10 Grocery Store Ice Cream Brands That Are Just As Good As Name Brand

Beyond the irreplaceable experience of visiting a scoop shop, many view name brands like Häagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's, Tillamook, and Jeni's as the gold standard for ice cream. However, the true ice cream connoisseurs among us know that many grocery-store ice cream products are just as good as (if not better than) their more famous counterparts. 

Store-brand ice creams are not only formidable competitors in flavor, but also usually a fraction of the cost of name-brand alternatives. A luscious, creamy pint of ice cream for a low price is an easy sell — but finding these generic gems in a sea of other grocery store duds can be a difficult task. 

Luckily, we have curated a list of the 10 grocery store ice cream brands that are just as delicious as the name-brand stuff. I made this list based on my personal tasting experience as a local and national food reporter, plus a bounty of reviews from news, blogs, and social platforms.

It's not just for eccentric snacks and frozen dinners — Trader Joe's also carries some of the most well-loved store-brand ice cream on this list. Shoppers love the smoothness and density of the shop's ice cream, which gives it the same luxurious mouthfeel as a top-tier name-brand scoop. A big strength of the Trader Joe's ice cream lineup is its wide variety of flavors, including both limited-edition and mainstay flavors such as horchata, pumpkin, and Trader Joe's All Mixed Up Ice Cream (which one Chowhound writer believes is a freezer must-have).

"My brother says this Trader Joe's chocolate ice cream is the best chocolate ice cream he's had in his life. I can see why he says that — it's a darker, fudgier chocolate than the regular milk chocolate that might taste watered down," reads one review of the Trader Joe's Ultra Chocolate Ice Cream on Reddit. "You can tell there's a lot of cocoa powder from the dark, rich color of the ice cream itself."

As the grocery store best known for its myriad dupes that taste just like the real thing, it is no surprise that Aldi has made it onto this list. Its Sundae Shoppe brand is making ice cream that customers say is as decadent and flavorful as that of name brands. Although Aldi might not boast the same massive flavor range as Trader Joe's, Sundae Shoppe offers plenty of the classic, nostalgic flavors that are often the most popular items in the grocery store's freezer section — and, across social media, everyone seems to have a different favorite.

"I almost didn't purchase this; I'm so glad I did. This Sundae Shoppe Chocolate Ice Cream is so rich & delicious," writes one Facebook user in a post, under which many other fans echo praises for Aldi's extensive ice cream selection. "So far, I tried their Butter Pecan, Vanilla Bean & Strawberry Ice Cream and they're all winners."

As with most items at Costco, you have to buy Kirkland Signature ice cream in bulk, but members of this iconic wholesale club say that this gallon of ice cream has duly earned its space in your freezer. In fact, on Facebook, one user writes that the Kirkland Signature Super Premium Vanilla Ice Cream is "SO worth it."

"It's very delicious. It tastes like terrific homemade ice cream made with real cream," the user adds. "My husband and I agree it's better than Blue Bell, which we were huge fans of." Kirkland Signature Ice Cream is classified as super premium, the highest-quality classification for ice cream, because of its exceptionally high butterfat (also known as milkfat) content and low overrun (the percentage of air in the tub). The difference between premium and regular ice cream is huge, so don't take this lightly!

Although a number of Kroger-brand products are best left out of your cart, its ice cream is far from one of them. The grocery chain makes its own line of ice cream, but its exclusive Private Selection label is the real showstopper. 

Private Selection ice creams stand out for their thick, milkshake-friendly consistency, strong, real-tasting flavors, and variety of creative mix-ins. The flavors that get the most frequent and consistent raves include the chocolate ganache, Maine blueberry waffle cone, and Private Selection Amaretto Cherry Cordial Ice Cream.

"Kroger Private Selection is better than any other ice cream you can get at the grocery store and better than most actual ice cream stores," one user posts on Reddit. "Yes, I think it's better than Jeni's or Graeter's or Tillamook or B&J."

Whole Foods' 365 brand does something right with its selection of regular and organic ice cream products. Whether you eat it straight from the freezer or wait for it to thaw, a pint of this ice cream always has a fluffy consistency. It also has a relatively low price point, especially compared with some other name-brand ice cream sold at Whole Foods. Some shoppers even say that it is the best store-brand ice cream you can get.

"365 ice cream really is an excellent value," one Reddit user writes. "The peanut butter cookie dough flavor is so good if you're into that sort of thing." Something that I have always appreciated about 365 ice cream is that its pints and tubs always contain an abundance of mix-ins. For example, with some other store brands, I have found myself digging for a single piece of chocolate in an entire tub of mint chip. But when it comes to 365 Organic Mint Chip Ice Cream, there are the perfect number of morsels suspended inside.

