Raise a Spoon: Ice Cream for Bears’ Waves of…

Once again, the Queen’s Choice Awards welcomes fresh, fun brands into the hive for the 2026 season, to recognize and celebrate their innovative and boundary-pushing uses for honey. Winners incorporate honey across confections, frozen foods, beverages and beyond to create inspiring, delicious products that drive the conversation around nature’s favorite sweetener.

We spoke with Ice Cream for Bears (ICFB) founder Tim Berg about the process of including honey in frozen treats, along with the release of Waves of Fudge and Caramel Dune Sundaes that took home a Queen’s Choice Award.

Congratulations on your Queen’s Choice Award! What does this mean to you?

An immense amount! At ICFB, we believe in honey as an unrefined sweetener that can have a positive impact on people’s health. I’m glad we’re able to get our beliefs into people’s hands in a form they know and love and it’s great to be recognized for it!

At what point is honey added in ice cream production?

We add honey post-pasteurization to ensure it retains its characteristics and strong enzymatic activity.

What are customers saying about Ice Cream for Bears? What feedback have you received?

Ice Cream for Bears has incredible fans. I think we’ve brought a lot of people back into ice cream who had stopped eating it because they were conscious of eating bad ingredients. A big part of ICFB’s success has been its ability to give people something they love, but in a form they feel good about.

Can you speak more to the process of creating honey fudge and honey caramel? In the sundaes, how does it balance the honey already present in the ice cream?

Fudge is quite simple! Cream, cocoa and butter all are simple ingredients that make great fudge. Honey, of course, is a very potent sweetener that works very well when combined with these other ingredients. Caramel is a chemical reaction so it’s inherently more tricky, but honey in combination with dates creates a really nice caramel flavor profile when heated properly along with dairy.

By using honey as a sweetener, do you believe that some of the guilt is removed from the indulgence?

Absolutely, honey is a sweetener that has been in humans’ diets for thousands of years (that exists) in a form more or less like we eat it today. Because honey has an important role in an ancestral diet, I think people actually feel good about consuming it.

Any products we should watch out for on the horizon?

More and more innovative flavors, and maybe a novelty or two?

At the end of the day, is this ice cream safe for bears to eat?

ChatGPT tells me that bears can digest cow dairy, so I’m going to say yes. Maybe just stick with our Honey Honey flavor if any bears are reading this.

Ready for a sweet treat? Shop Ice Cream for Bears sundaes and learn more about their honey philosophy aligns with Honey Saves Hives initiatives.

We’re always abuzz about made-with-honey products. Interested in putting your product on the table for the 2027 Queen’s Choice Awards? Email [email protected] today.