
Related: The 25 Companies That Gen Zers Dream of Working atįrom that whole experience, what do you think is the top lesson for entrepreneurs? There was this very difficult adjustment period where everybody along the chain had to get used to the growth. They weren't ready for this type of movement. When people are buying the stuff and clearing out shelves in like a day or two, they've never seen this in their life with ice cream. Most importantly, frozen is limited real estate in stores. They couldn't overnight give us a bunch more lines. Factories are very particular about their space, too. We couldn't order ingredients fast enough - the suppliers weren't ready for it. My partner, Doug, was spearheading working with the factories to get us more room, because from everybody's perspective, this caught them off guard. What were the challenges in dealing with the explosion of the brand in 2016?

In SoCal there are a certain number of medium-sized chains that are just small enough where they'll take a chance on a small company like us, which is just big enough to have weight with a distributor. You get to a point where obviously you can't keep doing that it's tiring. I was distributing myself, going around with an ice cooler to stores. How did you land your your first big distribution deal? There just wasn't anything like it out in the market. If I need it, other people would probably need it. if I like it, other people would probably like it. I ran my mixture through it, and it tasted extremely good. It had slowly morphed from this bachelor version of this thing to finally the eureka moment when I got this Cuisinart ice cream machine. I was playing around in my kitchen with little tweaks of certain things to get rid of sugar, and I made this ice cream. Once I started practicing law, which I did for about four years, I absolutely hated it and realized I had to get out. I was one of those weird kids who wanted to be a lawyer since my teens, and I was dead set on thinking it would be so fun. Nineteen pints and a frightening amount of spoons later, here’s how they each hold up.Can you briefly tell me how you got into this business? Halo Top’s Keto and dairy-free lineups has been excluded from this ranking because we're talking ice cream here. Its brightly designed labels beckon with flavors like Blueberry Crumble, Chocolate Cake Batter, Mango, and Sea Salt Caramel.īut how does Halo Top really stack up against itself? As the resident, self-proclaimed ice cream connoisseur, it seemed only fitting that I sample each flavor. Halo Top shares shelf space with pint pioneers Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s, and is undeniably everywhere now, amassing adoring followers at every corner of the freezer aisle. And, thanks to an ever-growing keto-friendly line with two new flavors, even the diet-abiding can dig into Halo Top. Pints clock in between 240 and 360 calories.

We’re leaving that trope behind and, in this decade, embracing Halo Top’s light ice cream for what it is: a low-sugar, protein-packed treat that is legitimately great-tasting. When Halo Top unleashed a roster of low-calorie ice cream packed in colorful pints in the early 2010s, the “joke” was that the newly single set could have their sad frozen dessert without guilt.
