most importantly, tasted just like dairy-based ice cream. I’ve had lots of plant-based ice cream, and while most taste pretty good (if you’re ever in Seattle, I’d strongly recommend Frankie & Jo’s coconut milk ice cream), none had ever fooled my taste buds into thinking they weren’t made with dairy. Not so with Brave Robot.

My family all liked Brave Robot too, but unlike me, they didn’t care as much about the impressive science behind it. Sure, I tried to explain to them how it had the same proteins found in dairy but without the downsides of milk (like lactose), but they just nodded, said ‘huh’, and spooned more into their mouth. To them, it was just good ice cream.

And I suppose that’s the point.

NadaMoo! Was Set to Announce New Recyclable Packaging, But Then Learned it Wasn’t so Simple

Almost all ice cream containers, although made mostly of paper, are bound for the landfill in a lot of places because they can’t be recycled. The plastic coating inside the container is the reason why.

As the average American reportedly eats more than 23 pounds of ice cream per year, that waste adds up. But even companies that switch to more sustainable packaging are learning the harsh realities of recycling. Plant-based brand NadaMoo! over the next few months will roll out containers with a coating made from sugarcane-based polyethylene and paperboard sourced from “responsibly managed forest trees.”

But although Evergreen Packaging, the creator of the Sentinel Fully Renewable Ice Cream Board (the official name of the new packaging, which is also used by Oatly and Coconut Bliss. ), said it is the first of its kind and is fully renewable. Though that “fully” comes with some big caveats, as NadaMoo! CEO Daniel Nicholson learned right before the company was set to incorrectly announce that its new packaging could be recycled by customers, a message that would have also appeared on its label.

The materials can only be recycled by the carton supplier, Stanpac, through a recycling partner that breaks down and separates the components. This means that in many places, consumers will still not be able to send these containers to local recycling facilities.

“Our new knowledge of this complexity further reinforces the misconceptions within our society at large in our understanding of how our recycling system works down to the subtle nuances,” Nicholson said in an email statement to The Spoon. “It’s too complex for us to try to oversimplify.” 

Nicholson, however, still celebrates the fact that the packaging is made from more renewable and sustainable components.

“Doing good for our customers and for the overall sustainability of our planet has always been the ethos of who we are as a company,” he said. “By taking these incremental steps to be an even more eco-friendly, sustainable product and company, it is our hope that we will be joined by additional, larger parties in our category to maximize the overall impact of these changes.”

NadaMoo!, in its 14th year of business, creates coconut-based frozen desserts that are sold in thousands of stores across the country, including Target and Walmart locations. It raised capital for the first time in 2017 through a $4 million series A round. Although the company is growing, Nicholson said a lot more needs to be done for the industry to be more sustainable.

“If you combine the sales of Oatly, Coconut bliss and NadaMoo!, if we’re the only ones leading this charge, we have a lot of work to do to push the future of the food business,” Nicholson said. “These problems are massive and the only way to make change is for all of us to invest in change.”

The fact that even more sustainable packaging can’t be recycled in most places illustrates the harsh reality of recycling around the world: many materials aren’t actually recycled. Plastic remains the largest problem, as more than 90 percent of the material ends up as trash. Nestlé’s Häagen-Dazs brand offers a different approach, teaming up with delivery company Loop to create a reusable ice cream container. (In the eggs section, Pete and Gerry’s is testing a reusable container.)

As NadaMoo! shows, even food companies have difficulties understanding the intricacies of recycling, which means we all must work harder if we want to cut down on our waste.

I Tried Oatly’s New Oat Milk Ice Cream, Headed to Your Freezer Aisle This Fall

As someone who is lactose intolerant I try to limit my dairy intake, but the absolute hardest thing for me to say “no” to is real ice cream. Especially since most plant-based options out there aren’t great.

But this week I was able to give a new milk-free ‘scream a try when Oatly sent me a shipment of its new plant-based ice cream made from its signature oat milk.

For those who aren’t familiar with Oatly, check your hippest neighborhood coffee shop — odds are they’ll have a pint of the stuff next to the espresso machine. Swedish company Oatly helped to catalyze America’s oat milk obsession when it came stateside in 2016.

Now, oat milk is one of the most popular alternative milks out there, attracting droves of fans with its creamy texture and neutral flavor. In fact, Oatly is so popular in the U.S. that recently it has been hard to keep in stock. To combat production issues the company just opened a new production facility in New Jersey and already has plans for another one to open next year in Utah.

In the U.K. and Europe, Oatly is already capitalizing off its popularity to create new products — such as savory spreads, yogurt, and ice cream — featuring its oat milk. Now it’s slowly releasing those products in the U.S., starting with ice cream.

Oatly gave American consumers a first taste of its dairy-free ‘scream earlier this summer with a roaming ice cream truck in Southern California. According to an email from Oatly, their ice cream is now available at small bodegas, Wegmans stores, and through FreshDirect in NYC. It will start rolling out to Whole Foods nationwide this fall. A pint will put you back $5.99, which isn’t especially cheap but is certainly in line with other non-dairy options from Ben & Jerry’s, Haagen-Dazs, and more (though more expensive than most regular ice cream).

Photo: Catherine Lamb

So how did Oatly ice cream taste? Creamy, smooth and rich — though it wouldn’t fool me into thinking it’s real ice cream. The texture is thick and scoopable, and significantly better than other alternative milk ice creams I’ve tried, even other oat-based ones. But the flavor is a bit off.

