The Royalties For Cherry Garcia Ice Cream Are For Sale

Whether you are a fan of the Grateful Dead, or an investor looking for a good deal, the current auction for a portion of the royalties to the Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream might be too sweet to pass up. 

The sale is offered by Royalty Exchange, an online platform that lets people buy and sell royalty rights, is quite unique. Usually, the site focuses on music, but when someone is selling the rights to one of the more popular rock and roll ice cream flavors ever, it seems logical that they should be the one to offer them to the public.

Launched in 1987 in tribute to the late Grateful Dead guitarist and frontman Jerry Garcia, the flavor was an instant hit. Everyone from suburban soccer moms to stoned Dead Heads couldn’t seem to get enough of the cherry ice cream loaded with cherries & fudge flakes. It has been so popular that it has spawned numerous other ‘celebrity’ inspired ice creams and even a marijuana strain named after it, of course.

The current owner of the royalty rights, who won them in a similar Royalty Exchange auction in 2020, has decided to sell their stake in a two-part auction. The first one just closed at a closing price of $81,000. The second stake, smaller than the first, is live until January 18^th with a starting bid at $20,000. That would have bought 1,111 three-day passes to Woodstock in 1969, which Garcia and the Grateful Dead played at.

The auction winner will get royalties from the gross sales of all Cherry Garcia ice cream products. There is a lot considering it is one of the more popular flavors in the entire Ben & Jerry’s catalog, according to Unilever

UL
, the owner of the brand. That means that every single scoop, bar, or cup of ice cream (light, non-dairy, & regular), frozen yogurt, and ice cream treats, plus all related merchandise, will earn the owner some cold hard cash.

The royalties are even available due to a licensing agreement between Ben & Jerry’s and the Jerry Garcia estate that was struck after the singer’s untimely death in 1995. One of the estate beneficiaries previously sold a portion of their royalty interest on the Royalty Exchange.

“This is one of those assets that we love, and we love to share. It’s got great ties to the music industry, performs well for investors, and best of all, incentivizes us to eat ice cream,” says Royalty Exchange.

According to the information provided, the winner of the last portion, and the one already scooped up, should do well for themselves. They will retain their investment until August 17^th, 2030, and be paid out quarterly. According to the last twelve-month data provided by Royalty Exchange, the smaller share returned $4,642 over the previous twelve months. That should keep someone buying tickets to the latest Dead & Company shows for the next eight years.

The only thing that could derail someone’s earnings would be if the flavor is discontinued, then the royalties would stop. But that is something doubtful to happen. So, someone soon will be able to say they own a small part of rock history and the answer to several trivia questions. That would be a ‘Sunshine Daydream’ to quote the Grateful Dead.