2017 New Frozen Product Guide

Thanks to Stop & Shop (Giant), Hannaford (Food Lion), Walmart, Target, Shaws, Roche Bros, and Price Chopper and then some internet research to back it all up, we're starting to get a clearer picture of what 2017 holds in store. Let's break it down by category this year.

At the top of the freezer aisle, we have your high end pints of ice cream. We don't really cover online (shipped to your door) type stuff on this blog, that's what instagram is for. What we focus on in this group is Ben & Jerry's, Talenti, Haagen-Dazs, and sometimes Graeters if you are lucky. Graeters doesn't put out a ton of new flavors, and I've already talked about the new Haagen-Dazs stuff here, so let's jump in to...

Talenti #44 - Cinnamon Peach Biscuit - (early runs lack enough peach swirl, my review here)
Talenti #45 - Peanut Butter Fudge Sorbetto - reviewed here
Talenti #46 - Vanilla Blueberry Crumble - thick blueberry sauce with real blueberries and crunchy brown sugar oat clusters blended into creamy vanilla gelato - reviewed here
Talenti #47 - Vanilla Chai - chai spices and black tea leaves freshly brewed into creamy vanilla gelato (sounds like an homage to Tea-rrific) - negative review here

Please note that Peach Butter Biscuit (reviewed here) is no longer a Publix exclusive, but also note that it does not have a number on the container. The exclusives don't get numbers, but it's a little surprising that they couldn't assign it one now that it's widely available... update: maybe it didnt get a number because it wasn't out long?

There are three widely available new flavors from Ben & Jerry's. There's Truffle Kerfuffle (review here), Urban Bourbon (Nick's review), and Oat of this Swirled (review here). There's also an exclusive Salted Caramel Almond (reviewed here) which can be found at any grocery chain owned by Safeway/Albertsons (that's Shaws and Star Market for my area). Target will have the exclusive Keep Calm and Caramel On starting in April (review here). In May we got Ben & Jerry's One Love ice cream (reviewed here). Ben & Jerry's also has the four new pint slices that we have reviewed.


Gelato Fiasco has four more flavors coming out for 2017. Strawberry gelato (reviewed here), Sweet Resurgam gelato (kind of like toffee but not), Mint Chocolate Chunk gelato (tasty!), and Chocolate Raspberry Jam gelato (reviewed here). GF was nice enough to send over samples and also let us know that they have tweaked the recipe of their Torched Marshmallow S'more gelato (review has been updated).


Graeters newest ice cream is Strawberry Cheesecake (announced 3/1/17).


Ciao Bella is rocking new pint graphics and at least one new flavor: Strawberry Chocolate Chip Gelato and Bailey's Sea Salt Caramel Gelato (meh review here).

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Next up is what I call mainstream ice cream. This covers Breyers, Edys (Dreyers), Turkey Hill, Blue Bunny, Friendlys, Perry's, etc. It won't be a dense as the super premium stuff above, the mix-ins can be hit or miss, and the ingredient list can dabble a bit too much in the magic of food science, but it's still the primary choice for a lot of consumers.

The biggest news from Breyers is probably their new non-dairy lineup of a whopping --two-- flavors. Your choices are vanilla peanut butter and oreo cookies & cream. If you are wondering why they went with almond milk, remember that Breyers and Ben & Jerry's are both owned by Unilever, so they have the tech to do this, but now they have a cheaper product with half the nutritional stats (half the calories, half the fat, half the sugar).

Breyers is also throwing three more gelato flavors at us. The cookie dough one you see above as well as Pistachio Biscotti and Cinnamon Roll. I have no urge to review these though Nick has picked up the pistachio one. To make room for the new flavors, Breyer's has ditched mint chocolate and cappuccino so far....

As far as their "original" line up is concerned, they are adding Chocolate Mint ice cream  (positive review here) and then Cinnamon Swirl and Butterscotch Blondie to their frozen dairy dessert offerings.

Friendlys is starting up an all natural line up? Is this the work of their owner Dean Foods or is this something they've had in the works for awhile? And is it a shot at the all natural Turkey Hill lineup? I would be very happy if Friendlys went back to their older recipes, but I do fear this more of a marketing ploy than a return to excellence. There are eight flavors in all: chocolate, chocolate fudge, chocolate peanut butter, mint chocolate chip, vanilla, vanilla blackberry swirl, vanilla caramel, and vanilla peanut butter fudge... geez, could that sound anymore like the turkey hill lineup? Update: this lineup is very gummy. I reviewed mint chocolate here and they went nuts with the stabilizers. It's awful.

And then we have Friendlys taking a shot at Breyers in the form of these new, clear, signature sundae containers. You get 28 fluid ounces of sundae for $4.59. Basically it's ice cream, sauce topping, whipped topping, and some bits on top so something akin to a larger version of their small sundae cups. The four flavors I saw are Forbidden Chocolate Fudge Brownie (review here), Vanilla Chocolate Chip Fudge (review here), Vanilla Caramel, and Peanut Butter Fudge (review here).

Friendly's will also be releasing a few more limited edition flavors like the new purple potamus (review here) which is mixed berry ice cream with chocolate chips. There is also double chocolate chip cookie dough which I already reviewed.

