Green Juice On a Stick

YES. It’s what we say to things that are awesome. Yes.

Photo credit: Julia Bainbridge

At 25, Sophie Milrom was studying late nights for the bar. She wanted a summer snack to keep her awake, that would take a while to eat, and that was also healthy. “Popsicles!” she thought. She marched to the frozen aisle of her local supermarket and found mixtures of sugar and water and…a weeny bit of fruit.

Not exactly what she had in mind. So she executed her vision herself with the help of a Vitamix, a gang of trips to the Trader Joe’s produce section, and a tasting panel of friends. What she came up with is green juice on a stick, basically: no-sugar-added, portable, frozen versions of the juice concoctions you get at your local health food store. She calls them Innocent Ice Pops, and her timing is perfect: Juicing is not just for vegans or health nuts or hippies anymore. People who eat fried chicken also drink green juice these days. And who doesn’t love a popsicle?

It’s one of those brilliant why-didn’t-I-think-of-it ideas that came from personal need and a hole in the marketplace. “I went to Fairway to buy them, assuming that this already existed,” Milrom told us.

She ended up graduating with a JD-MBA from New York University, making it through the bar, and finding a factory on the East Coast to manufacture a modest amount of the pops—about 75,000 in the last six months. There are four flavors—Green Juice (kale, banana, pineapple), Kale Daddy (kale, spinach, ginger, apple, lemon, pineapple, cayenne), Sweet Beets (apple, beet, carrot), and Tropicarrot (mango, pineapple, carrot)—all of which are vegan, gluten-free, fat-free, and paleo-friendly and range from 45-80 calories per pop. And they’re good! She’s not only won over the fashion set (cue Instagram shot with the Man Repeller’s Leandra Medine), but also us. We tasted them all at the Yahoo offices, and: yes, we say.

New Yorkers and Connecticuters can find Innocent Ice Pops at certain stores and Soul Cycle events. Online ordering is not yet available, but Milrom can ship anywhere in the country if you contact her directly. At a relatively modest $2.99 per pop (or a box of three for $7.99), it’s a healthier practice for your wallets than that morning cup of small batch-roasted pour-over coffee.

Photo credit: Innocent Ice Pops