“Crunchiness” varies depending on flavor. For example, I previously mentioned I particularly like Tillamook German Chocolate Cake flavor. This flavor has a good amount of pecans, which crunch. It’s a similar idea for Chocolate Hazelnut and various other flavors with nuts added. However, the bulk of Tillamook flavors are do not have crunchy things added.
The higher rate of crunchy flavors with Ben & Jerry’s stems back to the ice cream collusion paper I linked earlier (link ). In the past, “premium” ice cream was split between Haggen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s. Haggen-Dazs did smooth flavors without crunchy things added. Their top selling flavors at time of paper were Vanilla, Chocolate, Coffee, and Strawberry. And Ben & Jarry’s did “chunky” flavors that often had crunchy things added. Their top selling flavors were Cherry Garcia, Half Baked, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, and Chocolate Fudge Cookie Dough. Together the 2 companies had a virtual lock on “premium” ice cream, with very high market share and little competition from anyone else.
More recently the ice cream brands do not have as distinct splits as in the past, with less clear divisions between companies and less evidence of collusion. The top 2 brands by US sales are still Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s. However, there is more competition, with other brands not far behind. Tillamook uses extra cream (cream is usually first ingredient) to give a smooth/creamy texture, like Haagen Dazs, but they also have many flavors with lots of stuff added like Ben & Jarry’s. While I haven’t seen sales figures, I would not be surprised if Tillamook’s most popular flavor is Tillamook Mudslide, which is a good combination between smooth Haagen Dazs style and “chunky” Ben & Jarry’s style, with lots of added fudge + chocolate chips.
