The Discontinued Ice Cream Brand Boomers Likely Remember Fondly

Ice cream is one of those foods that often elicits strong memories (and it's been around since the Chinese invented it in 200 BCE). Maybe you recall the summer when you hit your first home run and then went for cones with your team after. Or that special first date where you stopped at an ice cream shop for a cool treat after dinner (before that night turned into "forever"). Our older generations, Boomers especially, likely have such ice cream-associated memories, and the discontinued Sealtest brand is sure to spark many fond recollections of times gone by.

Sealtest started its life as "Tasty" before it was rebranded in the mid-1930s and introduced under the name it would operate with for the next 60-odd years. Demand for its ice cream was so great that at its pinnacle, starting in the 1950s, Sealtest had numerous plants across the U.S., with most based in northern and Midwestern cities, including Buffalo, New York, Cleveland, Ohio, and Chicago, Illinois. Sealtest represented the dairy division of the National Dairy Products Corporation, a forerunner of the massive food giant Kraft.

What most Boomers likely remember, though, are the inventive flavors that punctuated their childhoods, teen years, and even adult stages with sweet whimsy. Half-gallon blocks of basic vanilla, Neapolitan, and Fudge Royale were interspersed between more unique offerings like Berry Patch, a trio of strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry ice cream packed together, Cherry Nugget, and "checkerboard" flavor combos of cherry and vanilla and pineapple with orange sherbet that actually resembled the game board.

Unfortunately, Sealtest ice cream couldn't stand the test of time, but unlike many of the discontinued fast food desserts we totally forgot about, it had a good run. It was one of the most popular ice cream brands of its time, and Sealtest's production facilities churned out over 4 million gallons each year throughout the 60s and 70s. During this time period, National Dairy Products Corporation underwent a brand refresh, emerging as Kraft, Inc. in 1976. So it remained for the next nearly 20 years, but in 1993 the massive corporation Unilever acquired Kraft's ice cream division.

The acquisition marked the start of Sealtest ice cream's fall from grace. Despite Unilever initially combining Kraft's ice cream offerings, which included Breyers (whose homemade vanilla ice cream lacks any actual vanilla), with its existing frozen novelty brand and Good Humor, all of Sealtest's flavors were discontinued by 1999. And thus, over 60 years of fond memories came to a close. If you live in North Carolina and are thinking, "No, Sealtest is alive and well and making milk," that is true. The brand's ice cream is no more, but it does produce dairy products as part of the Milkco factory in Asheville.