Creamies

Creamies began as a favor to a school principal. In the late 1950s, the company says, a Cache Valley grade school principal asked an ice cream company for a frozen treat made with milk instead of sugar water. What came back was a bar with real fruit and natural flavorings, and the company says the original Creamies are still made in Cache Valley.

Chocolate and orange were there at the start. So was banana, which the company's page says is hard to find as a naturally flavored ice cream. The lineup has since grown to include strawberry, coconut, mango and a root beer float that the site calls the newest member of the family. Utah's Own lists Richard Merrill as the founder and describes a reduced-fat bar, sold in a yogurt version too. Boxes on the site hold six individually wrapped bars.

The company that makes them today is younger than the bar. Heart to Heart Foods, which a 2019 Cache Valley Tourism guide names as the maker of the original Creamies, started in 1990, according to a 2011 Herald Journal feature. C. Anthon Ernstrom of Utah State University's food science department was its main founder, and its first product was cup yogurt made in Richmond. When Einstein Bros. Bagels wanted cream cheese from the company and no part of its ice cream, Einstein bought half of it. The cheese side later closed, and the ice cream stayed.

By the paper's count, Creamies sold about 15 million a year in 2011 and were the company's original product. Craig Earl, its president since 1990 and a Utah State food science graduate who had been in ice cream for about 30 years by then, told the Herald Journal that national growth was unrealistic against Nestlé and Good Humor, and that a push into Southern California and Arizona had not lasted. In Utah the bars are easier to find. Utah's Own lists Harmons, Smith's, Macey's, Dan's, Ream's, Costco and Walmart as places that carry them.

Mail order is stricter than the freezer aisle. The shipping policy on creamies.com sends orders out Monday through Wednesday, by Next Day Air with dry ice. Anything placed after 10 a.m. Mountain time on Wednesday waits until the following Monday. Nothing ships Thursday through Sunday, so no box sits in a truck over a weekend.

KSL's 2014 video visit to the Cache Valley plant described Creamies as "made right here in Utah." Earl told the Herald Journal the company once shipped them to a South Pacific island, a one-time effort. Not bad for something one grade school principal asked for.