In the last few weeks I’ve seen a flurry of articles regarding Whole Food Market now offering mochi ice cream with some of the locations having self-serve mochi ice cream bars. We’ve been really lucky in San Diego because most of the San Diego stores have been carrying mochi ice cream for nearly two years now, both pre-packaged ones in the freezer section as well as the individual Bubbies mochi ice cream from Hawaii.
Most of the San Diego stores have the Bubbies mochi ice cream located next to the coffee and juice bar and you need to have an employee get them for you, but on a recent visit to the La Jolla store, I saw that they had switched to the self-serve system, with the mochi ice cream displayed near one of the entrances.
It’s still Bubbies, with the same variety and the same price, but now you can choose your own. While it seems like a fun concept, I didn’t mind getting them over at the coffee bar.
So many flavors!
I’ve enjoyed mochi ice cream for a very long time and over the years I’ve tried every brand I can get my hands on, such as Trader Joe’s, the various Japanese brands including Mikawaya (the original creator of mochi ice cream), but once I tried Bubbies, I stopped buying all the others. I really love the variety of the Bubbies flavors as well as how natural they taste. I think the ice cream tastes better and isn’t overly sweet. The desserts have a good mochi to ice cream ratio. Also the mochi part is chewy without feeling too thick or rubbery.
At Whole Foods, you can buy an individual one for $2, which is a little on the pricier side. However, they are cheaper if you buy a Baker’s Dozen for $20. Or if you already have certain flavors that are your favorite, go to the freezer aisle where they sell 8-piece boxes of certain flavors for $9.99.
So far, the La Jolla store is the only one in San Diego that I’ve seen that switched over to the self-serve system. Let me know if you know of any others!
The Whole Foods off of Harlem Avenue in Oak Park, IL also uses the self-serve system for their generous Mochi ice cream selection. While Mochi ice cream doesn’t appear to be any healthier than other brands of ice cream, and it’s a bit on the expensive side, it’s still an interesting novelty item and certainly worth trying.
that’s so great you have it too!
They have self-serve at the Austin, TX Whole Foods! Tried it for the first time yesterday! Loved it!
yay! isn’t it the best?!
I’ll take those boxes of lychee, strawberry, and vanilla, thank you. All of them. I can kind of understand why Whole foods might switch because it frees workers up to do other tasks. Picking out mochi isn’t the hardest thing to do, so maybe they thought they would just leave it to customers. But like the food in the self-serve bulk section, I wonder how many of those self-serve mochi will walk away unnoticed. (I’d hope the mochi would be too big for people to swipe.) And… I notice there seems to be no sneeze-guard-type protection once you slide open that freezer door for the self-serve mochi….. (I don’t mean to seem like I’m trying to ruin the fun, but shouldn’t there be something protective there since the mochi themselves aren’t wrapped up?)
*Foods. Thank you, shift-key…..
I hear you. My first thought was that this doesn’t seem as sanitary as when they were kept behind the coffee bar counter. I usually like choosing my own food, but all the mochi are pretty much the same so I don’t feel the need to choose each one the way I do with fruit or baked goods. I might stick to the stores that have it behind the coffee counter for my future purchases when I’m buying the Baker’s Dozen.