ON THE AFTERNOON Justin Woolverton almost died, he was driving home from Van Nuys with 40 pints of ice cream in the back seat. The 101 was jammed as
usual; he phoned a buddy to pass the time. As they spoke,
Woolverton noticed he was having a little trouble breathing.
His breath got shallower; his heart began pounding; his head
started to spin. He tried to remain calm, but by the time he
had reached West Hollywood, he was hyperventilating, on the
verge of fainting. An ambulance happened to be in the next
lane at a stoplight. He wildly panic-gestured to the driver,
hoping he might save him.
A few months earlier, Woolverton had founded the ice
cream company Eden Creamery
here in Los Angeles. A corporate
lawyer by training, he’d taught him-
self the business—how to manufac-
ture ice cream, how to sell it to
grocery stores. Yet for every lesson
he’d learned about the temperamen-
tal frozen dessert, he tended to miss
something glaring. For instance, he
knew that dry ice—several pounds
of which were also in the backseat—
Woolverton was learning—the mind begins to lose
consciousness. Subsequently, the body sufocates.
The ambulance pulled over; Woolverton lurched
out of the car. But by the time the paramedics had a
stethoscope to his chest, his bodily functions had
returned to normal—he had inhaled fresh air.
Air, it turns out, was becoming a recurring detail
in Woolverton’s life. One of the ingredients that
would eventually make Halo Top—as Eden Cream-
ery’s ice cream would come to be known—the most
unlikely new brand to shake up the cutthroat ice
cream category was air. Along with milk, cream, egg
whites, thickening agents, and a stevia-erythritol
cocktail packed into Halo Top’s calorie-defying
favors like Red Velvet or Pancakes and Wafes,
The company’s trajectory has
been unlike any other in the pack-
aged foods business. Two years
ago, its founders, Woolverton and
Douglas Bouton, were broke and
•
SORRY, NOT SORRY
Many Halo Top die-hards buy a pint of the high-protein
treat daily, rewriting the rules of consumer behavior
in the ice cream category.
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