Former Gamecocks Basketball Player Finds Success With Hard Ice Cream CompanyProof

By Kamie Roesler| January 21, 2020 at 1:05 PM EST – Updated January 21 at 5:21 PM 

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – It’s a smooth ice cream with a kick.

PROOF Hard Ice Cream is for adults, and it’s made in Columbia.

“We manufacture alcohol ice cream in 10 rotating flavors,” founder Jennifer Randall said.

Randalls' concept came to life in 2015.

“It’s a base recipe we started with and then modified to incorporate the alcohol levels that were necessary to make it creamy and smooth,” she said.

The ice cream is made at Midlands Technical College in the business accelerator building. The area is designed to accommodate emerging businesses.

There is a reason the Capital City is where founder and Kentucky native Jennifer Randall calls home. She played basketball for the Gamecocks in the mid-90s and she said the community rallied around her during a difficult time.

“It proved to be a very wise decision. I went through some adversity—my mom actually died my freshman year of college very unexpectedly. The state of South Carolina, the athletic department, the university, the fans, embraced me in a way I never could have dreamed of,” she said.

Now she is taking a shot at sharing her unique idea with the Carolinas.

“To my knowledge, we were the first to market when I did my proof-of-concept in 2015,” she said.

She said things are going well.

“We just signed a partnership in Lowes [Foods], and we are rolling out to all 90 stores. We already rolled out to Raleigh and the Winston-Salem market and here in the Midlands,” she said.

The PROOF team is always surpassing its own expectations.

“From day one, just this year alone we have tripled our sales goals,” she said.

It’s something her late mother is sure to be proud of.

“I hope she is looking down and smiling. She didn’t have an easy path either. It would be incredibly gratifying to know that she raised someone to chase their dreams and not be afraid,” she said.