Acme Valley Foods

We love our local vendors. Working with local businesses keeps more money circulating in our local economy, provides local jobs, and supports the creativity, talent, and entrepreneurial spirit of our local community.

And when a local vendor strongly aligns with our commitment to give back to our community, then that relationship is all the sweeter.

Such is the case with Acme Valley Foods.

Although Acme Ice Cream is now made in Bellingham, its birthplace was the small town of Acme. Their website explains that, “acme means the highest or summit of achievement, and we think Acme is the perfect name for our ice cream.”

Gabe Tucker, general manager, explained that Acme strives to include “as many local ingredients as humanly possible,” and that includes milk from hormone-free Whatcom County cows, strawberries from local grower Curt Mayberry, and coffee from Hammerhead Coffee, among many others local suppliers. Additionally, it is made in small batches of only 50 to 100 pints at a time, so the ice cream in the store today was guaranteed to have been made in the past month, or more likely the past week or two. That freshness results in peak flavors that are fresh on the palate.

Acme Valley Foods and its affiliates support a number of community and charitable activities.

Their major areas of commitment include end-of-life care, film and performance arts, drug policy reform and smart justice efforts in general, restoration of wolf populations in the Northwest, and increased recognition of the reality and impacts of climate change, as well as practical resilience strategies. Their community partners include Whatcom Land Trust, Conservation Northwest, Law Advocates, Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center, Pickford Film Center, Whatcom Hospice, Western Washington University, and Whatcom Alliance for Health Advancement.

Acme also partnered with us to help raise money for the Co-op Farm Fund at our annual Community Party in August. They donated their delicious ice cream sandwiches (people raved about them and some came back for seconds) and we raised almost $400 to kick-start the “Let it grow” campaign to raise funds for the Farm Fund.

As their ice cream label proudly declares, “It’s Damn Good”!

We agree. Acme Valley Foods’ delicious local treats with an added dash of generous community support—“It’s Damn Good”!

When you’re talking to an ice cream maker, you just have to ask how much ice cream he eats in a typical day, right? Gabe says he eats a spoonful of each flavor every day, as quality control (uh-huh). With about a dozen flavors, and new flavors always in development, that seems like a sensible RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) of ice cream.

At Acme Ice Cream, new flavors are always in development. The newest Acme flavor to hit the freezer case is Boundary Bay Oatmeal Stout—rich and smooth. You can submit a suggestion for a new ice cream flavor at Acme’s rather adorable website.