Jeni’s Spent Five Years Making Ice Cream Out Of Acorns

Jeni’s wanted to make acorn ice cream.

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This turned out to be significantly more complicated than finding some acorns.

The ice cream brand has launched Appalachian Acorn Pie, a limited-edition flavor made with flour milled from foraged Ohio oak acorns and a graham cracker swirl. It took five years to get from “what if we made ice cream out of acorns?” to something you can buy in a scoop shop.

Yes, you read that right. Five years.

For acorns.

What’s In Jeni’s Appalachian Acorn Pie Ice Cream?

Appalachian Acorn Pie starts with an acorn ice cream base made using flour milled from real Ohio oak acorns, with a graham cracker swirl running through it. Jeni’s describes the flavor of the acorns as nutty and sweet, somewhere around hazelnut, coconut, and chestnut.

I did bite into an acorn at the park when I was about six, but I don’t remember being particularly impressed or there being any hint of coconut. In fairness, nobody had milled it into flour and put it in ice cream yet.

As it turns out, acorns have a long history as a food source. But despite being fairly abundant on the ground, they’re considerably harder to find when you’re an ice cream company trying to buy them in bulk. You can’t exactly order a pallet of food-grade acorns.

There wasn’t an established commercial U.S. supply chain for what Jeni’s needed. The brand initially looked internationally, but when those options fell through, it had to figure out how to get American acorns from the ground into an ice cream pint.

This is where the five years starts making more sense.

Jeni’s Basically Had To Build An Acorn Supply Chain

Jeni’s eventually partnered with Route 9 Action Network, an agricultural cooperative in Carroll County, Ohio, to source the acorns. They had to be foraged, washed, and processed to remove tannins before they could be used. Jeni’s even signed multiple grant letters to help the cooperative expand its ability to forage and process them.

Once the acorns were ready, they still needed to become flour. For that, Jeni’s worked with a nearby Amish farm that could mill them. Communication with the farm involved snail mail, a community phone, and in-person visits. Imagine waiting for a letter because you need an update on your ice cream acorns.

There were probably easier flavors Jeni’s could have made.

Where Can You Get Jeni’s Appalachian Acorn Pie?

After five years of sourcing, processing, milling, letter-writing, and presumably looking at oak trees very differently, Appalachian Acorn Pie is finally available.

The limited-edition flavor launched October 1st online and at Jeni’s scoop shops nationwide. Quantities are very limited, so this one may not stick around for long.

Someone had to forage the acorns. Someone had to process them. Someone had to mill them into flour. At some point, somebody had to use a community phone.

And now you can eat them with a graham cracker swirl.