Scoring the Scoops: PETA Ranks Ice Cream Chains Nationwide

Ben & Jerry’s and Sub Zero Nitrogen Ice Cream Nab Top Scores—While Dairy Queen and Tasti D-Lite Flunk

For Immediate Release:
July 15, 2019

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

In advance of National Ice Cream Day (July 21), PETA is releasing its first-ever comprehensive ranking of ice cream chains across the country, noting which shops are scooping up satisfying vegan options—and which ones are leaving dairy-free diners out in the cold.

Topping the list, with an “A” grade, are Sub Zero Nitrogen Ice Cream, Amy’s Ice Creams, and Ben & Jerry’s, which offer a wide variety of vegan flavors—such as coconut cookies and crème, salted caramel, amaretto, and peanut butter chocolate fudge—made from soy, almond, coconut, and other types of nondairy milk. Dairy Queen, Tasti D-Lite, and Sloan’s Ice Cream are among the brands earning an “F” for offering nothing close to vegan ice cream—not even fruit sorbet. The complete rankings are available here.

“Vegan ice cream is a sweet treat that’s as kind to mother cows as it is to our taste buds,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s list celebrates the chains that are meeting the demand for decadent dairy-free treats—and points out which ones are falling behind.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. The group notes that the cow’s milk used in nonvegan ice cream comes from cows who were repeatedly and forcibly inseminated on a device that the dairy industry has called a “rape rack.” Calves are separated from their mothers soon after birth, and males are often shipped off to be slaughtered for the veal industry. Females endure the same fate as their mothers: repeated artificial insemination in order to force them to produce a steady supply of milk until their bodies give out and they’re sent to the slaughterhouse.

Two chains’ grades have been deferred: Stewart’s Shops is preparing to launch a new vegan flavor, and Baskin-Robbins has hinted that it will soon add new vegan flavors. And Salt & Straw is “in detention”—it may offer dairy-free ice cream, but it has also served ice cream containing foie gras and pigs’ blood.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.