Just a few years ago Justin Woolverton was pleading with US supermarkets to keep his reduced calorie ice cream tubs in their freezer cabinets. Sales of his low fat, low sugar brand Halo Top were flat-lining, and stores were continually threatening to stop stocking it. "We were hanging on by the skin of our teeth," says the 38-year-old, who launched the business in 2012. "We'd tell them 'leave us up there, things are going to turn around'." In his wildest dreams Mr Woolverton couldn't have predicted just how dramatic the turnaround would be. Just six years after starting, his ice cream is now the best-selling brand in the US. With very little money for marketing, the LA-based start-up had been trying to inch up sales by working hard to promote itself on social media. In 2016 it was reported to have sold 28.8 million tubs, generating $132.4m (£101m) in revenues becoming the best-selling pint of ice cream in the US, beating iconic industry leaders such as Ben & Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs.
