Farm-to-beach: Sussex County ice cream company preventing food waste opens new Dewey Beach location

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A Sussex County ice cream business that has gone nationwide has a new seaside home — Dewey Beach.

The Frozen Farmer opened a shop in the coastal town last month. Katey Evans, the business’s founder, said her and her family have been visiting Dewey Beach for years.

“One night we were in town walking and realized that the perfect location was a location we had walked by a hundred times ourselves and just never really looked up, and here it was,” Evans told WHYY News in the new storefront.

Evans said that she wanted to have a beach location to bring Delaware agriculture — the county’s largest industry — to tourists. So far, Evans said the shop has been welcomed by the community, and that it has been a “humbling” experience.

“Getting to know the community here and really knowing them by name as they come in the door has been very important to us, but watching them learn about our family and our business and the industry overall has been incredibly rewarding too,” Evans said.

Fruit to frozen treats

Evans and her family started The Frozen Farmer in 2015 as a way to reduce food waste on their farm in Bridgeville. Her husband’s family has owned and operated it for more than eight decades. The 3,000+ acre farm grows a wide range of produce from watermelon to sweet corn to strawberries. It also houses a creamery that makes and sells frozen and baked goods from the farm as well.

The company uses “misfit fruit”— the produce grown on the farm that is missized, misshapen or overripe and wouldn’t otherwise be sold to stores or farmers markets.

According to ReFED, a nonprofit that focuses on food waste, about 60 million tons of food was wasted nationwide in 2024. Almost 25% of that waste came from farm produce.

Evans said it’s common in agriculture for fruit to not even be picked out of a field if it’s not cosmetically perfect. But through the company, they are able to utilize the fruit that would’ve gone to waste otherwise.

“When we’re in strawberry season, and we’re harvesting strawberries, we are capping and freezing strawberries until our hands are literally bloodstained red,” she said.

The Frozen Farmer sells ice cream, sorbet and “frobert,” an ice cream and sorbet blend, as well as seasonal baked goods in their shop and on the farm. Right now, the farm is growing watermelons. Evans said if a watermelon has “just a tiny little bad spot,” they will cut it off and use the rest of the watermelon to make sorbet.

“Every one of our flavors has our mission on the back of the pint,” said Evans. “We like to feel still connected to the consumer that’s purchasing our product, and we like to think that we’re giving them a little piece of our farm family.”

‘Shark Tank’ and education

In 2020, Evans appeared on ABC’s “Shark Tank” after years of being told by customers that she should apply. She had never seen the show before she applied, but thought the business would do well on the show after she got around to watching an episode.

“I’m a very strong believer in what’s meant for you will just seek after you until you just can’t ignore it anymore,” she said. “Really that’s how I started to look at ‘Shark Tank’ because it was in every conversation about our brand and business.”

After Evans applied, she traveled to New York City and stood in line with hundreds of people to pitch the business to the casting team. She said out of about 43,000 applicants that year, The Frozen Farmer was able to secure a deal with investor Lori Greiner.

Now, The Frozen Farmer’s products are sold in chain grocery stores like Kroger, Walmart and Giant, among others.

The “Shark Tank” experience was a pivotal point for the business, but Evans said she believes the core of The Frozen Farmer is a Delaware farm family business.

“Where my passion really lies is connecting with our consumers one-on-one and getting to know them by name, and having regulars and knowing what they’re most favorite flavors are, and teaching our consumers about Delaware agriculture and the people behind their food and where it comes from,” she said.

Before opening the business, Evans worked at the Delaware Farm Bureau in classroom programs. She said it has been special to her to be able to teach people about traditional agricultural practices, which she said connects everyone together.

“There’s something really holy about the whole process of planting a seed and having faith that it’s going to produce a fruit that you can use to nourish your body and share with your neighbor and make something that’s not only beautiful, but delicious,” she said.

As part of a third-generation farming family, Evans said that farming as an industry has changed drastically, and it was important to her to be able to carry on the family’s legacy.

“Farmers across the country unfortunately are selling out,” she said. “If you don’t innovate and create something new and exciting that people care about deeply, then unfortunately, you’re going to be at risk because it’s certainly not a profitable business always either.”

She said it’s important for people to support local agricultural businesses, because otherwise they might not have the opportunity to stay open or create new products like the Evans family has.

For the new Dewey Beach storefront, she hopes visitors can walk away knowing that there is more to the business than just the scoops of ice cream served, and can learn more about the farm’s history and mission.