First of all, it was a lot less sweet than most ice creams I’m used to, which might be a pro for some people but didn’t quite hit the mark for me (I added chocolate sauce to hit my sugar high). In fact, Oatly ice cream has 18 grams of sugar per 2/3 cup serving, which is significantly below the sugar in an equivalent amount of Haagen Dazs (29 grams) or Ben & Jerry’s (31 grams), my typical ice cream picks. It’s also significantly lower in calories and protein.

Unsurprisingly, Oatly’s ice cream also carries the distinct taste of oat. That’s probably why my favorite flavor of the bunch was the Oat one, which leaned into that oatiness instead of trying to cover it up like the mint or strawberry flavors do, with varied success.

Photo: Catherine Lamb

My other qualm was a slightly off-putting thickness to the ice cream that left my tongue feeling coated after I ate it. That’s likely due to the coconut oil and rapeseed oil added to the oat milk to give the ice cream a creamy texture. Oatly also uses several types of gum to stabilize and thicken the product — which actually make the product scoop and melt very similarly to real ice cream. Bonus: One time I accidentally left a pint of Oatly out on my counter for a few hours and stuck it back in the freezer, after which the texture was largely unaffected.

Photo: Oatly.

It’s an opportune time for Oatly to expand the footprint of its plant-based ice cream. People are screaming for dairy-free ice cream: According to Future Market Insights, the alternative ice cream market is projected to reach more than $620 million by 2027. And while it seems like there are new plant-based pints every time I walk by the freezer aisle, the brand recognition Oatly has built up through milk sales will help it stand out from the competition.

Overall, I would definitely buy Oatly ice cream at the grocery store, especially if I was planning to dress it up with toppings or use it to melt on top of a pie or fruit crisp.

However, once Perfect Day brings its flora-based ice cream (lactose-free!) to market, all bets are off. I know it’s not really fair: Perfect Day’s ice cream is made with real dairy proteins so it tastes exactly like the real thing, whereas Oatly has the heavy lift of transforming oats into a totally new product. Perfect Day’s ‘scream is also significantly more expensive than Oatly right now — almost four times as much — so that could deter curious consumers until it gets its cost down.

But when it comes to ice cream, the heart — er, stomach — wants what it wants. And mine isn’t quite satisfied by Oatly. But that won’t stop me from gladly polishing off the pints in my freezer.

Ben & Jerry’s Will Introduce a CBD Ice Cream, Surprising No One

Half Baked. Phish Food. Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler.

Ben & Jerry’s may have made plenty of flavors that sound like they’re infused with cannabis, but so far they’ve steered clear of actually putting pot in their pints.

But all that’s about to change. Today the Unilever-owned company announced plans to release a line of CBD ice cream — as soon as the non-hallucinogenic cannabinoid is approved by the FDA.

They might not have too long to wait. The FDA is holding a public hearing on CBD tomorrow, with a public comment period through early July. While it’s unlikely we’ll see any real regulatory change for a few months at least, the hearing is still a significant step in the direction of approving CBD as a food-safe ingredient.

Once that happens there will be a cascade of CPG companies scrambling to release their own line of CBD-infused products. Coca-Cola, Molson Coors, and others have already announced that they’re experimenting with the trendy ingredient. Other companies have kept quiet, but with the CBD market estimated to reach $16 billion by 2025, they’d be foolish not to at least look into ways to use it.

For Ben & Jerry’s, a move into CBD makes sense. It may be owned by Unilever now, but the company was started by two hippies from Vermont who make no secret of their affection for the Devil’s Lettuce. The brand still gives off that granola-crunching, liberal-leaning attitude. Ben & Jerry’s has also been on the forefront of other product innovation, embracing growing demand for plant-based and low-calorie ice creams, so it’s not surprising that they’re ready to experiment with a new buzzy ingredient.

But nothing’s going to happen until the FDA gives the industry the green light. Until then, we’ll have to settle in and wait — preferably with a pint of Half Baked.

Kickstarter: SVANKi is an Electrically Heated Ice Cream Scoop

I wonder if the Germans, who have a word for everything, have a word for “impatiently trying to scoop ice cream before it thaws so all you get is small little unsatisfying discs.”

While it isn’t German, SVANKi (inexplicably pronounced “Swanky”) is a word people who have those ice cream related problems might want to know. Now running a Kickstarter campaign, SVANKi is an electrically heated ice cream scoop that promises to cut through that rock hard rocky road to dish out perfectly round balls of Instagrammable bliss.

Let’s just get this out of the way, SVANKi is solving perhaps the most first world of first world problems — serving dessert. But if you love ice cream (like me) and are impatient (also like me), then SVANKi might actually be… useful?

SVANKi sits on a wireless charging station. Push a button and the SVANKi will, according to the Kickstarter campaign, heat up and maintain a temperature between 140 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit. The batteries are rechargeable and last a half hour when topped.

That Ben & Jerry’s Americone Dream at the bottom of your freezer doesn’t stand a chance.

You can pick up a swanky SVANKi via Kickstarter for the low, low price of $39. That’s only twice as much as one that uses body heat to warm up. But that $39 is just for early backers. It looks like the retail price will be $89 for one SVANKi when it comes out next year.

But do you really need one? And by “you,” I mean “me.” I asked a couple of friends who bascially shot it down saying that if I needed a heated ice cream scoop I was eating too much ice cream, which, is probably true.

Sigh.

However, I could probably make a case that I could get forty bucks worth of use after a couple of holiday gatherings and kid’s birthday parties. But, given that limited use case, crowdfunding’s spotty record when it comes to hardware actually making it to market, and the fact that I could, you know, just wait a few minutes before scooping, there’s a different word I’m trying to avoid: “sucker.”