It will likely not come as a surprise that Walmart's aptly named Great Value brand carries ice cream — but what might be a curveball is just how delicious it is. Fans are constantly struck by how similar its flavors taste to their more expensive name-brand counterparts. Like Whole Foods' 365 brand, Great Value's mix-ins are densely packed, even in flavors where you wouldn't expect them. For example, a pint of Great Value Birthday Cake Ice Cream oozes with blue frosting, while the butter pecan is teeming with coarsely cut, nearly whole pecans.

Despite its relatively low price of around $1.96 per pint, "it doesn't taste cheap," says one TikTok user in a video reviewing the Great Value Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream. "This ice cream tastes the same as all of the others... I can make a switch to Great Value ice cream."

The regional East Coast supermarket chain Wegmans is known for its superlative hot bar and abundance of dietary-restriction-friendly store-brand products. But for loyal shoppers (including me), Wegmans is known for its great ice cream.

Rather than the one-note sweetness of many other store-brand pints, Wegmans ice cream has plenty of complex flavor notes, even in simple classics like chocolate and vanilla. On top of its great taste, customers love its value — a pint of Wegmans Premium French Ice Cream goes for about $3.79, though prices may vary by location. 

Customers also appreciate how similar it is to some of their name-brand favorites. "The first half of this pint, my first thoughts were ... wow. This is a clone of Häagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche. Seriously, the flavors were almost identical, and it had that same super silky, smooth texture, which I've never tasted with any other ice creams," reads one review of the Wegmans Crème Brûlée Premium French Ice Cream on Reddit. "In a blind taste test, I might not be able to tell them apart. I was very impressed."

As with Costco, you will need a membership to get your hands on BJ's store-brand ice cream, sold under the Wellsley Farms label. That said, given the way fans sing this ice cream's praises, it might be worth the annual entry fee. 

Wellsley Farms specializes in Premium ice cream — a step below Costco's Super Premium classification, but still nothing to scoff at, given its high butterfat content and low overrun. With its nostalgic flavor, smooth consistency, and classic wholesale-club-level low prices (a half gallon goes for about $5.99, depending on location), shoppers assert that it is even better than their former favorite name-brand scoops.

"[BJ's] premium ice cream is to die for," one Reddit user writes about both the Wellsley Farms Premium Chocolate Ice Cream and the brand's vanilla. "It's so good. Like supermarket ice cream used to be."

With its signature purple packaging and playful graphics, it is hard not to notice Purple Cow, the ice cream brand by grocery store chain Meijer. Given the positive reviews this store brand always gets, you definitely don't want to miss it. 

Although Purple Cow carries plenty of classic ice cream flavors, its biggest draws are those with outrageous mix-ins. Between a much-loved Purple Cow Birthday Cake Ice Cream packed with sequin candies, a vibrantly swirled Scooperman, and five different variations of its Moose Tracks flavor, the brand offers something for everyone's inner child. That said, don't expect an overly saccharine flavor from these tubs — reviews say that, in spite of all of its chaos, the taste of this ice cream remains balanced.

"I didn't have that [many] expectations of Purple Cow ice cream at Meijer since it's one of the cheaper brands," reads one Reddit review about one of the brand's most talked-about flavors, Purple Cow Moo-Berry Blend Ice Cream, which features strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry ice cream. "Despite being very purple, it is also a sophisticated kind of berry flavor too. Surprising! I would totally get it again."

One of Publix's primary claims to fame is its bakery filled with scrumptious, scratch-made sweets — and what better way to top off its homemade desserts than with scoops of the grocery chain's quality, store-brand Premium ice cream? 

In my opinion, the best way to taste the true quality of Publix ice cream is with its line of classic vanilla ice creams, including the Publix Rich & Creamy Premium Vanilla, the French vanilla, and the homestyle version. Each has subtle ingredient differences that show how granular and detail-oriented the brand can be in its recipe development. 

Publix's ice cream lineup includes several other flavors that nod to the store's southern origins, including the popular Publix Premium Sweet Tea & Lemonade Float Ice Cream and the Publix Rich & Creamy Premium Southern Banana Pudding Ice Cream. Limited-edition flavors also tend to generate some buzz. 

The limited-edition Santa's White Christmas flavor features both coffee and cocoa espresso flakes. "If I had to describe the flavor, it tastes like 'coffee liquor,'" reads a review on the food blog Snarkle Sauce on Wry. "It's a mind-bending artificial flavor that I wish I could hate. But I can't. It's fantastic."

To curate a list of store-brand ice creams that are just as good as name-brand picks, we looked for ice cream manufactured under a grocery store's private label. Only real ice cream was considered for this list — sorbets, gelatos, nondairy treats, and frozen desserts were excluded from research. 

An ice cream brand was determined to be one of the best based on my personal tasting experience as a local and national food writer, as well as a majority consensus of positive reviews (at least five for each brand) in food blogs, news publications, and social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Reddit. To ensure relevance, this list includes only reviews from the past year and prioritizes brands where multiple reviewers explicitly stated the products were better than name-brand counterparts.