Sam Rose - The Ice Cream Pouch that's Disrupting Freezer Aisles

On this episode, we’re joined by Sam Rose, the founder and CEO of RoseBud Ice Cream, a Denver-based brand crafting nostalgic, indulgent ice cream with unapologetically high standards.

Sam launched RoseBud after years of self-teaching, boxing, and perfecting pints out of a Walmart ice cream maker. What began as a THC- and CBD-infused experiment has since evolved into a super-premium brand stocked in hundreds of stores, and recently expanded into a game-changing new format: squeezable soft serve pouches.

In this episode, Sam breaks down how he built RoseBud from a commissary kitchen to a national brand, the painstaking R&D behind his signature vanilla and chocolate flavors, and the very real challenges of building a frozen CPG company with no formal training, no capital, and no quit.

We dig into what makes a great package, how to pitch Whole Foods without a barcode, and why he believes founder-led demos outperform paid ones every time.

Episode Highlights:
📦 How RoseBud landed retail with mockups and Sharpie-labeled pints
🥄 The birth of their new squeezable soft-serve pouch
🎨 Packaging that “jumps off the shelf” and how he pulled it off
🚛 Distribution and cold chain chaos
🧾 What buyers actually care about in a pitch deck
💸 Planning for margin loss when working with a distributor
🧊 Why frozen is tough—and ice cream is tougher
🚀 How Sam thinks about trends (spoiler: he doesn’t)

Table of Contents
00:00 – Intro & Origin Story
03:30 – Building the Brand Solo
06:00 – Packaging Design & Flavor Naming
09:00 – Squeezable Soft-Serve Innovation
15:30 – Retail Buyer Response & Market Opportunity
18:40 – How Sam Pitched Early Retailers
22:00 – Retail Tools & Lessons in Pricing
24:50 – Distributors, Margins & Scaling
30:00 – Frozen-Specific Supply Chain Realities
34:00 – Trends, Brands Sam Respects & What’s Next

Links:
Rosebud Ice Cream – https://rosebudicecream.com/
Follow Rosebud on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/rosebudicecream/
Follow Sam on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-rose-19998b1b0/

Follow Adam on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg
Check out https://www.kitprint.co/ for CPG production design support.