Photo: Sydney Jai
Ice cream helped George Haymaker ’83 get healthy. Now he helps others.
Re:THINK Ice Cream
by Lori Ferguson
After entering recovery from addiction to alcohol and pain pills, George Haymaker ’83 craved sugar. “I love ice cream, and I was eating a lot of it,” he recalls. As he began to feel the effects of all that sugar, Haymaker began searching for a replacement for his favorite treat. He came up empty-handed. “All the ‘healthy’ ice creams were icy and chalky in flavor and texture, so I decided to come up with an alternative,” he says. Re:THINK Ice Cream was his solution.
In 2018, he began offering consumers an ice cream that was lower in fat, sugar, carbohydrates and calories but still had a satisfying taste and texture. After about a year, Haymaker began hearing more and more people complain of lactose intolerance and decided to reformulate Re:THINK to make it more “tummy friendly,” he says.
“Bucknell builds the fabric in a person to want to achieve and gives you the tools to do it.”
“Milk has whey and casein proteins,” he explains. “People think they’re lactose intolerant, but I think in many cases it’s actually the A1 casein chain protein that they can’t digest.” So, in July 2020, Haymaker switched to using only A2 milk, which doesn’t contain the additional protein, to create Re:THINK. He has continued to tweak his now lactose-free, low-sugar, no-sugar alcohol, all-natural ingredients recipe and in April introduced new flavors and packaging. Haymaker’s ice cream is only available in California, but he plans to expand into the Southwest within the next two years, and an East Coast rollout is also in the works.
Haymaker relishes the challenge and says Bucknell, where he majored in economics, prepped him for success. “Bucknell builds the fabric in a person to want to achieve and gives you the tools to do it. Being around other smart, successful people creates momentum.”