A northwest Iowa company, best known as the maker of Blue Bunny Ice Cream, will not be sold. Le Mars based Wells Enterprises has decided to remain locally owned. A statement from the company says its board of directors will not seek outside equity investors and will not change ownership.
Wells will remain a privately held and family owned company as it has been for the last 100 years. The statement says the company has decided “the best course of action to become America’s number one ice cream maker by 2020 is to refinance to support their growth objective.”
Wells expects to complete capital raising efforts by early next year. Company officials had announced back in August they were looking at options to raise money and a sale could be one of those options. Wells employs more than 2,500 people in Iowa, mostly in Le Mars, and in Utah.
By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City