Chloe's -- The Cool Way To Eat Fruit™

With the warmer weather upon us, it’s the perfect time to talk about healthier alternatives to kids’ favorite all-season treat: ice cream and ice pops. At Cater to You, we are very careful about the snacks and treats we serve students, often nixing common options due to long ingredient lists, the addition of preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, food dyes, carrageenan, and more. They are all a hard no for us. So, when it came to finding and selecting a company that could provide a super-clean dessert option, expectations were high.

Enter Chloe’s Pops and Soft Serve Fruit—creamy, clean and delicious! Almost 10 years ago, former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Chloe Epstein was on the hunt for a frozen treat sans artificial ingredients, colors, flavorings, and corn syrup. She was seeking both a healthier solution to her own self-described “fro-yo” addiction, and, as a new mom, wanted to be able to offer her young children treats she could feel good about, as well. “When I became pregnant with my first child, I started paying more attention to the quality of the foods I was eating. With my intense sweet tooth, it was a challenge!” Epstein said.

After not being able to find what she was looking for, Epstein decided to experiment with fruit in juicers, blenders, and food processors. What followed was tons of trial and error, countless recipes, oodles of frozen bananas {co-founder Michael Sloan is Epstein’s best friend and an avid tri-athlete who always had a freezer full of over-ripe bananas!}, and lots of patience. Finally, Chloe’s Fruit was born using just fruit, water, and cane sugar. And, with its invention, the market had its first all-natural alternative to both the artificial ingredients of frozen yogurt and the fat and dairy of ice cream.

Epstein and Sloan opened their first location in 2010 on the Upper East Side with soft serve fruit in 4 varieties: banana, strawberry, mango and apple. A flagship shop in Union Square opened a year later and then a seasonal shop in the Hamptons. “After we opened, we worked to get our mix into food service including schools and hospitals. We launched our pops after a large NYC-based day camp saw a sample pop and ordered 5,000 for their campers,” Epstein explained. Her pops also provided a stellar solution for students with allergies since the fruit pops are free of the top 8 allergens. Its special minimal-ingredient combo also makes it non-GMO project verified, dairy free, gluten free, vegan, and kosher pareve. Additionally, Epstein started to get feedback from camps and schools that they loved that the pops don’t melt quickly, which means less mess (and more time to enjoy!). The slow drip factor is due to the fact that stabilizers added to other frozen treats can cause faster melting. In the case of Chloe’s, the fruit itself is the binding agent and keeps it from melting so quickly--more proof that natural is always better for you. In 2012, Cater to You proudly became the first food service company to use the pops regularly in schools.

Since its inception, the company’s fruit pops sell in more than 13,000 supermarkets nationwide. And, now there are dipped varieties (in dairy-free dark chocolate) and a partnership with Nickelodeon (smaller pops that appeal to younger children, especially those that are fans of Thomas & Friends™ and Sunny Day™). Epstein plans to continue to grow the company, add more retail partners, new product varieties, and new applications for the company’s soft serve fruit.

“Our vision was always get kids to look at foods in a different way; to get kids to have fun eating fruit and get accustomed to the idea that natural, clean foods are as much of a treat as the other not-so-great options,” Epstein said. We think you can certainly feel good about adding Chloe’s to your shopping list at home, just as we feel good about serving it up for dessert. Ask your kids what their favorite variety is from our offerings of pineapple, mango, strawberry, tangerine, and raspberry. And, stay tuned in the Fall for an Instagram giveaway courtesy of Chloe’s!