Publix Ice Cream Half Gallons Undercut the Name Brands

About 20 million cartons a year come out of Publix’s dairy plant in Lakeland, Florida, its general manager told FOX 13 in 2023. That plant is the home base of Publix ice cream, which the chain makes itself.

A Premium half gallon costs $6.63 on Publix’s delivery site for a Lakeland zip code, about 10 cents an ounce. No national brand we priced there comes in under 15 cents.

Sales are the exception. In the weekly ad that ended November 4, a buy one, get one free (BOGO) deal put two 48-ounce Breyers tubs at $6.71, about 7 cents an ounce.

Half gallon, pint and quart prices

Publix’s website shows a price for ice cream only when it’s on sale, and none of Publix’s own was on sale at its Southgate Shopping Center store in Lakeland, Florida (#1270), when we checked on November 4 and 7.

The delivery site lists every price. These were its prices for the Lakeland store’s 33803 zip code on November 7, 2026, with the cost per fluid ounce worked out by us.

Prices vary by store, and the shelf costs less than the delivery site, in line with the markup on Publix delivery orders.

The delivery site ran 10.6 to 11 percent above the Lakeland store on the three national brands we could price both ways. Halo Top pints, for one, were $6.19 in the store in the November 5 to 11 ad and $6.87 online. Taking 11 percent off, a Premium half gallon is about $6 in the store and a limited edition about $6.60, our estimates rather than Publix prices.

Publix’s own news site gave $6.39 as the average retail price of its seasonal half gallons in March 2024.

Publix’s pints didn’t turn up in publix.com’s list for the Lakeland store, though the delivery site sells them for the same zip code, so check the case before counting on one.

Cheaper by the ounce than the name brands

A Publix Premium half gallon costs 10.4 cents a fluid ounce on the delivery site. Breyers and Mayfield cost 15.5 cents in 48-ounce tubs, Edy’s 15.7, a Blue Bell half gallon 17.2 and Tillamook 18.4.

Pints sit in another bracket. Talenti costs 39.8 cents an ounce, Ben & Jerry’s 43.2 and Häagen-Dazs 47.4, so a 14-ounce Häagen-Dazs costs the same $6.63 as a Publix half gallon that holds more than four times as much.

Fluid ounces measure space, not richness. Häagen-Dazs lists 320 calories in two-thirds of a cup of vanilla against 200 for Publix Premium, and Tillamook says its ice cream has less air. Counted by calories instead, Häagen-Dazs still costs nearly three times as much.

Inside Publix’s own case, the Classic line costs less again, $5.53 a half gallon and 7.8 cents an ounce in the 4-quart pail. It’s a different recipe, with milkfat and nonfat milk, corn syrup and sugar at the top of the ingredient list where Premium starts with milk, cream and sugar.

For milkshakes or a crowd, the Classic pail is the better buy. For a bowl on its own, Premium’s cream earns its extra 2 cents an ounce.

Every line Publix makes

Publix says it makes more than 40 varieties of ice cream in its own dairy. Its website lists 73 Publix ice creams, frozen yogurts and sherbets in the Lakeland store’s ice cream section, plus three GreenWise organic quarts.

• Rich & Creamy Premium, 29 year-round half-gallon flavors, from vanilla and Moose Tracks to Otter Paws and Southern Banana Pudding
• Limited edition Premium, 13 half gallons listed, including Eggnog, Peppermint Stick and Pumpkin Pie
• Homestyle Premium, vanilla and butter pecan made with an egg custard base
• Classic, vanilla, chocolate and Neapolitan half gallons
• Party sizes, five 4-quart pails and two 12-packs of 3-ounce cups
• Light, vanilla and Moose Tracks
• Frozen yogurt, 13 flavors made with cultured lowfat milk, from Key Lime Pie to Pistachio
• Sherbet, Cool Lime, Rainbow Dream, Sunny Orange and Mango Peach Passion
• GreenWise organic, vanilla, chocolate and salted caramel quarts

Lactose-free quarts sit in another part of the site, and the Lakeland store lists Publix’s vanilla, chocolate and pineapple banana. Publix’s ice cream and frozen desserts page pictures them with purple lids, light ice cream with blue and sherbet with green.

The online list may not match the freezer. It still shows spring flavors such as Lemon Berry Bliss, and the Daily Meal noted in October that seasonal flavors listed on Publix’s site may not be stocked at every store.

