Killer Creamery launches new product, tests marketing strategy

Keto-friendly entrepreneurship venture Killer Creamery is expanding its product line with a healthy option ice cream sandwich, and is now garnering feedback through July 19 in the Treasure Valley through a new marketing strategy. The novelty concept of a neighborhood ice cream truck coupled with the record temperatures has so far led to what founder Louis Armstrong is describing as a hit.

Killer Creamery’s ice cream truck is touring Boise, Meridian and nearby, stopping at various Albertsons locations, one of the largest regular suppliers of the company’s pint ice creams and now its ice cream sandwich, the Killer Sammie.

“What we’re seeing out of the gate is it’s extremely interactive; it’s exciting; it’s something tangible and kind of brings you back to your childhood,” Armstrong said.

If the ice cream truck proves effective, it may put on some mileage in Phoenix, Arizona and Portland, Oregon. Killer Creamery’s Killer Sammies have a presence in nearly 350 stores across three regions. Internal money raising helped fund the development of the sandwich. The truck’s scheduled stops are posted on social media.

“If it is successful, it is something we would love to explore scaling and kind of rolling out to other regions or banners we have the product in, especially as we grow into next year,” Armstrong said. “With the success of this we’ll have a good model to show those regions, ‘This is awesome…This is kind of the case study we’ve put together,’ and it seems like a win/win for everybody.”

When asked if he would consider having the truck continue rolling through neighborhoods permanently, Armstrong laughed, but did not rule out the option.

“If we continue down the route with the truck, we (may) definitely do more events with it,” he added. “Talk about a great place to try some concepts for some new flavors, for example.”

The ice cream sandwich is in the role of that aforementioned new flavor, and so far, Armstrong has been pleased with the engagement it has received, including from children, who he said tend to give very honest reviews, and people who aren’t necessarily frequent consumers in the better-for-you retail category, like adults who eat regular ice cream but are curious to try the ice cream sandwich. Killer Creamery touts crafting delicious-tasting ice cream that is gluten-free, sugar-free and made from all natural ingredients.

That proved challenging for making a wafer cookie to, well, sandwich the ice cream. While Killer Creamery manufactures its healthy option ice cream, it is not set up to make gluten-free, sugar-free chocolate wafers. As gluten and sugar are two of the main ingredients in cookies, it was a challenge to find a manufacturer.

“No one’s really done this before,” Armstrong said. “We took out a couple traditional ingredients, that are just baked into it, pun intended, and it gets very difficult to navigate. When you’re working with people who are going to (co-produce), they’re not necessarily out there shopping for business and wondering what’s the next thing they can dive into and create challenges in their world.”

Armstrong and his team overcame that by proving they knew what they were talking about, that they were not going to waste the co-producer’s time, and that there is potential volume for that co-producer as well.

“It truly is a partnership, so it just takes time to develop that kind of trust and to actually get through the iterations of your recipe, to scale it into that old defined process,” Armstrong said. “We have a lot of conviction around the quality of the product and the actual experience, which is awesome. It’s one of a kind essentially, so we’re first to market with a traditional ice cream sandwich, that classic rectangular shape with a chocolate wafer and ice cream in between.”

But it doesn’t stop there.

“We are looking at other opportunities to be innovators and first movers,” Armstrong added. “That’s what’s exciting to me as a food scientist myself, and my team. We want to be first to market…And to dangle that carrot, we’ve got a couple other concepts in motion that I think will be game changers. That’s about as much as I can say.”