Blue Bunny is sure to have several new flavors out this year like PB N' Cones (reviewed here), Toffee Brownie Twist, Strawbunny Bliss, Rockin' Rocky Road, Monster Cookie Mash, and Mint Cookie Crunch (reviewed here). They've also taken the stick out of their funwiches to give us these new Bunny Snacks. You get six in a bag for around $4.99 and I can't imagine that these won't be fun. The flavors are cookies 'n cream, chocolate chip cookie, salted caramel pretzel and chocolate vanilla twist (review here). I expect these to be my defacto mowing snack this summer. [Note: the C&C funwich is off their website but the chocolate chip one is still there]

Edy's (Dreyers) has already released three limited edition slow churned cookie dough flavors. The cookie dough is kind of weird in both the double chocolate chip and oatmeal chocolate chip flavor, so I'll probably skip the peanut butter version.

Edy's is also teaming up with Hostess for a line of ice creams and treats like twinkie ice cream (reviewed), cupcakes ice cream (reviewed), and snoballs ice cream and then also turning each of those ideas in to a frozen novelty.

There are also four new froyo flavors: Salted Caramel Pretzel, Caramel Praline Perfection, Peanut Butter Overload, and Cake & Cookie Fantasy. Since two of those have nuts and the pretzel one has a cross contamination warning, I will only be checking out the C&C Fantasy flavor (review here). (it's been three years since I reviewed an Edy's froyo flavor so it's pretty weird to see four new flavors like this).

Lastly I have a strong suspicion that Edy's frozen custard lineup is soon to be retired or at the very least it has an extremely limited distribution (custard isn't really a big thing in the northeast).

Turkey Hill has four new all natural flavors: mocha swirl, blueberry (review here), raspberry chocolate chip (review here), and mango. Wait, mocha swirl has "natural chocolate cookie" in it! That's not fair, I want a cookies & cream flavor! Please? Or how come the raspberry needs to have chocolate chips in it? Boooo. Oh I tease, I tease. Sort of. I am happy that the all natural line up now includes 20 flavors. That's pretty cool. I just wish it wouldnt take so long for new flavors to hit my local stores. My local Price Chopper just now started putting out the 2016 flavors.

Perry's released Bad Breakup (reviewed here) and the limited edition Caramel Frappe (review here) at the beginning of the year and has now added Candy Bar, Cold Brew Coffee & Cream (review here) and lactose free Cookie Dough (review here) to their ice cream lineup. Their are also two new sandwiches: Sweet Cream (review here) and Cool Mint (review here).

Stop & Shop (Giant) has put out shelf tags for two new Yuenglings ice cream flavors: Butterbeer ice cream (review here) and Strawberry ice cream (review here).  Butterbeer must be fairly unique as they took the time to trademark the name.

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Hudsonville Creamery does not distribute in the Northeast but I stumbled upon some of their new flavors online. It includes Peanut Butter Cheesecake, Peanut Butter Pretzel, and Bananas Foster. They also released a Windmill Cookie Butter flavor to stores at the end of 2016.

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Blue Bell has promised a few new flavors this year starting with their new Ice Cream Cone flavor. They followed that with Bride's Cake ice cream in May. I don't have access to Blue Bell but maybe we can get CT to track them down for us.

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Finally we have entry level (budget) ice cream and store brands. Right now it looks like Target is killing their higher end Archer Farms pints and will stick with just their budget friendly Market Pantry line up. It also looks like Walmart is killing their higher end Sam's Choice line up.

Stores like Stop & Shop (Giant) will continue to to release limited editions like the current Twisted Chocolate (note: it's coffee infused, but apparently has a cinnamon kick too) and in early Spring we saw Toasted Coconut. Last up we have Hood who is removing a few of their New England Creamery offerings to make room for the fun sounding Snickerdoodle Dandy and the terrible Peanut Butter Pie (Nick's review here).

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And that leaves us with miscellaneous frozen treats. Magnum seems to have cleared out a few products (double peanut butter, double chocolate vanilla and infinity chocolate raspberry?) and thanks to Marvo we know it was to make room for a Magnum Double Cookies & Cream (review here) and Magnum Double Chocolate Hazelnut (review here).

Yasso, one of the last holdouts in the frozen Greek yogurt arena (while still competing in the larger, frozen heathy alternative space), is using a newfound lack of competition to branch out with sandwiches in both mint and vanilla varieties. They've also added S'mores, Toffee Caramel Chocolate Chip and Black Raspberry Chip to their bar lineup.

Skinny Cow has released a press release stating that they are updating their packaging to reflect their new shortened ingredient lists. They say that while the recipes have changed, the flavors will be the same. The changes also include these two new greek frozen yogurt bars: salt-kissed caramel and chocolate fudgetastic swirl. Apparently the creepy cow has been replaced with creepy names.

JC Pie Pops will be adding a Coconut Cream flavor to their line up.

It looks like Fruttare might be dead in the U.S., not sure anyone cares. I found Fruttare in a "Price Rite" grocery store. Packages had over a year left before expiration.

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I will add and update this post as necessary. Certain brands aren't shown here because they aren't in my area (Blue Bell, Pierre's, Kemps, etc). If you see something I missed, please let me know!  If you want to follow me in real time, be sure to follow me on instagram (or twitter).