Sprinkles, the California-based cupcake conglomerate, this year has been expanding its reach into the ice cream snack segment, opening Sprinkles Ice Cream brand extensions in Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, Calif.
The 12-unit Sprinkles opened its third and latest ice cream unit in mid-August, just around the corner from its Dallas cupcake store and next to the newly installed 24-hour automated “cupcake ATM.” My colleague Lisa Jennings chronicled the expansion plans back in March.
Sprinkles Ice Cream offers such innovations such as a red-velvet flavored waffle cone and iced cupcake toppers as garnish. The store’s ceiling features a circular cutout, the inside of which is decorated with a replica of an ice cream recipe in the hand of American founding father Thomas Jefferson.
Sprinkles' flavors range from blood-orange sorbet to coffee-fudge-almond, as well as more traditional offerings – which a recent survey by the polling folks at Harris Interactive found have the highest popularity in the general population.
A Harris poll of 2,242 adults, conducted between July 17 and 22, found 27 percent of them prefer chocolate, followed closely by vanilla at 23 percent and cookie dough/cookies and cream at 22 percent. Only 2 percent of those surveyed said they did not eat ice cream.
When gender is considered in top flavors, women prefer chocolate at 29 percent, and men prefer vanilla at 27 percent.
About 45 percent of those polled want their ice cream in a cup, 30 percent in a cone, 16 percent in a sundae and 4 percent in a sandwich. More men prefer cups than women, 49 percent to 42 percent.
Hot fudge is the favored topping by far, with 53 percent saying it was their top-ranked addition. Nuts came in second.
And 16 percent of those surveyed want their ice cream plain. There remains room for purists.