Hershey Creamery Company, also known as Hershey's Ice Cream, is an American creamery that produces ice cream, sorbet, sherbet, frozen yogurt, and other frozen desserts such as smoothies and frozen slab-style ice cream mixers. It was founded by Jacob Hershey and four of his brothers in 1894 and taken over by the Holder family in the 1920s. The company was one of the first to offer consumers pre-packaged ice cream pints.
The family-owned business has approximately 450 employees and operates 30 distribution centers in 28 states across the Eastern and Northeastern United States. It is a publicly traded company, with its stocks listed only on Pink Sheets as the company offers a limited number of shares to potential shareholders. In 1998, it modernized its operations to increase efficiency and reduce overhead.
Hershey Creamery Company has no connection to The Hershey Company, a candy manufacturer, though both companies were founded in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the same year and also, the five Hershey brothers who founded Hershey Creamery Company are not even related to Milton S. Hershey, the founder of The Hershey Company. The companies have had a tumultuous relationship marked by multiple lawsuits over trademark issues. In the mid-1990s, the companies settled their most recent legal battles out of court, with Hershey Creamery Company agreeing to add a disclaimer to its ice cream products to note that it is not affiliated with The Hershey Company.
Hershey Creamery Company marketed Autobot Blast Bar, an ice cream bar with strawberry, lemon and fruity blue moon flavors resembles the Autobot insignia. Hershey Creamery also made and manufactured Pinkie Pie Pop, a cotton candy flavored ice cream bar based on Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony, another Hasbro franchise.