Richmond, Va.-based Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches is extending its retail footprint with a licensed limited-edition SKU — a S'mores ice cream sandwich developed in partnership with the National Park Foundation — placed exclusively in select Target stores nationwide as of early September 2026. The move marks the brand's first formally licensed nonprofit collaboration and adds a cause-marketing layer to its premium frozen novelty positioning.

The Product

The S'mores sandwich layers honey graham cookies around chocolate toasted-marshmallow ice cream swirled with ribbons of marshmallow fluff — a format consistent with Nightingale's signature 14% butterfat formulation and scratch-baked cookie shells. The LTO is available while supplies last, a standard limited-run structure designed to drive trial velocity and urgency at retail without cannibalizing the brand's core SKU set.

A portion of sales from the collaboration will support the National Park Foundation, the officially chartered nonprofit partner of the U.S. National Park Service. Amber Hanna, Senior Director of Corporate Partnerships and Licensing Strategy at the National Park Foundation, called the tie-in a way to "give ice cream lovers a sweet way to support and protect these treasured places for generations to come."

Retail Scale & Competitive Context

Nightingale currently distributes through more than 6,500 chain and independent grocery accounts, including Whole Foods Market, Costco, Kroger, Wegmans, The Fresh Market, and Harris Teeter — a distribution base that signals meaningful ambient and freezer-aisle velocity for a brand founded in 2016 out of a Richmond restaurant pool hall. The Target exclusivity window is a common retail-entry tactic for premium frozen novelty brands seeking to establish trial at mass before broadening distribution.

The move lands in a premium frozen novelty segment that has grown steadily on the back of consumer willingness to pay up for better-ingredient indulgences. Category peers including Coolhaus, Dirty Dough, and Van Leeuwen have pursued similar LTO-plus-retail strategies to sustain shelf relevance without heavy promotional spending. For Nightingale, pairing a nostalgic flavor profile with a cause-marketing hook from a nationally recognized nonprofit differentiates the SKU beyond ingredient quality alone.

CEO and Co-Founder Hannah Pollack, who has a personal goal of visiting every U.S. national park, cited the partnership's alignment with the brand's broader identity: "We wanted to create a flavor that captures that sense of wonder, adventure, and nostalgia in every bite."

Operator & Buyer Takeaway

For foodservice and retail buyers tracking the premium frozen novelty space, Nightingale's Target placement underscores the ongoing premiumization of the freezer aisle and the rising role of licensed cause partnerships as a retail differentiation tool. Brands that can anchor an LTO to a recognizable nonprofit — particularly one with as broad a consumer affinity base as the National Park Foundation — tend to generate incremental press and social lift that stretches a limited marketing budget. Operators sourcing frozen dessert programs for lodges, resort dining, or outdoor venue concessions may also find the brand's national park association a natural on-menu narrative.

Sales terms of the licensing agreement and the royalty structure were not disclosed. The S'mores SKU joins a core lineup that has anchored Nightingale's growth across premium grocery and specialty retail channels since the brand began its national expansion push, and reflects a broader LTO-driven innovation cadence that operators and buyers across the foodservice segment are tracking closely.

Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.