Orange County seeks new ice cream shops for free trail promotion

Orange County Tourism and Cornell Cooperative Extension Orange County are looking for new ice cream shops to join the Orange County Ice Cream Trail, and owners have until May 15 to complete a short survey to be considered. Participation is free, and selected businesses will be promoted through county tourism marketing campaigns and social media.

The recruitment push turns what could be a modest summer amenity into a direct business opportunity for locally owned shops. Cornell Cooperative Extension says the trail is meant for residents looking to enjoy ice cream while supporting local agriculture, and the businesses on the list make their own ice cream and or sell locally produced agricultural products. For small operators, that combination of free visibility and countywide promotion is the main draw.

The trail is not new. Orange County and Cornell Cooperative Extension launched it in 2022 as an 11-stop attraction timed to National Ice Cream Day on July 17, 2022. Maire Ullrich said at the time that she came up with the idea after hearing about ice cream trails elsewhere, and the Orange County Board of Legislators marked the launch by declaring July Ice Cream Month in the county.

Orange County tourism materials have framed the trail as part of a broader effort to promote tourism, local agriculture and independently owned businesses. The county’s own pitch emphasizes that it sits about 40 miles from Manhattan and about 50 miles from New York City, a location that gives summer attractions a built-in audience for day trips and weekend outings. An ice cream stop that lands on the trail can benefit from that traffic without paying for its own regional campaign.

The 2025 trail list showed how spread out the route already is, with stops in Port Jervis, Otisville, Middletown, New Hampton and Goshen. That geographic mix matters for the county’s summer economy: a family heading out for a cone in one town may also stop at a farm stand, a diner or a nearby shop, extending spending beyond the ice cream counter and across multiple municipalities.

Orange County’s existing stops also show the kind of business the county wants to feature. Bellvale Farms Creamery in Warwick says it has been a dairy farm for more than 200 years and has served ice cream in the Hudson Valley for 20 years. The trail’s flavors and ingredients have included French roast coffee, Dinosaur Food, local rhubarb and farm-harvested maple syrup, giving the county a way to sell not just dessert, but local identity.

For owners deciding whether to apply, the message is straightforward: the county is not just seeking another sweet stop, it is building a summer marketing channel that can place independently owned shops in front of residents and visitors before the season peaks.