The Origin of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla

“I t’s the happiest food in the world,” says Howard Kruse, former President and CEO of Blue Bell Creameries in Brenham, “because when you’re eating ice cream you’re feeling good.”

He developed the homemade vanilla flavor of Blue Bell Ice Cream. He determined the recipe, the process and everything involved in creating it.

“It was developed in 1969. We wanted a product that had the taste of vanilla ice cream that you made in your back yard or on your back porch. We wanted the taste of what people considered homemade ice cream. So we went to work on that.

“It was different from the normal commercial vanilla ice cream and we were concerned because we didn’t really know how the customer would accept it. We were hesitant to go forward with it too quick. We had our in-house taste teams and that type of thing.

“We decided what we would do was order the minimum number of cartons that we could order from the carton manufacturer. That was 5,000 halfgallon cartons. So we took a thousand of those and put them out in the market place and people liked it. So we decided to make another thousand. Well it went on up and we used all 5,000 cartons. Everybody liked it. That was enough of a taste test to say it’s a go.”

“We ordered another 5,000. The next order was 10,000. Then it was 25,000. Then it was truckloads then trailer loads of cartons as the product grew. It was well received and became the number one vanilla brand of ice cream in America. If you can imagine. From a little creamery in Brenham Texas. It has just been a sensational success in the ice cream industry.”

Howard retired at age 74 after working at Bluebell 50 years.

“My entire work experience was with Blue Bell. I started there as a child making ice cream sandwiches, fudge bars and popsicles at 10 cents an hour. I, my brother and another boy worked 6 days a week, 8 hours a day. That’s $4.80 a week. My dad was manager and wanted his sons to develop a work ethic, learn how to relate to people and realize the value of an earned dollar. We just worked in the summers, when ice cream demand was highest. Winter was for school.

“My dad was one of seven children, the only one to go to college. He was born in 1895 here in Washington County and graduated from Southwest Texas Normal School at San Marcos (today Southwest Texas State). He taught for a year, then went to World War One. He came back home in 1919 and was asked to be the manager of Blue Bell. The creamery started in 1907 and had never turned a profit until my dad got there. He wanted it to be in the black and didn’t cash his paychecks ($60 a month) for 6 months or it would have been in the red. It was the Brenham Creamery then. Dad changed the name to Blue Bell in 1930 because most ice cream companies were named for a flower. The bluebell was a common flower on the Washington County farm where he grew up.”