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Nut Lovers Mourn Ice Cream Drought

Aggie Ice Cream

Nut lovers may have a hard time getting ahold of their favorite ice cream flavors at Aggie Ice Cream this summer. The Logan based creamery announced some flavors may be in limited supply due to the ongoing drought in California that has been hurting nut growers in parts of the state.

“It’s been months since we’ve been able to get nuts in on a consistent basis and that goes back to the last several years, probably since around 2011-12 when they started having the extended drought where most of the nuts are grown,” explained the creamery’s Business Coordinator Steve Shelton.

The first flavor to go is maple nut. Other nutty flavors may follow if Aggie Ice Cream can’t find a stable ingredient source.

“It’s not so much the price going up, it’s availability,” said Shelton. “So when you have a whole bunch of people trying to get a limited supply of nuts, the first thing that happens is the big-big companies secure rights to all of the nuts that are available. Rather than deal with a myriad of little companies that might only want to buy 100 pounds, 200 pounds or 1000 pounds of nuts.”

Mike Poindexter owns a nut company in Fresno, California. He said the problem isn’t supply; that’s been going up over the years. Instead, the shortage is caused by growing demand in Asia.

“The long term trajectory is that the supply is getting bigger, the problem is that the rate of growth of supply is less than the rate of growth of demand, so that’s causing prices to go up,” said Poindexter.

Aggie Ice Cream’s David Irish said he doesn’t see the shortage effecting sales. Irish and Shelton say if and when sources of nuts become available, the shop will stock up to make sure customers can get their sweet, crunchy fix.