It’s wild that CVS and Walgreens won the pharmacy wars when they didn’t have Thrifty — a perfectly delicious, yet affordable ice cream.
Yet Rite-Aid, home of Thrifty, filed for bankruptcy in May, a mere seven months after exiting Chapter 11 as a private company. Hammered by opioid settlements and facing stiff competition from rivals like CVS and Walgreens, Rite-Aid is now offloading its stores and assets.
Hilrod Holdings, owned by Monster CEO Hilton Schlosberg and former Monster co-CEO Rodney Sacks, purchased the ice cream brand for $19.2m with plans to “revitalize Thrifty without altering the core of what made it unforgettable.”
How it started
Brothers Harry and Robert Borun founded Thrifty Cut Rate Drug Stores with their brother-in-law, Norman Levin, in Los Angeles in 1929. They sold ice cream scoops for a nickel to lure in customers, even though they lost money on them, per Eater.
Though they initially sourced ice cream from other suppliers, demand led them to buy an existing ice cream factory in 1940, then, in 1976, relocate to the larger El Monte, California, facility Thrifty still uses today.
When the drug store went incurably deep into debt in 1996, Rite Aid acquired it — and the ice cream brand — for $1.3B.
Where it’s going
Hilrod will retain Thrifty’s recipes and signature cylindrical scoop, made with a barrel-shaped device designed to yield a uniform scoop and make serving easier on workers’ wrists.
New plans include expanded flavors, packaging options, and distribution to new stores and regions.
It’s not clear what new flavors are on the docket — perhaps a Monster flavor? — but a geographic expansion makes sense considering Thrifty's deep West Coast ties and Monster’s wider network.
And while consumers may be pulling back on spending, the US ice cream industry is still worth $7B, per Food Dive.
Thrifty’s foothold into that industry may be that it’s affordable. And, unlike luxury brands that drill into niche flavors, Thrifty has a solid portfolio of well-loved classics. Thankfully, it no longer makes fruit cake ice cream, one of its first three flavors.
We just have one question: Will Hilrod Holdings try to sue all the brands that use “thrifty” in their names like Monster does with “Monster”?
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