The Highest And Lowest Quality Grocery Chain Vanilla Ice Cream

We would have imagined that America's favorite ice cream flavors are ultra flavorful. Perhaps rocky road or maybe even strawberry. However, it turns out the most simple of all flavors, vanilla, is America's favorite ice cream flavor, according to the International Dairy Foods Association's survey. While we digest this, we also fully acknowledge that vanilla has plenty of uses and doesn't need to be restricted to a simple ice cream sundae. What would a la mode be without vanilla, for example? And how can you make a root beer float without? Vanilla certainly has its place, but in situations like these, there's no reason to go overboard and choose an expensive ice cream brand. Instead, consider a quality grocery store vanilla brand.

The prospect of choosing an unrest grocery store brand may make you as squeamy as it does us. So, we've taken the guesswork out of the whole deal to make sure you don't serve sub par, sad root beer floats. We investigated several grocery store brands to determine some of the highest quality offerings, using several metrics to assign a high or low quality label. For each ice cream, we check out the ingredient listing, customers' views on flavor, the presence of eggs, and even the package design. Together, these factors help us calculate totals that reveal the high quality options as well as their lower quality counterparts. All told, each ice cream brand had an opportunity to earn five points to claim that high quality label.

Publix brand ice cream comes in a black container decorated with a graphic design of white leaves. To break up the black design, there's a single scoop of ice cream on the front. The Publix branding is quite minimal, but the design of the package makes it feel like a more upscale flavor, which makes sense since this is a premium ice cream in a classic vanilla flavor. In terms of ingredients, there are a few pretty basic elements, though there are a couple add-ins like a stabilizer mixture to maintain texture. Annatto is also present for color to help achieve that pale yellow color. We noted that among the ingredients, there was no egg, like some of the quality ice creams include.

Within the ice cream itself, there are little pieces of ground vanilla bean, making the vanilla feel more upscale. This, combined with the coloring make the ice cream look rather rich and inviting. While our rating system gave Publix's vanilla a three out of five, and it is on the lower side of the high quality ice cream, it still easily falls within that higher quality range. While you may come to Publix looking for a Pub sub, there's also a decent dessert option in the freezer aisle.

Walmart's store brand is called Great Value, and it's a brand we've been surprised by in the past. That wasn't the case here, even if certain elements were similar to Publix. Looking at the ingredients first, Great Value's vanilla had a pretty similar listing as others, with the notable addition of eggs. However, neither the flavor nor the ice cream package has the same attention to detail to mark it as a quality ice cream.

The packaging itself is very basic and boring looking. Though the Great Value comes in larger containers, the blandness of the container reminds us of the style of packaging reminiscent of ice cream cups we got in elementary school. You probably know the ones: They had little wooden planks we were supposed to use as spoons. The packaging is basic on these, and it's just as basic with Great Value. Just like that ice cream that has very little flavor, that's pretty much the same flavor profile happening here. Many other brands prove that just because something is vanilla doesn't mean it just be simply a base for other flavors. The blank flavor and lack of attention to appearance just don't make it worthwhile to save a few dollars on Great Value.

When you think of grocery stores that have something of a cult like following, the one that comes to mind the quickest is Trader Joe's. Here, every shelf is stuffed with items that have been meticulously created to provide one of the best store brand experiences you can have. By and large, we are impressed with the quality of Trader Joe's products, especially when facing other brands in the same type of item. In the world of vanilla Ice cream, it's much the same story.

Trader Joe's French vanilla ice cream gets high marks for having very simplistic flavoring elements with the addition of egg yolks. According to Trader Joe's, this is the element that gives its vanilla ice cream the French designation. Like most Trader Joe's products we've come across, the packaging is also quite nice and falls in line with the quality that we've come to expect from the store. Although the flavor can be a little heavy on the alcohol feel, likely owing from vanilla flavoring, it's not enough reason to rule out this ice cream. Trader Joe's vanilla is certainly one of the higher quality grocery chain ice creams out there.

Target has many store brands for departments throughout the store. These store brands are otherwise known as "private labels," but Target calls them "owned brands." Often, in the food sector, we see Good & Gather, but for sweets, Favorite Day often crops up. Admittedly, this is the store brand name that has the most positive feel to it, but unfortunately, even a favorite day can't create a favorite ice cream.

