Wells Enterprises and Ferrero North America announced on April 9, 2026 the nationwide launch of three frozen novelty products: the Butterfinger Ice Cream Candy Bar, the Baby Ruth Ice Cream Candy Bar, and the 100 Grand Ice Cream Candy Bar. All three are available now in the frozen treat aisle at retailers nationwide in packs of six at a suggested retail price of $5.99. All three bars are made with real ice cream and contain peanuts.
The launch is a co-branded collaboration between Wells Enterprises, the largest privately held ice cream manufacturer in the United States, and Ferrero North America, which owns the Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and 100 Grand candy bar brands. Wells Enterprises was founded in 1913, produces more than 200 million gallons of ice cream annually across all 50 states, and operates as an independent operating company of the Ferrero Group. Ferrero entered North America in 1969 and now employs more than 5,400 people across 15 plants and warehouses and eight offices in North America.
The Products: Texture as the Central Design Principle
Each of the three bars is built around the specific textural signature of its candy bar counterpart rather than simply using the candy bar’s flavor as an ice cream base.
The Butterfinger Ice Cream Candy Bar features Butterfinger-flavored ice cream with the brand’s crispy peanut butter crunch layered inside and a chocolatey coating. The Baby Ruth Ice Cream Candy Bar offers chewy nougat-flavored ice cream with whole roasted peanuts and a caramel ribbon, enclosed in a chocolatey shell. The 100 Grand Ice Cream Candy Bar delivers caramel-flavored ice cream with crispy crunchies embedded throughout and an additional caramel layer beneath the chocolatey shell.
Isabella Chia, Chief Marketing Officer at Wells Enterprises, stated in the company’s announcement:
“We didn’t just translate a candy bar into a frozen format. We engineered each bar from the inside out, starting with the texture that made those candies iconic and building up from there with real ice cream and quality ingredients that deliver on every bite.”
The announcement cites Datassential’s 2026 Trends Report, which identifies texture as one of the year’s top “New Classic” trends in food culture. This is not a casual trend citation. It is a supply chain and NPD signal: texture complexity in frozen novelties is moving from a premium differentiator into a mainstream consumer expectation.
The Ferrero-Wells Partnership and What It Enables
Ferrero North America owns Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and 100 Grand as confectionery candy bar brands. Wells Enterprises owns the frozen novelty manufacturing infrastructure. Neither company could produce these products alone at commercial scale without the other’s expertise.
Ferrero brings three things to this collaboration: the licensed brand equity of Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and 100 Grand; the proprietary crispy peanut butter crunch system, nougat formulations, and caramel systems that define each candy bar’s textural identity; and the confectionery manufacturing knowledge to produce those component inclusions at ingredient quality consistent with the brand’s candy bar standards. Wells brings the ice cream base formulation expertise, the frozen novelty manufacturing equipment, the cold chain distribution network reaching all 50 states, and the retail relationships that get a new frozen SKU onto grocery freezer shelves nationwide.
Catherine Bertrac, Senior Vice President Marketing for Kinder and FMC North America at Ferrero, stated:
“We saw an opportunity to meet fans in a new occasion, deepen their connection to brands they already love, and introduce them to a new generation of consumers who are discovering these icons for the first time.”
Why It Matters for Ice Cream Co-Manufacturers and Candy Inclusion Suppliers
Three branded Ferrero candy bar lines entering the freezer aisle simultaneously is a category-scale event, not a single SKU launch. Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and 100 Grand are each established candy brands with decades of consumer recognition and loyal customer bases. Launching all three together in a coordinated nationwide rollout gives Wells and Ferrero immediate multi-SKU freezer shelf presence. For retailers managing frozen novelty category space, three coordinated SKUs from two major partners is a more compelling shelf set than a single new item from one brand. For frozen novelty co-manufacturers and private label operators watching this category, the simultaneous three-brand launch signals that Ferrero and Wells view licensed candy brand frozen novelties as a sustained platform, not a one-off limited run.
Each bar requires candy component inclusions that must perform differently at freezer temperatures than they do in ambient candy bar applications. The Butterfinger crispy peanut butter crunch, the Baby Ruth nougat and whole roasted peanuts, and the 100 Grand crispy crunchies all have ambient texture profiles that consumers recognize from the candy aisle. Each of those components must be reformulated or adapted to maintain its characteristic texture when frozen and consumed directly from the freezer. Crispy inclusions that work in a room temperature candy bar can become soft or lose their crunch at frozen temperatures. Nougat formulated for ambient bite can become excessively hard when frozen. Caramel that flows beautifully at room temperature can become brittle when frozen. For confectionery inclusion suppliers, candy component manufacturers, and frozen novelty co-formulation teams, the technical challenge of these bars is preserving the sensory promise of each candy brand at freezer temperatures. That challenge requires purpose-adapted ingredient inputs, not simply transferring candy component recipes from the ambient to the frozen application.
