Adventures in Vintage Advertising: Sealtest Ice Cream

 Hands down one of my favourite reoccurring post series on this blog is Adventures in Vintage Advertising. For those who may be newer followers here and thus not familiar with these posts, they’re a detailed, image filled look at the history of a given product (for example, toothpaste) or one or more specific offerings (such as Heinz Ketchup) from a particular brand.

Today, on this balmy, immensely beautiful mid-July morning - with temps set to climb near triple digits again - it seemed like an ideal time to whip up another edition of this fun post series.

Given the sky high temps and the fact that no other time of the year is so heavily associated with this classic dessert, I thought we'd take a peak at the history of a well known North American brand of ice cream that was especially popular during the 1950s - 1980s: those offerings from Sealtest Dairy.



{The St. Louis Dairy Building on the corner of Chestnut St & 20th St in St. Louis, Missouri, c. 1970s.}


Though Sealtest made, and still produces, a wide range of dairy goods (from cottage cheese to milk to butter), they are perhaps best known for their scrumptious varieties of ice cream and vibrant, wonderfully inviting ads that they produced during the mid-twentieth century to help promote these sweet treats.

While not an epic amount is to be found online about the history of Sealtest Dairy, I was able to discover a bit more than I knew before I sat down to pen this post. The brand appears to have been founded during the early decades of the 20th century and was able to successfully weather the years of the Great Depression to come out stronger than every before.

{The large staff of the Detroit, Michigan Sealtest Dairy plant, 1934.}

 

Sealtest Dairy was a division of the larger National Dairy Products Corporation (which itself was a predecessor for the now epicly huge Kraft Foods, Inc). As mentioned above, the brand sold a variety of products to US consumers in its early days, including ice cream, lemonade, and milk.

Interestingly, many of Sealtest's offerings were also available in Canada, where they were distributed by a few different companies. These days, Sealtest's products are licensed in this country by Agropur and are still readily available in many parts of the Canada (particularly in Ontario).


Founded by Mr. Vernon F. Hovey (isn't that a great vintage name?), the Sealtest Dairy Company was later taken over, after his passing, by his two sons, who operated out of New York. It was later sold to Kraft and then, in 1993, to another huge company, Unilever (who also own Breyers Ice cream).



{A late 1940s ad for Rich Toys brand dairy trucks that featured the nationally known Sealtest Dairy logo on one of their vehicles.}


Back during its heyday, Sealtest had dairy plants peppered across the Midwestern and Northeastern areas of the United States, with some of the largest areas of operations being found in cites such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, Rockford, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Huntington, as well as a Mid-South plant located in Nashville, Tennessee.

For many in the mid-twentieth century, Sealtest was a household name and the brand enjoyed a good deal of success - so much so, in fact, that they even had a branded ice cream parlour located at Disney World.




In addition, the company had a sponsored pavilion located at the 1939 Flushing World Fair (pictured above), as well various national network broadcasts including, in the 1950s, the Sealtest Big Top Show (which featured none other than Ed McMahon).

Though I do know that I've had various Sealtest dairy products over the years, including their milk and whipped cream, I don't actually have distinct memories of consuming their scrumptious ice cream, though it's certainly possible that I may have.

I know that many of my readers on both side of the 49th will have such memories though and that in general, vintage fans the world over will appreciate and enjoy the peppy colours, fun copy, and lip-lickingly delicious photos depicted in the following assortment of yesteryear Sealtest Ice Cream ads.




This ad, from 1936 for the timeless favourite flavour that is vanilla, was one of the earliest I was able to track down online for Sealtest Ice Cream. It suggests pairing their offering with citrus fruit, which is still a great way to enjoy vanilla flavoured ice cream to this day!




The space race was just in its infancy when Sealtest created an add with the tagline of "out of this world" for their creamy strawberry ice cream, but if they were tapping in such (the copy points towards a "heavenly" connection, not a man-on-the-moon sort of one, but still), one can certainly appreciate the foreword thinking-ness of their marketing department.




Well before brands like Haagen Dazs (founded in 1961) and Ben & Jerry's (1978) hit the frozen dessert aisle scene, Sealtest was busy at work dreaming up some delightfully fun, and often very creative, ice cream flavours. One such example of their inventive thinking can be seen in this ad for Sealtest's Berry Patch ice cream, which included three different flavours - strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry, respectfully - of ice cream combined Neapolitan style in the same carton (an idea, as we'll see again in this post, that Sealtest was very fond of doing - much, I'm sure, to the delight of many customers).




Sealtest billed itself as "America's Favorite Ice Cream", as this adorable mid-century ad for their classic vanilla variety demonstrates. Given the immense popularity for Sealtest's products, such may very well have been a valid claim!




With its charmingly spelled name and thoroughly mouth watering sounding flavour, I bet that Pecan Crunch was a well received favourite with consumers back in the day (you just know it would have been incredible as the base for a chocolate syrup or hot fudge sundae!).




Sealtest excelled at offering both unique (especially at the time) flavours and more classic standbys. I'd venture to guess that Devil Mint - a chocolate (possibly Devil’s Food Cake) mint ice cream - fell somewhere in the middle at that point in time (and no doubt the name raised its faire share of eyebrows!).




A whole month's worth of different sundae varieties, all featuring Sealtest's ice cream (natch!), star in this lovely two page colour photo ad from 1953.




You just know that it was a major lightbulb moment for someone at Sealtest when they dreamed up this flavour. Turn the hugely beloved treat that is a banana split into an ice cream flavour? So many yeses!!!




As time went on, Sealtest branched out and began offering an assortment of frozen ice cream treats, such as bars, cones and sandwiches, as pictured in this hues-of-the-era filled ad from 1967.




