Two Retailers, Two Launches

Doughlicious, the London-founded, Cincinnati-based frozen snack brand, is pushing into two of the U.S.'s most closely watched better-for-you retail channels this holiday season with simultaneous limited-edition launches at Target and Whole Foods Market. The dual placement signals a deliberate channel diversification strategy as the brand scales its U.S. freezer-aisle presence beyond its existing lineup.

The flagship launch is a 12-Day Advent Calendar, priced at $11.99 and exclusive to Target beginning December 1. The calendar contains 12 single-serving cookie dough and gelato bites — each at 100 calories — spanning flavors such as Gingerbread, Eggnog, Cereal Milk, Snickerdoodle, Caramel Kettle Corn, Vegan Chocolate Truffle, Pumpkin Pie Crumble, Cookies & Cream, Peppermint White Chocolate, Chocolate Chip, and Bûche de Noël. Nine of the 12 flavors are calendar-exclusive, unavailable in Doughlicious's standard retail assortment, raising the product's collectible appeal and limiting markdown risk on existing SKUs.

The Rotten Collaboration

Door No. 7 features a co-branded creation with sour candy maker Rotten®: a Rotten Cherry Bomb combining sour cherry cookie dough, vanilla gelato, and Rotten Sour Crunchies. Brand collaborations of this kind — pairing a frozen better-for-you snack with a confectionery label — are increasingly common in the specialty food and snack segment, where novelty drives social engagement and trial. "Rotten is always hunting for unique ways to sneak our world into places people already love," said Michael Fisher, founder and CEO of Rotten. The collab gives both brands shelf visibility inside one of the country's largest mass-market retailers during the highest-impulse gifting period of the year.

"Bringing back the Advent Calendar gives us an opportunity to do one of my favorite things: get creative in the kitchen," said Kathryn Bricken, founder of Doughlicious. "There's something really joyful about opening a new door every day and having absolutely no idea what kind of dough is waiting for you."

Whole Foods and the Better-For-You Premium Channel

In a parallel move targeting the premium natural channel, Doughlicious is introducing a standalone Peppermint White Chocolate Cookie Dough & Gelato Bites pack at Whole Foods Market nationwide, with a promotional SRP of $4.99. The SKU goes on-shelf in early November, pre-dating the Target advent calendar by roughly four weeks and capturing early holiday foot traffic. At 100 calories per serving and made with gluten-free oats and no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives, the product is positioned squarely within the better-for-you frozen dessert category that has consistently outpaced the broader frozen novelties segment in recent years.

The Whole Foods placement also serves as a broader U.S. retail validation for Doughlicious, which was founded in London in 2017 and has since relocated manufacturing to Cincinnati to support domestic scale. The natural-channel flagship is a standard gateway for emerging frozen brands before broader conventional or club-channel expansion. With Target and Whole Foods now on the holiday roster simultaneously, Doughlicious is compressing a retail expansion timeline that many emerging brands stretch across multiple years.

Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.