What You Didn't Know About Blue Bell's New Strawberry Lemonade Flavor
When it comes to taste, sometimes one flavor complements another so well, it almost seems criminal not to combine them. Blue Bell Ice Cream serves as the perfect example. This Texas-based creamery is known for its delicious flavor and ingredient combinations, including Cookies 'n Cream, Southern Blackberry Cobbler, and one of its latest summer flavors, Strawberry Lemonade.
Strawberry Lemonade was added to the Blue Bell lineup in June 2022, and it didn't take long for people to notice. You can find posts about it on social media, including videos of people tasting it for the first time, like TikTok user @catbaby16. Even some TV news crew members tried it on the air. With strawberry-flavored ice cream, combined with lemonade sherbet and lemon-flavored flakes, the new flavor has been a big hit. But what many Blue Bell-lovers probably don't know about this tasty combo is how the flavor came to fruition.
If you were to assume that every flavor idea stemmed exclusively from the bright minds of Blue Bell, you'd be wrong. Believe it or not, the idea for the Strawberry Lemonade flavor actually originated from someone who has no affiliation with Blue Bell whatsoever, aside from just being a young fan.
The school project that became a summer money maker
In the spring of 2022, a middle school student named Madelyn of Midlothian Independent School District in Texas made the pitch of a lifetime, per NBC DFW. She was assigned a project that involved submitting a product idea to a company, according to her mother's Facebook post. Madelyn chose Blue Bell Ice Cream as her company. The pitch? Make strawberry lemonade sherbet a new flavor.
She wrote her letter and sent it off, just as she was assigned to do, and received a reply from Blue Bell CEO Rick Dickson. In the response letter, dated March 23, 2022, he told her that he would pass on her suggestion for the new flavor to the Research & Development team.
Three months later, her idea became a reality as the flavor launched in June 2022. It's now available in two sizes for a limited time as a rotational flavor on store shelves in 23 "Blue Bell Country" states. But if it becomes popular enough, it just might be added as a year-round flavor. Fingers crossed!