Yarnell's Ice Cream

by Yarnell's

1932 – 2011 IT CAME BACK

Back since April 2012, when the first batch under new ownership was delivered to the Arkansas state Capitol. Fourteen years on it is still made in Searcy — the plant now Turkey Hill's, the brand still a Chicago biscuit company's — a strange way for a state's ice cream to survive.

The freezer cases emptied in June 2011, when a board vote ended production in Searcy, where Ray Yarnell had bought a foreclosed ice cream plant in 1932. Roughly two hundred people lost their jobs, and Arkansas looked to have lost its ice cream for good.

🧾 One more thingThe liquidation auction sold the dead company off in pieces: a heating and air conditioning contractor from Marshall, Arkansas carried the recipes away for $2,400, while Rogers Yarnell paid $18,500 for the trademark. Schulze & Burch, which took the plant itself, later gathered both back up.

Filed under: Frozen & Dairy · the ’70s & earlier

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