Fairfield’s hip new ice creamery, the SCREAM Ice Cream Shop, offers house-made, locally sourced cold deliciousness to Southeast Iowan ice-cream aficionados. The name of the shop—a play on the nursery rhyme “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream”—appeals to the ice cream-hungry inner child, while the wonderfully gothic SCREAM logo, an inverted ice cream cone shaped like a skull, adds an edgy attraction. Crafted using both traditional Italian methods and modern ice-cream recipes, SCREAM uses premium dairy products sourced from local organic farms Radiance Dairy and Kalona SuperNatural. SCREAM avoids synthetic dyes and flavorings to achieve world-class flavor and texture the old-fashioned way.
Owner Kate Vigmostad says the SCREAM Ice Cream Shop started as an inspiration she had after buying her son a one-quart ice cream maker in 2022. “I thought it would be a fun bonding experience to learn how to make ice cream,” she says. But after purchasing it, while sitting in the parking lot, she got an idea for a logo and branding for the business. She started making small batches and experimenting with flavors.
“It felt like a winning idea,” she says, “and I quickly got to work testing and perfecting many different flavors of ice cream. We were lucky to get a chance to sell our ice creams out of the Collective/Bakehouse in Fairfield starting fairly early on, which gave us a great avenue for local market research and product testing.” She also set up an Instagram page for people to place orders, and started making local deliveries around town.
In 2023, Vigmostad got a grant from the Dairy Business Innovation Alliance (DBIA). Based in Wisconsin and funded by the USDA, the DBIA supports dairy businesses across the Midwest, offering technical assistance and grants. Vigmostad says the grant “allowed us to build the kitchen that we have here, purchase much larger equipment, and scale up quite a bit.” With a dedicated commercial kitchen and a commercial batch freezer, they were able to increase the volume they could make by approximately ten times. The stage was set for expansion.
The business spent last year establishing retail accounts, selling pints at different grocery stores. SCREAM ice cream pints are now available at Everybody’s, the Bakehouse, and Hy-Vee in Fairfield. They’re also available at all three New Pioneer Food Co-op locations (Iowa City, Coralville, and Cedar Rapids) and at John’s Grocery and Bread Garden Market in Iowa City, and the ice cream used in specialty drinks crafted by the Green House bar cafe in Iowa City. SCREAM ice cream is carried by several Des Moines Hy-Vees, Brothers Market in Bloomfield, Oneota Food Co-op and Luna Valley Farm in Decorah, and Fresh Thyme in Des Moines and Davenport.
They also started hosting scoop events, bringing tubs of ice cream to farmers markets. “That really taught us a ton about how to scoop ice cream,” Vigmostad says, adding, “I’ve never worked in an ice cream shop before, so I’m totally self taught and have figured it out from every stage.”
After their successful scooping events last year, they decided to establish an ice cream shop. Conveniently, the space in front of their commercial kitchen was available. After extensive renovations, it’s now a cozy, quirky ice cream shop, with a gleaming black counter, comfortable booths, and local art adorning the walls. “My partner is an electrician, which is very handy,” says Vigmostad. “He was able to transform the space, take the vision that I had, and make it real, which was very cool.”
SCREAM works with local producers as much as possible, especially in the summer, when people can grow things more easily. Vigmostad just had five pounds of mint and 30 pounds of organic rhubarb delivered from a local grower. The rhubarb is for a seasonal flavor called Barbie’s Dream Cone, which is raspberry ice cream with a strawberry-rhubarb ribbon through it.
SCREAM has eight core flavors, with rotating seasonal additions. “We love coming up with new flavor ideas and pushing some of the boundaries of typical ice cream flavors,” Vigmostad says. “Naming our ice creams is also a favorite pastime—we aim for a mix of provocative and playful. Our goal is to make you smile and feel intrigued.” Two examples of their distinctively witty ice cream flavor names are Basic B (vanilla ice cream) and Grow a Pear (pear gelato),
In addition to ice cream and gelato, they make ice cream cakes, affogato (an Italian coffee dessert in which hot espresso is poured over the vanilla ice cream), licorice floats using licorice ice cream and Sprecher’s Root Beer, frozen nachos (waffle cone chips over two scoops of ice cream), and classics like strawberry milkshakes and banana splits.
SCREAM is also available for birthday parties and catering, and they have a “cute little ice cream trailer” for serving ice cream at summer events.
See ILoveScream.com.