ice cream company launching Keith Haring flavour for Pride Month

The estate of late Pop artist Keith Haring has collaborated with the Van Leeuwen Ice Cream company to release a new limited-edition flavour inspired by Haring’s work during Pride Month, with some proceeds going toward supporting the LGBTQ+ community in New York.

The Haring ice cream flavour, called “passion fruit berry pop”, is a blend of blue raspberry and yellow passion fruit with swirls of strawberry jam, inspired by Haring’s colourful work. Starting 1 June, the new flavour will be available by the scoop and pint in the brand’s locations, along with pints for sale at select grocery stores in the New York area. The pints will come in cartons covered in the late artist’s dancing figures, and Van Leeuwen will also release a line of special edition merchandise in collaboration with the Keith Haring Foundation.

“We are huge fans of Keith Haring and this is the first flavour we’ve ever done that is inspired by art,” Ben Van Leeuwen, co-founder and chief executive of the ice cream company—which started as an ice cream truck parked in New York’s Soho neighbourhood—said in a statement. “It was so cool to design an ice cream flavour around Haring’s artwork and to imagine what it would look and taste like.”

Gil Vazquez, director of the Keith Haring Foundation and a close friend of Haring’s before his death in 1990, said the collaboration with Van Leeuween was a good fit given the late artist’s legacy.

“Soho in New York City was home to Keith Haring and the New York City streets were his canvas—it’s such a natural fit to work with a brand that had its beginning in the streets of Soho,” Vazquez said in a statement.

Van Leeuwen will donate a portion of proceeds from pint sales at the brand’s ice cream shops in the month of June to The Center, which is based in Greenwich Village, has long served the LGBTQ+ community in New York and features a bathroom whose walls Haring painted with elaborate murals. The Haring-inspired ice cream will be available through 31 August, or until supplies last.

The upscale ice creamery is the latest in a long line of brands to release collaborations with the Keith Haring Foundation, which has controlled the artist’s imagery since his death of Aids-related complications in 1990. The late artist’s designs have graced Igloo ice chests, Primark and Uniqlo t-shirts, Pandora jewellery, Casetify phone covers, Swatch watches and Tenga sex toys, occasionally drawing criticism from fans.