7-Eleven & Wells' Blue Bunny Hope to Create a Stir; Companies Pair to Introduce Stir Crazy, First Freezer-Case Soft-Serve Dessert

DALLAS, June 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- 7-Eleven, Inc. and Wells' Dairy, Inc., maker of Blue Bunny(R) ice cream, frozen novelties and fresh yogurt, hope to stir up the frozen dessert world with Stir Crazy, the first stirrable soft-serve treat available in the freezer case, complete with its own mix-ins.

Each cup of the rich, creamy soft-serve style vanilla dairy treat contains one of two mix-ins, chocolate chip cookie dough or Oreo cookie pieces, separated by a thin layer of milk chocolate that is soft enough to stir straight from the freezer. Available exclusively at participating 7-Eleven(R) stores, an 11-ounce cup of Stir Crazy has a suggested retail price of $1.99.

7-Eleven approached the Wells' Dairy team about creating a similar product that could be sold as a frozen novelty in its stores in response to consumers' growing taste for frozen blender treats and made-to-order cold surface-blended ice creams.

"Soft-serve frozen desserts typically have been exclusively available through food-service establishments," said Jessica Strauss, 7-Eleven's category manager overseeing the product's development. "We wanted to offer our customers a similar type of product in a convenient way."

Easier said than done, according to Matt Wolkow, assistant vice president of research and development for Wells' Dairy. "We had two huge challenges," Wolkow said. "First, soft-serve is typically dispensed from a machine at between 19 and 23 degrees while retail freezer case temperatures stay between 0 and minus 10 degrees. How could we get soft-serve to behave like soft-serve at 0 degrees? And, if we could accomplish that, could we make it taste good?"

Three years and dozens of trial-and-error attempts later, the answer was yes. 7-Eleven's Strauss wanted to take the concept even further. As long as we were creating a stirrable treat, why not add something to stir into it?

Indeed, blended ice cream has been at the forefront of growth in the frozen dessert market. The 1990s marked the emergence of blender treats at quick-service restaurants, which featured soft-serve dairy products mixed with candy and cookie pieces, according to the U.S. Market for Ice Cream report published by Packaged Facts in 2004.

Following this popular trend, a new wave of scoop shops opened, creating the cold-surface blending technique whereby a customer picks an ice cream flavor and various pieces of candy, cookies, nuts and fruits to be mixed together on a cold surface by an employee and served in a cup or cone. Cold- surface blending is the most popular ice cream trend to surface recently, and hundreds of shops have popped up across America in the last few years.

"People, especially kids, sometimes like to play with their food, so we wanted to make the treat interactive," Strauss said. "We plan to offer more mix-ins, so customers can select and stir in their favorite, creating a customized dessert themselves."

Cookie dough and chocolate cookie pieces proved the most popular add-ins during consumer taste tests. However, another challenge arose. If the product was truly soft-serve, how would you keep the mix-ins from blending in during the distribution and shipping process before the customer even opened the product lid? And how would you keep cookie pieces from getting soggy when placed on top of soft-serve?

That was an easy challenge for the Wells' Dairy R&D team after the scientific hoops they jumped through to create a frozen soft-serve dessert. A thin layer of chocolate was added to separate the soft-serve from the mix-ins, a step that required the addition of new technology and equipment in the production phase.

Response to Stir Crazy in taste tests was very positive, although some participants were skeptical at first. "Our tasters didn't believe you could have true soft-serve right out of the freezer," said Ken Reuter, marketing director for the Wells' Dairy food service and impulse category. "But tasting is believing. Once they tried Stir Crazy, mixed it and ate it, they were sold."

About 7-Eleven, Inc.

7-Eleven, Inc. is the premier name and largest chain in the convenience retailing industry. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, 7-Eleven, Inc. operates or franchises approximately 5,800 7-Eleven(R) stores in the United States and Canada and licenses more than 22,300 7-Eleven stores in 17 other countries and U.S. territories throughout the world. During 2004, 7-Eleven stores worldwide generated total sales of approximately $41 billion. Find out more online at http://www.7-eleven.com/ .

The Scoop on Blue Bunny

Wells' Dairy, Inc., founded in 1913, is the largest family-owned and managed dairy processor in the United States. Today, its more than 500 Blue Bunny(R) branded products, including fresh dairy yogurt, ice cream, frozen dairy desserts and novelties, can be found across the United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Wells' Dairy, Inc. is headquartered in Le Mars, Iowa.