Yes, I'm certain that I would have. Cherry ice cream is one of my favourite varieties ever and given the array of different ads for various cherry flavours that I found from Sealtest, such as this lovely example for Cherry Vanilla, it was clearly well received by other fans back in the day!




It's orange! It's tangerine! It's both and its wonderful! Of that I have zero doubts. Yum, yum and yum again!!!




Like many brands of the era, Sealtest targeted the growing youth demographic that was comprised of the baby boomers by offering fun promotional giveaways and prizes, such as the cute circus animal themed buttons shown here in this c. 1950s ad (I found one of these very buttons for sale on Etsy here, and would imagine that they surface there, on eBay, and elsewhere fairly regularly).




A colonial era inspired cross stitch serves as the lovely background for Sealtest's Blueberry Royale Ice cream in this ad from 1957 (then as now, ripple style ice creams were popular flavours with frozen dessert consumers).




As touched on above, cherry varieties were some of the Sealtest's best sellers and were hugely adored by the ice cream eating public back in the day. This c. 1960s ad highlights two wonderfully tasty sounding offerings: Cherry and Vanilla Checkerboard, and Cherry Nugget (which included almonds). Another such variety from Sealtest, which isn't pictured here, was Cherry Pineapple.




Taste the lemon twice! Proclaims the text in this eye-catching ad from 1957 for Sealtest's thoroughly appealing looking Lemon Drop flavour of sherbet.




Catering, at least in part, to a more upscale demographic of frozen dessert buyers in the 1960s (based on the earliest ads for such that I've come across so far), Sealtest launched their Prestige line of French Ice creams. They were, as one might imagine, accompanied by ritzy looking ads like this one that sees a dish of ice cream served up on a slab of marble (while a silver ice bucket keeps the rest of the tub perfectly chilled).




Sealtest was huge on offering what they delightfully called "Checkerboard" varieties of ice cream, which saw the marriage of at least two different complimentary flavours in the same carton (this particular ad highlights their tiki party perfect pairing of pineapple ice cream and orange sherbet).




Fabulously patriotic and wonderfully well suited to the 4th of July, Sealtest's Red, White and Blueberry variety was sure to have been a hit with festive costumers back in the day.




As an epic lover of candy apples (I even have a Pinterest board devoted to them!), no other Sealtest flavour highlighted in today's post appeals to me more than this splendidly original Candied Apple Ice Cream.




Over the years Sealtest offered customers the chance, on multiple occasions, to win a year's worth of free ice cream for either dreaming up flavours or naming existing ones (the blog My Pretty Baby Cried She Was a Bird has a great post from 2014 that even shares photos of one of the winning families of these Sealtest promotional contests), as this ad invites folks to try their hand at.




Like many brands (food and otherwise) over the years, Sealtest produced holiday themed ads - such as this crimson hued one for Strawberry Macaroon Ice Cream from 1957 - and *possibly* (I can't say for certain one way or the other based on my research for this post) seasonal varieties of their products, too.




A super cute Polynesian dancer and a great tagline "The flavour you'd most like to be marooned with" call this darling 1950s ad for Sealtest's Coconut Fudge Ice Cream home.




Peach is a fabulously classic ice cream flavour that we don't (at least where I live) see near enough of these days. One can only imagine how rich, creamy and flavourful Sealtest's version was (at one point the brand also produced an equally appealing sounding Peach Melba variety of ice cream).




Kitschy ad and a pun filled name telegraph serious fun, even if this flavour is one that might not have been everyone's favourite (personally I love both dates and nuts and bet I would have really enjoyed this variety of ice cream).



No doubt the generously sized colour photos of their rich, scrumptious ice cream that appeared in most of Sealtest’s ads - including this late 1950s one for Black Raspberry - helped to sell their products big time!




Tapping into food crazes of the era is always a great way to help boost sales, which is precisely what Sealtest was doing when they added the word chiffon (as in cake) to their buttercup hued Pineapple Lemon Ice Cream flavour back in 1959.




In part, I'm sure, because they knew that they were targeting children and their parents, Sealtest excelled at producing adorable ads for their delicious frozen treats, such as this c. late 1950s/1960s example for their rocky road-esque Chocolate Marshmallow variety.


{To learn more about a specific image used in today's post, please click on it to be taken to its respective source.}

♥ ♥ ♥

Despite the fact that such would seem like a natural business move, I did not find information to indicate that Sealtest ever had ice cream trucks (just milk and similar dairy product delivery vehicles).

Instead this beloved summertime dessert staple was sold to consumers (like the mom and her two children pictured in the mid-1950s ad below) through their local supermarkets and small grocers shops across Canada and America.





It does appear, however, that Sealtest’s name was used in conjunction with the packaging on ice cream and milkshake products offered by various diners, soda fountains, fast food and other types of restaurants during the mid to late twentieth century (with Sealtest branded glassware and other similar items from such eateries surfacing periodically on the vintage market these days). As the ad below, for three soda fountain exclusive frozen treats, demonstrates.





I ran into conflicting accounts as to if any of Sealtest offerings are still available in the United States or not. They definitely are in Canada, but it seemed like I just found a lot of news stories online discussing the fact that Sealtest milk was discontinued several years ago now throughout most (or possibly all) of America.

So, my dear US readers, my question to you then is, can you still find Sealtest ice cream or any of this brand's other offerings where you live or has this once iconic brand gone the way of the dinosaur in your fine country?

I'm pulling for Sealtest to still be available there, even if the brand no longer puts out the sorts of appealing, vividly hued (and often downright cute) ads that they once did.

No matter what, we can all delight in these fun vintage ice cream adverts, which are very apt to have you running for the nearest carton, pail or tub of your own favourite modern ice cream faster than you can say 100 degrees Fahrenheit! :)