THE ICEMEN COMETH
ON THE AFTERNOON Justin Woolverton almost died, he was driving home from Van Nuys with 40 pints of ice cream in the back seat. The 101 was jammed as usual; he phoned a buddy to pass the time. As they spoke, Woolverton noticed he was having a little trouble breathing. His breath got shallower; his heart began pounding; his head started to spin. He tried to remain calm, but by the time he had reached West Hollywood, he was hyperventilating, on the verge of fainting. An ambulance happened to be in the next lane at a stoplight. He wildly panic-gestured to the driver, hoping he might save him.
A few months earlier, Woolverton had founded the ice cream company Eden Creamery here in Los Angeles. A corporate lawyer by training, he’d taught himself the business—how to manufacture ice cream, how to sell it to grocery stores. Yet for every lesson he’d learned about the temperamental frozen dessert, he tended to miss something glaring. For instance, he knew that dry ice—several pounds of which were also in the backseat—was the coolant of choice for ice cream transportation because it turned into a gas as it warmed up, meaning no messy puddles. What he didn’t know: The gaseous form of dry ice, a.k.a. carbon dioxide, is toxic. Once carbon dioxide rises to 1 percent of the air, it can make the body feel drowsy. By 8 percent, the body sweats, then the vision dims, and then—as Woolverton was learning—the mind begins to lose consciousness. Subsequently, the body suffocates.
The ambulance pulled over; Woolverton lurched out of the car. But by the time the paramedics had a stethoscope to his chest, his bodily functions had returned to normal—he had inhaled fresh air.
Air, it turns out, was becoming a recurring detail in Woolverton’s life. One of the ingredients that would eventually make Halo Top—as Eden Creamery’s ice cream would come to be known—the most unlikely new brand to shake up the cutthroat ice cream category was air. Along with milk, cream, egg whites, thickening agents, and a stevia-erythritol cocktail packed into Halo Top’s calorie-defying flavors like Red Velvet or Pancakes and Waffles, Woolverton pumped some three-quarter cups of air into every pint. Which meant, like Los Angeles, where it was born, and Instagram, where it would prosper, Halo Top would become another beautiful illusion: With only 300 calories and 20 grams of sugar, and a whopping 20 grams of protein in every pint, Halo Top delivered on the
