Hershey Creamery Company, also known as Hershey’s Ice Cream, is an American creamery that produces ice cream, sorbet, sherbet, frozen yogurt, and other frozen desserts such as smoothies and frozen slab-style ice cream mixers. It was founded by Jacob Hershey and four of his brothers in 1894 and taken over by the Holder family in the 1920s. The company was one of the first to offer consumers pre-packaged ice cream pints.
The family-owned business has approximately 450 employees and operates 30 distribution centers in 28 states across the Eastern and Northeastern United States. It is a publicly traded company, with its stocks listed only on Pink Sheets as the company offers a limited number of shares to potential shareholders. In 1998, it modernized its operations to increase efficiency and reduce overhead.
Hershey Creamery Company has no connection to The Hershey Company, a candy manufacturer, though both companies were founded in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the same year. The companies have had a tumultuous relationship marked by multiple lawsuits over trademark issues. In the mid-1990s, the companies settled their most recent legal battles out of court, with Hershey Creamery Company agreeing to add a disclaimer to its ice cream products to note that it is not affiliated with The Hershey Company.
As of 2009, Hershey Creamery Company offers 108 flavors of regular, hand-dipped premium ice cream, with 31 of those varieties marked as super premium gold rim products and 4 available in no sugar added (NSA) varieties that use the alternate sweetening product Splenda. Additionally, it offers two flavors of sorbet, three flavors of sherbet, and eight flavors of frozen yogurt. For pre-packaged half-gallons, the company offers consumers 32 ice cream flavors, including 4 no-fat varieties of its basic flavors and five sherbet flavors. In pints, it offers 13 flavors in its traditional square packaging and 15 flavors in its newer round pint packaging, including 2 limited edition and 2 no-sugar added varieties. It also offers three basic pre-made ice cream cakes.
In addition to these traditional ice cream treats, Hershey Creamery offers a variety of novelty ice cream treats, including ice cream sandwiches, Ice pops, sundae cups, ice cream sticks, squeeze ups, and pre-made cones. It also distributes smoothies under its “Tropi-Kool Smoothies” brand and frozen slab ice cream under its “Creation Station” brand.
Banzai Energy Ice, which it created by using the then popular energy drink Banzai. Though the 4-ounce product received good reviews for its citrus flavor and convenient squeeze-up container for on-the-go consumer, the product was a financial failure and was dropped.
