Sandwiching the past and future, Thelma’s poised for more growth as demand rises

By Michael Crumb

Thelma’s, the maker of ice cream sandwiches using fresh-baked cookies, has big plans for the future, building on its simple idea to bake snickerdoodle cookies using an old family recipe.

The Des Moines-based company, housed in a 17,000-square-foot building on the city’s east side, got its start as a warm cookie delivery business in Monroe, a town of about 1,800 people in Marion County southeast of Des Moines. It evolved into a small business that sandwiched ice cream between cookies using a countertop ice cream machine on loan from Jersey Freeze, an ice cream shop in Monroe.

Dereck Lewis, Thelma’s owner, said the idea to use his great-grandmother Thelma’s snickerdoodle cookie sandwiched around ice cream took off after he began selling the treat at the Jersey Freeze and to family and friends.

“People went bananas for them,” Lewis said. “So I applied to the Downtown Farmers’ Market. We didn’t even have labels on them that first day. They were just in Saran Wrap and Scotch tape. It was chocolate chip and snickerdoodle. We were just really happy to be a part of that and then we started selling out each Saturday.”

Today, Thelma’s ships their products to 49 states (not Hawaii) and has added more than a dozen flavors, ranging from s’mores and mint double chocolate to banana peanut butter and caramel latte, to name just a few. They’ve even added seasonal flavors, such as pumpkin spice, eggnog snickerdoodle and peppermint double chocolate.

Lewis said he and his family do their own research and product development for the cookie flavors. But where does the ice cream come from?

Lewis said Thelma’s has created its own ice cream recipe and has partnered with Anderson Erickson Dairy, just a few blocks away, to make ice cream for the sandwiches.

They also offer mini versions of their ice cream sandwiches for those customers wanting a treat in a smaller package and have expanded into selling edible cookie dough.

Lewis, who started the company with his mother, Lana, grew up in Monroe and went to Iowa State University, where he studied business.

He dabbled in real estate after graduation and tried his hand at insurance, but neither seemed to be the right fit. What were his career ambitions when he was in his early and mid-20s?

“It was not to build an ice cream sandwich company,” said Lewis, now 37, with a laugh.

Thelma’s opened its first kitchen in 2012, in the lower level of where the restaurant Buzzard Billy’s is now located in downtown Des Moines. Lewis’ brother-in-law was the owner of the building and let Lewis use a room about the size of a private office to put in a mixer. When they outgrew that, they built a kitchen in the lower level of the Shops of Roosevelt. Thelma’s later would use bakery space at the Brick Street Market in Bondurant, where it remained for about a year before purchasing its building on Hubbell Avenue in Des Moines in 2016.

When production began at the current building, Thelma’s was shipping about 100 cases of ice cream sandwiches a day. Today, Thelma’s produces more than 2,000 cases a day. There are 12 ice cream sandwiches in a case.

Thelma’s also had a brief foray into retail, having its own stores, including one in Des Moines’ East Village, but demand among grocery stores and other retailers became so strong it no longer made sense to operate their own store, Lewis said. The company also gave up going to the farmers market as retail demand soared.

When they moved to the Hubbell Avenue facility, they had six employees. They now have 47, who work a single shift from 6 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 6:30 to 10 a.m. on Fridays. 

Lewis said he created those hours to accommodate the working moms who made up a large number of his employees when production first began.

Overtime is worked during the summer months when retail demand peaks, but demand for the ice cream sandwiches falls off during the fall and winter months, which left Lewis looking for a product to offer during the fall and winter seasons. Enter the cookie dough.

“We’re really focused on this cookie dough product. It’s a winter baking, holiday baking season product, and our real initiative is to make that a core product line for us,” he said.

Lewis said the company is also working on other product development that he couldn’t yet discuss.

Thelma’s has also invested in new automated equipment to help streamline production to keep up with demand from retailers, Lewis said. But the upgrades, expected to be in place in the next couple of months, won’t affect employment levels, he said.

“Our demand is increasing at such a point we would not be able to put enough people in the building to make enough to keep up with that demand,” Lewis said. “So it’s going to help us keep our existing team.”

One benefit for Thelma’s employees is they get to take home “duds” at the end of the day.

“There’s cookies, if they’re too big or too small, we call them duds, and we usually have a crate of those at the end of the day and they can help themselves, so we feed a lot of soccer teams on the east side of Des Moines, or whatever,” Lewis said.

He credits Thelma’s success, in part, to what he says is its authentic story and its start with his great-grandmother’s cookie recipe.

It’s a family-run business with his mom still being involved, helping with production from time to time. His dad, Jeff, started working for the company in 2016 to be in charge of logistics and purchasing after Lewis lured him away from Farm Bureau Insurance.

“I was never a passionate baker; that’s not where this business comes from,” Lewis said. “I’m really interested in the customer experience, and honestly just making something that brings joy to people.

“You can probably pour concrete and make a lot more money probably than I can in a cookie business, but that’s the part, being at the State Fair and watching people eat our product and say ‘I love Thelma’s’ as they walk by, that makes me feel really good. That could have come in a lot of different things, and it just happened to land on cookies. Sometimes the story just comes together in that way.”

Lewis, who is married and has three daughters ranging in age from 3 to 10 years old, said he also has had plenty of mentors and people to challenge and push him along the way.

What’s next for Thelma’s?

Lewis said he envisions the need someday for expansion and a bigger building, and the addition of more retailers where Thelma’s is sold.

He said his great-grandmother (his dad’s grandmother) would probably have gotten a chuckle out of the success of a company that bears her name and got its start using her snickerdoodle cookie recipe.

“She was just like the most humble, sweet kind of grandma, not the kind that had a secret recipe that she would never give to anybody,” Lewis said. “It’s probably in the Methodist Church cookbook in Monroe, honestly. She would have been, ‘Oh, Dereck, that sounds fun. You don’t have to put my name on it. That’s silly. I don’t know why you would do that.’ That would have been her reaction, so it’s really fun for me.”