Hershey's Roadrunner Raspberry Ice Cream

[By Nick] To say I was excited when I saw the selection of Hershey's Ice Cream at the Niskayuna Co-Op would be an understatement. You see, we've been meaning to get them on the site for a while now. However, I've only been able to find them in gas stations and you all know my luck with ice cream from there. ‎Now, Hershey's Ice Cream has absolutely no connection to the Hershey's company you're all familiar with. The only thing they have in common is their name and location. I actually got to meet the regional sales manager for Hershey's on a more recent trip to the Co-op and learned a lot about the flavor creation process and more about Hershey's history.

If you know me, you know I spend countless hours looking at companies' websites looking at what flavors they offer even if I know I can't get that flavor locally. So imagine my surprise when I saw Roadrunner Raspberry in the Co-op's freezer. After doing some research when I got home, it was actually one of the hand-dipped flavors that recently got packaged into pints. Described as "Premium white chocolate ice cream with raspberry swirls and raspberry filled chocolate cups." That sounds a heck of a lot like my beloved White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle from Haagen-Dazs. There was no way I was passing up grabbing this flavor so let's dig right into this one.

Off the bat, I'm not liking the lack of protective seal. When you offer you're products mainly in convenience stores, you need something to help protect the ice cream against those less than desirable conditions. Thankfully this is from the co-op so there aren’t any signs of damage. Visually, this one looks good. There are plenty of raspberry swirls and well as cups throughout which is always a plus.

The white chocolate base is a lot sweeter than Haagen-Dazs but in a good way. While the butteriness that you get from Haagen-Dazs base can overpower the raspberry swirl, here the sweetness amplifies their flavor. Speaking of those swirls, they’re quite thick in consistency. I’d say they’re almost on the level of jelly giving them substance and a pleasant mouth feel. Like I mentioned, their flavor is sweet but not in an artificial kind of way.

Where this flavor majorly differs from Haagen-Dazs is the raspberry filled chocolate cups and they are the best part of this flavor. The chocolate is high quality and contrasts nicely with the white chocolate base. The burst of raspberry flavor they add takes this flavor up a notch. The flavor isn’t as sweet as the swirls but it’s strong enough to hold its own against the other two chocolate components.  Hershey’s doesn’t skimp either because there are a lot of these gems throughout the pint.

Now obviously, Haagen-Dazs has the upper hand when it comes to quality since this isn’t a super-premium ice cream. That said, this is definitely in the premium range of ice cream and I’d say it’s on par with the Baskin-Robbins flavors I recently received in terms of quality. And while it is no Haagen-Dazs in terms of texture, the flavor easily makes up for that and then some. I think I might even have a new favorite raspberry flavor.

Verdict?  You can never go wrong with white chocolate and raspberries.
Buy Again?  Definitely and I have a bunch of other Hershey’s pints in my freezer as we speak.