Courtesy of Honeymoon Chocolates
After recently opening a store in Clayton, Honeymoon Chocolates (16 N. Central) is partnering with another entrepreneur to roll out a new sweet offering: Ice Cream for Bears, which creates ice cream with honey—a key ingredient for Honeymoon's Chocolates. Here's the scoop.
The Product
Photo by Jenny Agnew
Tim Berg, Ice Cream for Bears owner/creator
About a month ago, Ice Cream for Bears owner Tim Berg added his dipping cabinet to the chocolate store. Both businesses source their honey from the same producers in rural Missouri: honey with floral notes, thanks to the wildflowers and clover surrounding the farms. Berg’s final product by weight is about 20 percent raw, unfiltered honey. Other main ingredients include organic milk (14 percent fat), cream, and free-range egg yolks. “Every ingredient is something I would stand by,” he says.
Berg also collaborates with Honeymoon Chocolates owners Cam and Haley Loyet to use some of the internationally sourced chocolates in the ice cream.
Courtesy of Ice Cream for Bears
Among the eight flavors:
- Chocturnal: Made with Honeymoon’s Semuliki Forest dark chocolate from Uganda, it will impress even the most devout chocoholics, with a dense chocolate earthiness balanced with just the right amount of sweetness.
- Raspbeary: It's made with a dark raspberry bar, with chocolate sourced from Belize
- Queen & Bean: honey vanilla
- Butterbear: butterscotch caramel
- Mint to Bee: mint chocolate chip
- Morning Buzz: espresso crunch
- Bluebeary: wild Maine blueberry, which pops with bright fruity flavor that mellows to a lingering honey flourish on the palate
- Maya: Maya origin chocolate
Photo by Jenny Agnew
In keeping with the whimsical brand and flavor names, scoop servings come in “Spring Bear” or small and “Fall Bear” or large.
In addition to the dipping cabinet at Honeymoon Chocolates and the retail stores, Ice Cream for Bears is available at the Boulevard Farmers’ Market in Richmond Heights on Sunday mornings, as well as in pints at John Viviano & Sons Grocers, United Provisions, and Local Harvest Grocery.
The Background
Berg has always been health-conscious, thanks in large part to his mom, but he fell in love with honey in recent years. While taking MBA classes from Washington University remotely during the pandemic, Berg taught tennis on Long Island by day and made ice cream in the club’s basement by night. When a fellow tennis instructor’s father sent 20 pounds of honey from Romania to his son, Berg and his friend put honey on everything. “I fell in love with honey," Berg recalls. He remembers thinking, This is what I’ve been looking for. That’s when he decided what would set his ice cream apart.
Photo by Jenny Agnew
Berg told a professor at Wash. U. that he wanted to make ice cream with honey as part of his entrepreneurship program. The professor introduced Berg to Cam Loyet, who also attended the university's MBA program and launched Honeymoon Chocolates with Haley in 2016.
Through Wash. U., Berg also met Steve Christensen, owner of Scoop School, a frozen dessert education and training facility in Wildwood. Christensen was among the area entrepreneurs invited to one of Berg’s classes to hear students’ pitches and naturally was drawn to Berg’s concept. Berg now considers Christensen a mentor and uses space at Scoop School to make his ice cream.
Courtesy of Ice Cream for Bears
As the sole person in charge of everything for the business, from recipe formulation to production to delivery. Berg is thankful that his sister Tara, a freelance graphic designer, has helped him with the website and graphics. For now, Berg plans to continue growing his “farm-to-cone” business and wants to keep working with honey, though he says he may develop other products made from honey, such as soda, in the future.
Although he’s lived in St. Louis for less than a year, Berg speaks highly of the region: “It feels like a city that wants new craft things.”
