Frozen temperatures. Check. Hats and gloves. Check. Ice cream. Check.

Canton-based Baskin-Robbins announced a new ice cream flavor Monday, ironically, on the coldest day of the year. The flavor was created by contest-winner Diane Sroga, who laughed at the thought of being in Canton making ice cream on the frigid day.  “If you love ice cream, you love ice cream no matter how cold it is.  Plus I’m from Chicago; weather is not a problem!”

Before Sroga entered Canton’s Baskin-Robbins’ online flavor creation contest, she had never entered any kind of contest. Then she came across the company’s promotional email about creating a new flavor, and decided to see what she could come up with.

“I entered the contest on a lark,” she said. “I have loved Baskin-Robbins for 25 years, and I thought it would be fun.”

Fun was exactly what Canton-based Baskin-Robbins was looking for.

Brian O’Mara, Baskin-Robbins Vice President of Marketing said, “We wanted to involve our consumers in something fun. We received thousands of innovative and incredibly delicious-sounding ice cream flavor submissions which made this an exciting competition. Our consumers love ice cream and the more flavors we have the more fun it is for them.”

It turns out that Sroga’s “Bunches of Crunches," a combination of extra-rich, creamy chocolate ice cream with a sweet caramel ribbon and crunchy bites of Heath bar and pecan, was chosen as the winning flavor from some 40,000 entrants.

Sroga was in Canton to create the winning flavor for the first time with the Baskin-Robbins culinary team and Vice President and Executive Chef, Stan Frankenthaler.
Asked about the name of her creation, “Bunches of Crunches,” the ice cream creator said, “It just came to me. It’s kind of both smooth and kind of crunchy, like a chocolate caramel turtle.”  

The contest, the first online flavor creation contest by the Canton-based company, launched in October 2010. Fans played mix-master and created their own ice cream with the Baskin-Robbins virtual Flavor Creator, choosing from 31 base flavors, a variety of ribbons such as fudge and peanut butter and mix-ins ranging from candies to cookies. A team of experts from Baskin-Robbins selected 10 finalists and then opened the voting to the public who chose the winning flavor.

In addition to having her flavor “Bunches of Crunches” as the June 2011 Flavor of the Month, Sroga’s flavor will be immortalized in the Baskin-Robbins ice cream library alongside world famous flavors World Class Chocolate, Jamoca Almond Fudge and Gold Medal Ribbon.