The real ice cream positioning carries formulation and labeling implications. All three bars are specifically described as being made with real ice cream rather than frozen dairy dessert or light ice cream. This signals that the products meet the FDA standard of identity for ice cream, requiring a minimum milk fat content. For dairy ingredient suppliers providing cream and milk fat inputs to Wells Enterprises’ Le Mars and other production facilities, the real ice cream claim means the formulation cannot cut milk fat to reduce cost in ways that would drop below the standard of identity threshold. Real peanut butter crunch inclusions and whole roasted peanuts further anchor the product in real ingredient territory rather than artificial flavor simulation.
The $5.99 six-pack pricing establishes a value-to-premium bridge in the licensed novelty segment. At six bars for $5.99, the per-unit price is approximately $1.00, which positions these products above commodity ice cream bars but within the acceptable range for impulse purchases at mainstream grocery and mass retail. For Wells Enterprises, this pricing reflects a deliberate decision to drive trial at accessible price points before the brands establish their frozen segment presence, rather than pricing as luxury novelties from the start. For private label frozen novelty operators and co-manufacturers evaluating licensed candy brand extensions, the $5.99 six-pack serves as a revealed pricing benchmark for this product category positioning.
What’s New
While extending legacy candy brands into the high-growth freezer aisle requires brilliant licensing and co-manufacturing partnerships, Ferrero knows that capturing absolute dominance in the broader U.S. snacking market also requires massive investments in owned physical infrastructure. To support its relentless pace of flavor innovation and ensure its supply chain can actually keep up with North American consumer demand, the global confectioner is aggressively expanding its domestic manufacturing capabilities. Highlighting this massive commitment to stateside industrial capacity, the company recently announced a major production expansion at its Franklin Park, Illinois facility specifically designed to manufacture the highly anticipated Nutella Peanut. For CPG brand managers and operations executives, this dual approach—partnering with external experts (like Wells Enterprises) for category expansion, while simultaneously building out owned, domestic factories to support core brand extensions—is the ultimate 2026 playbook for scaling a global portfolio in the U.S. market.
FAQs
- What are the new Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and 100 Grand Ice Cream Candy Bars? Frozen novelty bars made with real ice cream, launched nationwide on April 9, 2026 by Wells Enterprises and Ferrero North America. Each bar is built around the textural signature of its candy bar counterpart and sold in packs of six at a suggested retail price of $5.99.
- Who makes them? Wells Enterprises, Inc., the largest privately held U.S. ice cream manufacturer, produces more than 200 million gallons of ice cream annually and is an independent operating company of the Ferrero Group. Ferrero North America contributes the licensed Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and 100 Grand brand equity and confectionery component expertise.
- What makes each bar different? The Butterfinger bar features crispy peanut butter crunch; the Baby Ruth bar includes chewy nougat, whole roasted peanuts, and a caramel ribbon; and the 100 Grand bar delivers caramel ice cream with crispy crunchies and an additional caramel layer. All three contain peanuts.
- Where are they available? In the frozen treat aisle at retailers nationwide.
- What is the trend driving this launch? Datassential’s 2026 Trends Report identifies texture as one of the year’s top “New Classic” food and beverage trends, with crunch and chew complexity rising as a primary driver of frozen novelty consumer preference.
About Source86
The Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and 100 Grand Ice Cream Candy Bar launch represents a major frozen novelty platform built on the intersection of licensed candy brand equity, proprietary confectionery inclusion technology, and large-scale real-ice-cream production, creating sustained sourcing requirements for peanut butter crunch systems, nougat and caramel formulations adapted for frozen applications, whole roasted peanuts, crispy rice and caramel inclusion systems, dairy cream and milk fat inputs meeting the FDA ice cream standard of identity, and chocolatey coating compounds. At Source86, we connect ice cream manufacturers, frozen novelty co-packers, and private label frozen dessert operators with trusted bulk and wholesale suppliers of peanut-based confectionery inclusions, caramel and nougat systems, dairy ingredients for real ice cream production, crispy grain-based inclusions, and compound chocolate coatings that power texture-forward frozen novelty innovation at commercial scale across all 50 states.
Whether your production team is developing a new licensed candy brand frozen novelty, sourcing bulk peanut and caramel inclusions adapted for frozen temperatures, or building a co-manufacturing partnership for a texture-forward ice cream bar program, Source86 is your bridge to the right partners. Contact Source86 today to start your sourcing search.
