What’s on tap for Blue Bell?

Blue Bell Ice Cream will announce which varieties of its products will be coming back to store shelves on Aug. 31, according to tweets from the company on Friday.

The announcement will come Monday via the company’s new Instagram account. The smart money should be on the company’s best-selling homemade vanilla flavor to be the first out of the gate.

Plenty of people have been noticing the company’s trucks on the road around Houston and Texas, stoking interest in the ice cream which has been MIA for most of the year.

The gradual return to market will mimic the 108-year-old company’s original expansion, starting in Brenham, Houston and Austin, plus parts of Alabama, home to the only Blue Bell Creameries plant currently making ice cream.

The Texas and Alabama sales will mark the first of a five-phase return to 15 states.

Blue Bell was sold in 23 states before a listeria outbreak, discovered in January, led to a total recall, shut down all plants and put it on the brink of financial ruin before Texas investor Sid Bass agreed to lend the company up to $125 million.

After Texas and Alabama, sales will resume in this order: north central Texas and southern Oklahoma; southwest Texas and central Oklahoma; and the majority of Texas and southern Louisiana. Phase five will complete Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas and begin in Arkansas, Florida, north Louisiana and Mississippi, plus parts of Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

craig.hlavaty@chron.com