Halo Top is considered the main representative of low-calorie, high-protein, and low sugar ice cream.
over the s The first Halo Top Scoop Shop opened last month and more planned. Jamie Eukis visited the CEO to learn about his recipe for success. Let's try this. Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey! A little, a little fast. For Justin Wolverton, this was even better than being a kid in a candy store. The Halo Top Ice Cream CEO was inside an LA Mall, previewing his company's first offering of soft-serve flavors. It was really fun. It's kind of surreal. Surreal because just a few years ago, Wolverton was a litigator at a big-name LAw firm and hating his career. Everybody thinks it's going to be Perry Mason or You just decide to j This here is the little ice cream machine that I started with. Prompted by a pop-up ad, Wolverton bought this $20 machine back in 2011. His homemade concoction with all-natural ingredients sparked an idea. And it was this kind of Eureka moment where it tasted extremely good even though it didn't have any sugar. It was rich in protein. It was all-natural. So I was like, hey, You really thought in that moment? Yeah. At the time, Wolverton owed nearly $350,000 in student loans. He found a partner, Doug Bouton, another disgruntled lawyer, willing to go deep in debt to make ice cream. It hit stores in 2012, but didn't sell. So how'd you sleep at night? I slept restlessly. You didn't sleep. We always said, I think, on our worst day at Halo Top, and there were some dark days in the early years, it still beat practicing law. This is pretty good. Targeting millennials, they turned to social media, sending pints to YouTube influencers. All of the flavors are freaking amazing. But the key selling point became about calories. An entire pint has as many as a single serving of other ice creams. I just don't know how they do it. 280 calories for this entire pint. It ignited a cult- Sales skyrocketed. 17 million hard-packed pints in 2016. Under the lid it reads, stop when you hit the bottom, and guilt-free zone, keep digging. But author and dietician Samantha Heller says the slogans aren't healthy for those struggling with portion control. When the ice cream company can tell you to eat the whole thing, it's encouraging bulk eating and binge eating. And that is something we're actively trying to control in this country. The bottom line is ice cream is meant to tickle certain receptors that make it almost impossible to just be But it was Wolverton's own health problems that led him to create a product sweetened with stevia and erythritol, a sugar alcohol. My buddy doesn't do well on sugar. When you have a hypoglycemic episode, you just turn white. You look My roller coaster is a little bit more severe than most people. The company is pushing to keep up with demand, churning out about 650,000 pints a day. Despite the large-scale operation, they don't own this factory, preferring to rent. Wolverton works mainly from home, near his chief cleanup officer, Molly Bear. But staying small is helping him think big. I don't see any reason why Halo Top can't be global, just It could be the n Is that your dream? That is my dream. That is my dream, yes. A dream for him and the best bite of reality for ice cream lovers. I Who never want just one taste. For CBS This Morning, Jamie Uckes, Los Angeles. Bianna, I know you haven't had it. I've never had it. I knew your resolution is the buy you want. It appears to be guilt-free almost, right? It's really cool that they have those calories printed right on the label there. You can see people in the supermarket, I was looking and saying, oh, this one's only 250, done. I'm sold. Salted caramel. Salted caramel.
