Star Spangled Ice Cream

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Star Spangled Ice Cream
Founded2003;22 years ago (2003)
Founders
  • Richard Lessner
  • Frank Cannon
  • Andrew Stein

Star Spangled Ice Cream was an American ice cream company founded in 2003 by three conservative activists and marketed as a politically conservative alternative to Ben & Jerry's, which the founders considered to be too liberal.

Contents

History

In 2003, amid the beginning of the Iraq War, Richard Lessner and his friends decided to create an ice cream brand in support of George W. Bush. They agreed that Ben & Jerry's made good ice cream, but disagreed with the company's liberal politics, so they founded Star Spangled Ice Cream. The founders, Richard Lessner, Frank Cannon, and Andrew Stein, had no knowledge of how to make ice cream, so they contracted production to a company in Baltimore called Moxley's. The company sold ice cream online, and the price of dry ice to keep the product cold put the price at $66 for six pints or $76 for four quarts. [1] The company described the price of $76 as "patriotic", and ten percent of profits went to charities supporting the United States armed forces. [2]

The company, like Ben & Jerry's, made use of puns in their ice cream flavor names. Examples included "Fightin' Marine Tough Cookies & Cream", "Iraqi Road", "Smaller GovernMint", "G.I. Love Chocolate", "Air Force Plane Vanilla", and "Navy Battle Chip". [1]

Reception

Reviewers at NBC News described the ice cream as "tooth-achingly sweet", and noted that the base ice cream was good but had a chalky texture. [1] Taste testers assembled by The New York Times described the taste as "undistinguished", and one compared it to "the little cups of ice cream in elementary school, the kind with wooden paddles." The taste of "Smaller GovernMint" was compared to toothpaste and Noxzema shaving cream. [2]

Musician Ted Nugent endorsed the brand and said that he enjoyed the "Gun Nut" flavor. [3] The company's founders said that Ben & Jerry's viewed them with contempt, although Ben & Jerry's never actually acknowledged the existence of Star Spangled Ice Cream. [1] [4]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Take that, Ben and Jerry". NBC News. February 10, 2006. Retrieved January 28, 2025.
  2. 1 2 Zernike, Kate (April 16, 2003). "With Liberty and Ice Cream for All". The New York Times . p. F4. ISSN   1553-8095. OCLC   1645522. Archived from the original on March 14, 2021. Retrieved January 28, 2025.
  3. ↑ "TED NUGENT Endorses 'Gun Nut' Ice Cream". BLABBERMOUTH.NET. October 7, 2003. Retrieved June 24, 2025.
  4. ↑ Moscovitch, Philip (September 27, 2024). "Discontinued foods: Gone and should have been forgotten". Halifax Examiner. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
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