The Ice Cream Pouch that's Disrupting Freezer Aisles | Sam Rose, RoseBud Ice Cream

On this episode, we’re joined by Sam Rose, the founder and CEO of RoseBud Ice Cream, a Denver-based brand crafting nostalgic, indulgent ice cream with unapologetically high standards.Sam launched RoseBud after years of self-teaching, boxing, and perfecting pints out of a Walmart ice cream maker. What began as a THC- and CBD-infused experiment has since evolved into a super-premium brand stocked in hundreds of stores, and recently expanded into a game-changing new format: squeezable soft serve pouches.In this episode, Sam breaks down how he built RoseBud from a commissary kitchen to a national brand, the painstaking R&D behind his signature vanilla and chocolate flavors, and the very real challenges of building a frozen CPG company with no formal training, no capital, and no quit.We dig into what makes a great package, how to pitch Whole Foods without a barcode, and why he believes founder-led demos outperform paid ones every time.—---------------Episode Highlights: 📦 How RoseBud landed retail with mockups and Sharpie-labeled pints 🥄 The birth of their new squeezable soft-serve pouch 🎨 Packaging that “jumps off the shelf” and how he pulled it off 🚛 Distribution and cold chain chaos 🧾 What buyers actually care about in a pitch deck 💸 Planning for margin loss when working with a distributor 🧊 Why frozen is tough—and ice cream is tougher 🚀 How Sam thinks about trends (spoiler: he doesn’t)—---------------Table of Contents:00:00 – Intro & Origin Story03:30 – Building the Brand Solo06:00 – Packaging Design & Flavor Naming09:00 – Squeezable Soft-Serve Innovation15:30 – Retail Buyer Response & Market Opportunity18:40 – How Sam Pitched Early Retailers22:00 – Retail Tools & Lessons in Pricing24:50 – Distributors, Margins & Scaling30:00 – Frozen-Specific Supply Chain Realities34:00 – Trends, Brands Sam Respects & What’s Next—---------------Links:Rosebud Ice Cream – https://rosebudicecream.com/Follow Rosebud on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/rosebudicecream/Follow Sam on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-rose-19998b1b0/Follow Adam on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out KitPrint.Shout out to my friends over at Glimpse, the go-to partner for automating retail-related back-office operations and unlocking margin trapped in invalid fees and manual processes.Are you in the market for a new flexible packaging partner? Check out HD Packaging. Third-generation, family-owned and built for the needs of category leaders like Newman’s Own and A Dozen Cousins. Faster launches, lower costs, and no artwork fees.