Stores Ready For Blue Bell To Return
Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Blue Bell Creameries announced on Monday that it will begin distributing ice cream to select Texas markets again on August 31. The gradual rollout will be done in phases. Phase one includes Austin, Brenham and Houston.
North Texas will be part of phase two, although Blue Bell has not yet specified a distribution date for this phase.
"Well, I love Austin, so any excuse to go down to Austin," joked Daniel Davenport from Fort Worth.
For local fans of Blue Bell Ice Cream products, it has been a very long summer. "Blue Bell is like the Dallas Cowboys, the Texas Rangers, something you got to like if you're a Texan," Davenport said.
"It was bad not having Blue Bell on campus. I'm looking forward to having it back," said Julia Finn, who attends TCU.
At Sweet Sammies in Fort Worth, the cookies are homemade. However, the ice cream that accompanies them was exclusively Blue Bell, before the recall. Manager Griffin Gurley said that shops like his could be waiting longer than local grocery stores for distribution. "For our containers, we've heard the beginning of November they'll start production on those. We'll be later than the grocery stores," said Gurley.
Gurley explained that Sweet Sammies relies on three-gallon containers, which are produced out of Brenham. Blue Bell is still performing facility and process upgrades at the plants in Brenham and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. A sales representative who works with Sweet Sammies told them November 1 is a tentative date for production on the three-gallon containers.
The shop has been working with another brand in the meantime, but plans to do business with Blue Bell as soon as it returns.
"Every day we get closer to getting Blue Bell at Sweet Sammies," said Gurley.
At the Kroger store in Southlake, signs explaining the recall have been hanging on the freezer doors in the ice cream aisle for months now. "Overall, because Blue Bell does sell very well, sales of ice cream were a little slower," stated Gary Huddleston, director of public affairs for Kroger.
According to Huddleston, stores are ready to make space for the ice cream as soon as North Texas can get it. "We'll reallocate the space depending on how many flavors Blue Bell will bring back," he said.
When asked if there will be limits on how much ice cream customers can buy, Blue Bell said that this would be determined by the individual retailers. For example, Huddleston said that Kroger expects the ice cream to be popular with its customers, but does not have plans to put limits on the sale of Blue Bell.
Huddleston went on to explain that Kroger could reassess that plan if big businesses were buying up too much of the product at their grocery stores and keeping it from regular customers.