The Company That's Behind Walmart's Great Value Ice Cream

If you shop at Walmart, you've certainly come across its Great Value line of products. The warehouse chain's in-house brand has a catalogue of alternatives to many major brands, from fast food copycat sauces to the best frozen breakfast burritos. One of the most appreciated is Great Value ice cream, and although it may cost less than some of its competitors, a few of these brands are produced by the same parent company that's behind Walmart's ice cream: Wells Enterprises, formerly Wells Dairy. 

While it may not be mentioned on the company site, Wells Enterprises is the maker behind Walmart's Great Value ice cream. Although it started off as a simple delivery cart in Le Mars, Iowa, circa 1915, Wells has manufactured ice cream since 1925. Since then, it's remained in Iowa, but the company has gone on to become the world's largest family-owned and managed producer of the dessert. In 2022, it was acquired by the Ferrero Group, which also owns Ferrero Rocher, Famous Amos, and Nutella, as well as Nestlé USA's candy brands.

As it develops other major ice cream brands, Wells uses the same quality ingredients when producing Walmart's long-standing generic brand. Wells' strategy has earned a consumer following for Great Value as a delicious alternative to major names like Häagen-Dazs and Breyers. 

So, what other brands does Wells Enterprises oversee? For starters, Blue Bunny stands as its longest-running brand, as its logo and name were essentially conceived as the winning submission to a "Name That Ice Cream" contest in Sioux City, Iowa. Other popular brands in the Wells family that consumers may be familiar with are Blue Ribbon Classics, Bomb Pop, and Halo Top Creamery. Although it was founded independently in 2011, Halo Top was acquired by Wells Enterprises in 2019 as the light ice cream brand continued to grow. This led to Halo Top reformulating, even improving upon, the brand's top ice cream flavors and gaining a creamier texture. Given Wells' dedication to its product on every level, it can be assumed that this same prowess is brought to the table with Walmart's Great Value line.

With this knowledge in mind, another interesting aspect of Wells Enterprises producing Great Value Ice Cream is how long Walmart states its ice cream has been made by them. According to a 2017 appreciation post on Walmart's corporate website, Wells had been producing Great Value Ice Cream for 30 years at that point. As amazing as that is, this places Wells as its manufacturer since 1987, even though the big box retailer has only operated its private label line since 1993. Perhaps the author was rounding up by a few years, since, doing the math, Wells has actually produced Walmart's ice cream for 27 years. Either way, it's great to know that Walmart's ice cream is being made from such a successful brand.