United Dairy Farmers' Homemade Brand is crossing category lines with a limited-time co-branded pint developed alongside Grippo Foods, the 107-year-old Cincinnati snack institution. Fun Food Crunch — a 16-ounce pint featuring buttered popcorn flavored ice cream, a Bar-B-Q spice–infused caramel swirl, and chocolatey pretzel pieces — hits Cincinnati-area Kroger stores and all 170-plus UDF retail locations the week of August 16, available while supplies last.
Distribution Footprint
The SKU lands across two distinct retail channels simultaneously: Kroger's Cincinnati-area grocery banner and UDF's own convenience and ice cream parlor network spanning Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. That dual-channel play gives the limited-edition pint immediate reach across both the traditional grocery freezer aisle and UDF's captive c-store and parlor traffic — a meaningful TDP lift for a regional brand without national ACV. The exclusive co-branded packaging creates differentiated shelf presence that standard planogram resets rarely accommodate for limited runs.
Category & Competitive Context
Sweet-and-salty flavor architecture has become one of the most reliable velocity drivers in the premium ice cream segment, with novelty and mashup SKUs consistently outpacing base flavors in scan data across the Midwest grocery market. Positioning Fun Food Crunch as a tribute to Grippo's Bar-B-Q chip heritage — the snack brand's signature flavor — extends Grippo's equity into a new category without requiring its own freezer-aisle shelf space or slotting investment. For Homemade Brand, the collab functions as a brand-awareness play in grocery, where the label competes against national brands and growing regional own-brand programs from retailers like Kroger itself.
"For more than eight decades, United Dairy Farmers and Grippo Foods have been part of what makes Cincinnati taste like home," said Michael Ahmed, CEO of United Dairy Farmers. "Fun Food Crunch captures the spirit of both companies in a way that's nostalgic, playful and uniquely Cincinnati." John Dourson, Vice President of Sales for Grippo Foods, framed the deal as a natural category extension: the partnership gives Grippo's fans a new format for a flavor profile they already purchase in the salty snack aisle.
Together, the two family-owned companies represent nearly 200 years of combined regional market presence — a local-brand story that resonates strongly with Cincinnati-area shoppers and gives Kroger a regionally relevant, limited-time item to merchandise against national ice cream brands. For operators tracking dairy and frozen trends, the collaboration illustrates how regional heritage brands are leveraging cross-category IP deals to generate incremental turns without broad distribution commitments. The limited-time, while-supplies-last structure also creates natural urgency that supports full-price sell-through and reduces end-of-run markdown exposure. Retailers and category managers following snack brand innovation will note that Grippo's move into frozen — even as a licensor rather than manufacturer — signals appetite among legacy snack brands to extend equity beyond their core aisle.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