Take a look at the ingredients, and you'll quickly notice that this is where the problems begin. Compared with other brands, there are several additions into basic ingredients here. We see high fructose corn syrup (a sweetener), mono and diglycerides (emulsifiers), only to name a few ingredients present. These are, of course, in addition to the stabilizers many other brands use. Even with all of these added elements, there are no eggs, to rank Favorite Day even lower. Though the flavoring is pretty basic, offering a taste many enjoy, this isn't enough to circumvent the poor quality of the ingredient load or even the ultra basic design of the packaging. Generally, creating a simplistic design does have a place in food marketing, but it should still have other elements to make it interesting. Favorite Day's design is just simply boring.

In general, we find that Aldi's products are good, but not quite as good as Trader Joe's. However, in the case of ice cream, Aldi may just have Trader Joe's beat, even though both are quality ice creams. Specially Selected is the Aldi brand of ice cream we investigated, and the very first thing we noticed is just how stellar the ingredients list is, especially when you look at it compared to other store brands. In fact, of all of the ice cream brands we looked at, it was the only one that had ultra simple ingredients without seeing any difficult to pronounce additions. This certainly bodes well for the overall quality of the product. Not to mention, there are egg yolks in this ice cream, giving it, on those two aspects alone, enough of a score to land it in the quality category.

Though clean, the ingredients aren't the only reason we are impressed with Specially Selected. The ice cream is also rich with widely enjoyed and pleasant flavor rivaling even the swankiest of ice cream brands. In terms of package design, there's a nice mixture of product imagery as well as elegant font and design elements that give Specially Selected all it needs to make it an easy buy at Aldi's.

Member's Mark is the store brand name out of Sam's Club. Like the Favorite Day brand vanilla ice cream, Member's Mark is riddled with extras, with high fructose corn syrup being the third ingredient. Member's Mark also has a substantial number of stabilizers in it. For flavoring, there are both artificial and natural vanilla flavors, a piece that is sure to jump right out when you're looking closely at ingredients.

The design is very graphic with bold colors coming together to create a unique design that stands out from other brands we investigated. Admittedly, we would be tempted to purchase Member's Mark based on the design since it's absolutely eye catching. That said, though the unique label design stands out, it wasn't enough to cancel out mediocre flavor and questionable issues with the ingredients.

Admittedly, we sometimes place Sam's Club and Costco in the same category. Large, big box, membership discount store for buying in bulk? It could describe either. However, in the case of vanilla ice creams, these two are far apart.

One of the parts of Member's Mark that stood out the most was the ingredients listed, and it was for all the wrong reasons. Kirkland, however, falls more in line with some of the higher quality ice creams. Plus, there are also eggs listed, so you know it's going to be a richer ice cream. There are some stabilizers, but it's minimal, similar to Publix. Overall, customers also seem to enjoy the flavor. In fact, the only aspect we're not too keen on is the design of the packaging. It feels dated and rather boring. The design seems to just scream that it belongs in a discounted box store and hasn't necessarily been updated in a few decades.

When we think of Whole Foods Market, we often put it in the same category as Trader Joe's. That is, the products are elite and absolutely worth taking the time to seek out. While that may be true for many brands at Whole Foods, when it comes to 360 (its store brand) and the vanilla ice cream, we found it falling into the lower quality side.

Take the ingredients, for example. The items listed aren't nearly as littered with extras as other lower quality options, but there are some unnecessary items like dry milk. On top of that, there was no egg and the flavor seems rather boring. The design of the container doesn't help either with a graphic design that looks like someone could have created it in Canva with a free account, using a boring template. We didn't see anything on the packaging advertising its quality, so it's probably not going to draw much attention. This feels like a poor attempt at something Whole Foods could do much better.

You can learn a lot about the quality of ice cream from some rather simple observations. Since we didn't sample each of these, we instead relied on research and the larger experience of many more customers than just our own opinion.

To assess quality, we looked at four categories, assigning numbers for each category. The first aspect we investigated was the ingredients list. For a two point score, we wanted to see pure ingredients with no add ons. Essentially, we looked for a list of ingredients like you would find in homemade ice cream. To earn one point here, an ice cream can have a few additional ingredients like those needed for stabilizing. While looking at ingredients, we searched for eggs. If they were present, the ice cream earned a point as it often indicates a high quality, rich ice cream.

Flavor was another category and for this one, we read and looked into reviews for a general consensus about the flavor of the ice cream. To earn a point here, the ice cream needed to be sweet and enjoyable with no alcohol flavor or tasting too bland.

Lastly, we checked out the packing design. Companies with higher quality ice cream also tend to dedicate resources to making a beautiful package that is attractive and would attract a customer's eye. In total, ice creams could earn five points. Vanilla brands that score three or higher got a high designation while those with two or fewer points were lower quality.