Limited edition flavors in 2026

Publix has announced 38 limited-edition flavors this year in three batches, on February 17, June 23 and August 14. Three pints from February came back in August, so by our count that’s 35 different flavors.

The fall batch from Publix’s August 14 announcement has nine half gallons: Bananas Foster, Cinnamon Streusel Praline, Deep Dish Apple Pie, Eggnog, Peanut Butter Pretzel, Peppermint Stick, Pumpkin Pie, Rum Nut Bread Pudding and Santa’s White Christmas.

Its seven pints are Banana Nut Bread, Bourbon Eggnog, Candy Bar, Chantilly Cake, Maple Chocolate Chip Pancake, Peanut Butter & Jelly and Raspberry Elegance. Peanut Butter Pretzel moved up to a half gallon this year after selling only in pints.

Publix gives no end date, only that the flavors are here for a short time, while supplies last. The last dated run we found, in summer 2024, ended August 30.

Peppermint Stick and Eggnog are the two holiday flavors Publix has made since its ice cream line began, according to a 2022 story on Publix’s news site, which also says Lakeland is the only plant that makes Peppermint Stick.

The Daily Meal’s Nikki Munoz, ranking 20 Publix flavors on October 28, called Santa’s White Christmas a coffee lover’s treat more than a festive one.

Publix’s bakery puts ice cream into cakes as well, and an ice cream layer on a Publix sheet cake is one of the paid upgrades in our cake guide.

Calories per serving

Publix lists a serving as two-thirds of a cup, 12 to a half gallon. Premium vanilla and chocolate come to 200 calories a serving on Publix’s SmartLabel product pages, and the extras push Moose Tracks to 270.

Light vanilla, chocolate frozen yogurt and Rainbow Dream sherbet list 120 calories each. Light vanilla lists no added sugar, and Publix says it has 62 percent less fat than its regular ice cream.

Dairy free and no sugar added picks

Publix doesn’t list a dairy-free or no-sugar-added tub of its own for the Lakeland store, so those come from the national brands beside it.

Breyers sells a non-dairy vanilla and two no-sugar-added flavors in 48-ounce tubs. Keto Pint has zero-added-sugar pints, and So Delicious, Ben & Jerry’s and Talenti all sell dairy-free pints, including a So Delicious coconut milk vanilla with no sugar added.

Lactose-free shoppers have two quarts to compare. Publix’s lactose-free Premium vanilla, made with a lactase enzyme, costs $5.53 on the delivery site, and Lactaid’s vanilla quart costs $6.09.

Frozen yogurt and sherbet are the low-fat half gallons, with 2 grams of fat a serving in chocolate frozen yogurt and 1.5 grams in Rainbow Dream sherbet, against 12 in Premium vanilla.

Who makes Publix ice cream?

Publix makes its ice cream in its own dairy plants. A 2022 story on Publix’s news site lists three, in Lakeland and Deerfield Beach, Florida, and Atlanta, and describes the Lakeland plant, open since 1980, as 280,000 square feet with 12 production lines.

New flavors start there too. Greg Rudolph, the plant’s general manager, told FOX 13 in 2023 that a flavor takes about a year from idea to carton.

Southern Living’s testers liked the result. They picked Publix’s chocolate over eight other brands, Häagen-Dazs and Blue Bell among them, in a 2019 taste test. “Come to Publix for the chicken tender sub, stay for the chocolate ice cream,” wrote Zoe Denenberg.

Publix’s vanilla did less well. In Southern Living’s vanilla test that year, Publix Premium was rated probably the creamiest of eight but lost to Ben & Jerry’s and Blue Bell.

Sale weeks and coupons

Publix’s own ice cream wasn’t on sale at the Lakeland store in either weekly ad we checked in full, October 29 to November 4 and November 5 to 11. The name brands take turns instead.

Tillamook was BOGO in the October 15 to 21 ad, and Breyers tubs were BOGO at $6.71 from October 29 to November 4. Halo Top pints were BOGO at $6.19 and So Delicious pints at $6.59 from November 5 to 11.

At the Lakeland store a BOGO means buying two, under Florida’s buy-two BOGO rule, and only the pair of Breyers tubs beat a Publix half gallon by the ounce.

To see what’s discounted at your store, open the Ice Cream page on publix.com and pick On Sale under Savings. It lists each deal with its price and dates, and the Lakeland ad changes on Thursdays.

Häagen-Dazs tubs carried a digital coupon at the Lakeland store on November 4, and digital coupons in the Publix app can stack with a BOGO. The Lakeland store keeps its ice cream in aisle 11.