Is Superman ice cream from Michigan?

Earlier this year, Food and Wine Magazine named Superman ice cream the most “Michigan-y” ice cream flavor. Hard to deny the Michigan-ness of this tutti-frutti, technicolor dreamscape of Blue Moon, Red Pop (or cherry), and vanilla (or lemon).

But there is scant information and hard facts about the source and history of this beloved childhood treat… though a few Google searches will have you believe otherwise. So I’m here to bust some Superman myths for you.

CLAIM 1: Superman ice cream was first made by Stroh’s.

RULING: DUBIOUS 

Wikipedia and a handful of articles and TikToks will have you believe that Stroh’s was the first to manufacture Superman ice cream in the late 1920s or early 1930s. It’s a nice narrative if you combine a story arc of Stroh’s Prohibition switch from beer to ice cream (then called Stroh's Alaska, as in this newspaper clipping from a 1920's edition of the Detroit Free Press,) and the Detroit-ness of Faygo Red Pop flavored ice cream. But there are two central points that discredit this claim:

1. Stroh’s began manufacturing ice cream before Superman was even a comic superhero. Superman was released by DC in 1938. 
2. The current Stroh’s Ice Cream company doesn’t take ownership of the originator of Superman ice cream. 
   

When I asked Stroh’s for an interview about the history of their version of Superman ice cream, Super Rainbow, they emailed in reply, “...unfortunately we don’t have anyone with the historical information to discuss.”

Stroh’s has also never taken public credit for Superman’s beginnings. While we can’t disprove that the flavor was first made by Stroh’s, there is also no evidence to suggest that they did. In fact, there’s no evidence to show anyone company started the flavor. The truth is that food trends tend to evolve over time and trial, rather than manifest in single moments.

CLAIM 2: Superman ice cream started in Michigan.

RULING: DUBIOUS

While nearly all of the modern-era ads for Superman ice cream are from Michigan-based parlors and ice cream manufacturers, the first newspaper ad clipping I could find in a review of records from Newspapers.com was this:

From… Wisconsin!!! This clipping is from a paper called the Grant County Independent, from Lancaster, Wisconsin.

Now, does Superman ice cream have “whole nut meats?” No. Not as we know it, anyway. And this ad doesn’t make it clear what flavors are in their brick ice cream, so it might not have been the Superman ice cream we know today whatsoever. But there’s no question it was being sold under that Superman name.

CLAIM 3: Superman is a kids’ flavor.

RULING: FALSE!

While many Gen X and Millennials remember Superman ice cream with fond memories from the 1980s and ‘90s, and many Michigan kids are still eating it to this day, I’m here to tell you that I learned to love Superman ice cream only now - in the year 2026 - while reporting this story. While I used to silently judge my kids when they ordered it, I now openly and brazenly order Superman ice cream. BY CHOICE. I’m not too fancy to enjoy a momentary lapse into childhood with the fruit-loopy goodness of a Superman cone.

So no, it’s not just for kids.

GUESTS ON THIS EPISODE:

• Lilly Kraai, Hudsonville Ice Cream
• Mark Harvey, Archives of Michigan 
  

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