Why This Low-Calorie Ice Cream Launched An Internet War
Halo Top's pints are polarizing, to say the least.
Hot takes on cold treats populate the online discourse surrounding Halo Top, America’s most controversial ice cream brand.
The low-calorie, diet-friendly ice cream is now the best-selling ice cream brand in United States grocery stores, usurping establishment brands like Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s.
But heavy is the head that wears the crown, and Halo Top’s popularity has come with a double scoop of backlash, with some requests for handouts sprinkled on top for good measure.
Halo Top’s main selling point is that it produces healthy-ish ice cream that doesn’t taste like garbage. “While Halo Top is low-calorie, high-protein, and low-sugar, we use only the best, all-natural ingredients to craft our ice cream so that it tastes just like regular ice cream,” the company’s website boasts.
The most caloric pints, chocolate chip cookie dough and red velvet, rack in a mere 360 calories. A single serving of Ben & Jerry’s Oat of this Swirled ice cream, of which there are four per pint, is 30 calories more than Halo Top’s oatmeal cookie flavor.
The ice cream’s packaging encourages customers to down a whole pint of Halo Top at once, with metallic gold lids emblazoned with slogans like “No Bowl, No Regrets,” and “Guilt Free Zone.”
Many consumers are smitten with Halo Top, and adoring fans tweet out their appreciation on a regular basis.
There’s even a Halo Top diet that consists of eating only the low-calorie ice cream, which is honestly fucked up.
But this glowing praise is matched by the vitriol expressed by Halo Top haters. Detractors deride Halo Top’s taste and insist that other, less healthy ice cream brands remain superior.
Whether or not you’re a fan of their ice cream, it’s clear that Halo Top has a shrewd public relations team. They proved they know their audience by giving Buzzfeed a sneak-taste of their soon-to-be-released flavors, and are extremely responsive when users tweet out their quality control complaints.
So if you’re looking to grab a pint of Halo Top and see what all the fuss is about, head down to your nearest grocery store. But be careful:
You might have some pretty serious competition.
