Photo credit: Erin Bloodgood
Ryan Povlick, founder of Scratch Ice Cream
Ryan Povlick grew up loving ice cream, but he didn’t think he’d find a career producing the frozen confection. His brother, Justin, who along with Dustin Garley are partners in Scratch Ice Cream, says that after a bumpy road overcoming heroin addiction, Ryan found his calling and is giving back by inviting others along on his venture.
Justin relates that once Ryan got clean and started recovery, he began working at Yo Mama!, the frozen yogurt business owned their aunt and uncle, Becky and Scott Berger. “Our uncle asked Ryan if he wanted to start making ice cream with him,” Justin says. “Ryan became passionate about the process and developed a base recipe. It’s the one we still use today.”
In 2015, Ryan started selling his ice cream by the scoop at Yo Mama! It quickly became a customer favorite. In the meantime, he also started a sober living house. One of his first guests was Garley. “He was one of the first guys to graduate in my brother’s program,” Justin affirms. “Ryan took Dusty under his wing, and they made all the Scratch ice cream flavors and started selling to grocery stores.” Garley is the first of several people in recovery whom Ryan has brough onto the Scratch Ice Cream team.
Justin graduated from college in 2017 with a degree in business, and Ryan eventually invited him to become a partner. “I’ve been here ever since,” Justin says proudly.
Scratch Ice Cream has scoop shops at Crossroads Collective (2238 N. Farwell Ave.) and Zocalo Food Park, 636 S. Sixth St. They’ve recently set up truck at The Rock Sports Complex, in Franklin, selling Scratch Ice Cream during the Milwaukee Milkmen games.
One of the first Scratch Ice Cream flavors to hit a home run was Salted Caramel Waffle Cone, a salted caramel ice cream crafted with their homemade caramel. Chocolate-coated bits of waffle cone pieces are blended in. “That’s always been our most popular flavor,” Justin says.
Scratch Ice Cream makes most of their own inclusions. Their homemade chocolate shines in flavors such as Door County Cherry, a cherry almond ice cream with Door County cherries and chocolate chunks. “Anything we can make homemade, we do. We make our own cookie dough, our own chocolate, our own caramel, fudge—a lot of those homemade ingredients are either the base for our flavors or allow us to stem off of them,” Justin says.
Other flavors include Dirt Cake, a chocolate ice cream with crushed Oreo cookies. Cookies and Cream consists of Scratch’s creamy ice cream base with crushed Oreos. Vanilla Bean Cookie Dough has homemade cookie dough chunks blended in. There’s also the tangy, creamy Blueberry Cheesecake. Justin says about 30 flavors rotate each week among the retail locations and scoop shops. They source ingredients locally whenever possible.
Scratch features at least one vegan flavor each week. Justin says they embraced a vegan line when they saw that industry taking off. “Not many other companies have a full vegan line like we do. We just introduced a full vegan line at every Outpost store.” The eight vegan flavors include Cherry, Ginger, Peanut Butter and a vegan version of Dirt Cake. Developing a reliable nut base for each vegan product was a challenge, Justin notes. Then they had to vegan-ize inclusions like caramel and find good substitutes for cream and butter.
Despite their rapid growth, Scratch Ice Cream still keeps it small batch. The ice cream is made in a 12-quart batch freezer. They have no commercial ovens, and they hand-pack each pint container. Justin hopes to expand into the Madison and Chicago markets. Here in Milwaukee, if you can’t make it to the scoop shops, look for pints at retail locations such as Outpost Natural foods, Woodman’s, Metcalfe’s, Beans & Barley, Sendik’s on Downer, Cermak and Koppa’s Deli.
“We’re very thankful for all the support and give a shout out to all friends and family that have supported us,” Justin concludes. “We can’t wait to see what the next years bring.”
For more information, visit scratchicecream.com.
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