Chapters and Cravings

Some supermarket discoveries make you stop, stare and wonder whether you’ve somehow wandered into the wrong aisle.

That was precisely what happened when I spotted what looked suspiciously like a piece of fried chicken sitting in one of Iceland’s freezers.

Except it wasn’t chicken.

It was ice cream.

Life Raft Treats’ Not Fried Chicken Ice Cream has finally made its way from South Carolina to the UK, and after seeing it all over social media, there was absolutely no chance I was walking past without putting one in my trolley.

The price did make me pause, though.

At £4 for one 71g ice cream, this definitely isn’t your average frozen treat. Was I paying for something genuinely delicious—or simply paying for the novelty of eating an ice cream disguised as fried chicken?

There was only one way to find out.

The packaging makes absolutely no attempt to be subtle.

It’s bright yellow, covered in oversized lettering and features a cartoon chicken wearing a bucket like you get from certain fried chicken restaurants—which immediately tells you this isn’t going to be an ordinary ice cream.

But the real surprise comes when you open it.

This hasn’t simply been moulded into a vaguely drumstick-shaped lump. The golden cornflake coating is chunky and uneven, closely resembling crispy fried chicken skin, while the chocolate-covered pretzel protruding from the end genuinely looks like a bone.

If somebody handed me one without any explanation, I’d definitely need to do a double take.

And yes, I may have laughed when I first pulled it out of the wrapper. It looked far more convincing than I expected!

Life Raft Treats deserve full marks for the design alone.

The irregular drumstick shape, chunky golden coating and pretend bone all work together brilliantly. It even has those slightly uneven edges that make real fried chicken look crispy rather than perfectly manufactured.

It’s one of those products you immediately want to show somebody just to watch their reaction.

“Wait…that’s actually ice cream?”

Exactly.

The novelty may have convinced me to buy it, but it still needed to taste good.

Thankfully, it really did.

The first bite begins with an incredibly satisfying crunch.

The outside combines chunky cornflakes with caramelised white chocolate, creating a crisp shell around the vanilla centre. The cornflakes provide loads of texture, while the caramelised chocolate gives everything a slightly toasted sweetness.

It’s sweet without immediately becoming sickly, and the coating doesn’t merely exist to make the drumstick look convincing—it adds something genuinely enjoyable to every bite.

It may look like fried chicken…

…but thankfully tastes absolutely nothing like it.

Inside is a smooth vanilla ice cream that works perfectly with the much crunchier coating.

The flavour itself is fairly simple, but I think that’s the right choice. There’s already plenty happening on the outside, so an intensely flavoured centre could have made the whole thing feel too rich.

Instead, the creamy vanilla balances the cornflakes and caramelised white chocolate without competing against them.

Simple?

Yes.

Boring?

Not at all.

Absolutely.

Every time I looked at it, my brain expected fried chicken.

Every time I took a bite…

Ice cream.

It’s oddly confusing in the best possible way, and that visual trick is a huge part of what makes the experience so much fun.

But importantly, it isn’t relying entirely on that gimmick. Once the novelty wears off, you’re still left with a genuinely tasty ice cream.

That’s where so many viral products go wrong.

This one doesn’t.

One warning: believe the packet when it says “Eat Quickly.”

Mine started melting surprisingly fast while I was trying to take photographs. Although, to be completely fair, we were experiencing Heatwave 2.0 here in the UK, so it wasn’t exactly ideal ice cream photography weather!

Otherwise, you’ll very quickly have melting ice cream, loose cornflakes and slightly sticky fingers.

Not that I wasted any of it, obviously.

I’ll admit it: when I first picked it up, I did wonder whether £4 for one ice cream was pushing it.

It’s undeniably expensive compared with an ordinary supermarket ice cream, especially when you’re only getting one 71g treat.

However, this also isn’t an ordinary multipack ice cream.

It’s handcrafted in Charleston, South Carolina, imported into the UK and designed with far more detail than your average frozen lolly. Add in the fact that it tastes genuinely good—not merely acceptable for a novelty product—and I can understand why it costs more.

If it had been all gimmick and no flavour, I’d have struggled to recommend it at that price.

Instead, it completely won me over.

Would I buy one every week?

Probably not.

Would I happily buy another for a film night, themed dinner or simply to surprise somebody who had never seen one before?

Without hesitation.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5

Life Raft Treats have managed to do something surprisingly rare with viral food: they’ve created a product that genuinely lives up to the hype.

The drumstick shape is incredibly convincing, the cornflake coating perfectly mimics crispy fried chicken and the combination of creamy vanilla ice cream, caramelised white chocolate and the salty chocolate-covered pretzel “bone” is genuinely delicious.

Yes, £4 is expensive for one ice cream. But when you consider the craftsmanship, the import journey from South Carolina and the fact that it’s unlike anything else currently sitting in a UK supermarket freezer, I think the price is justified as an occasional treat.

Sometimes novelty food is entertaining to look at but disappointing to eat.

This wasn’t one of those times.

I’d happily buy it again.