What’s the scoop? Alumni launch ice cream flavor inspired by Northeastern
Cherry Fudge Swirl is a unique ice cream flavor made in collaboration between Northeastern University and Green Line Apothecary, a brand founded by two alumni.
If you could scoop Northeastern University into a cup or cone, or devour it straight out of an ice cream pint, the flavor profile would go a little something like this.
It begins with a subtle, sweet cream base created with local Rhode Island dairy and a dash of malted milk powder that offers a hint of an earthy undertone. Then, handfuls of thin dark chocolate fudge flakes, made with cream cheese and sweetened with honey, are added for richness. Finally, ribbons of tart Montmorency cherry compote cut through the sweetness and tie in the powerful color of Northeastern red.
This flavor, called Cherry Fudge Swirl, is the result of a collaboration between Northeastern and two alumni, Ken and Christina Procaccianti.
The Procacciantis are the owners of Green Line Apothecary, an ice cream brand that got its start as an independent pharmacy and vintage soda shop in Rhode Island.
Green Line Apothecary will be on Boston’s campus Tuesday, Sept. 15, offering samples of Cherry Fudge Swirl from their 1949 Chevy panel truck named Clara in front of Stetson East from noon to 2 p.m. Pints of this flavor collaboration will also be available for purchase in The Market at Curry Student Center and Outtakes at Stetson West.
“It’s a high honor for Northeastern to have the faith and trust in us to make something that the university can be proud of,” Ken said. “And then on a personal level for us, how deeply meaningful and what a full circle moment for us to have met on campus originally, named our business after that meeting location and now actually make a product that pulls all that together, it’s pretty surreal.”
Ken calls meeting Christina on the Green Line while they were students at Northeastern “serendipitous.” He was studying international affairs and philosophy and Christina was a PharmD student. As the story goes, they got married, had a family and founded Green Line Apothecary. Wanting to sell homemade malts and floats using ice cream they could feel good about selling in their soda shop, they decided to make their own with natural ingredients and no artificial additives.
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“Some might say, what business does a pharmacist have manufacturing ice cream?’ But I always tell people it’s actually very similar to compounding medications,” Christina said.
You have to pay attention to the freezing points of the various ingredients, the churn time, the balance of the sugar and fat levels which, if too high, you’ll be left feeling the need to drink a big glass of water after finishing the frozen treat, she said.
“It’s the alchemy of taking something in liquid form and then transforming it to a totally different texture. It’s really all science from start to finish,” she added.
When Green Line Apothecary was invited on campus to hand out samples and stock dining halls with pints of their offerings during the spring 2026 semester, it was a “huge hit amongst the students and faculty and staff,” said Chef Frank Hurley, senior executive chef at Northeastern Dining, powered by Chartwells Higher Education, who was part of the team of collaborators. Around 2,400 pints of their ice cream were sold over three weeks.
“It’s great to bring them on board and partner with them in this venture for the new school year,” Hurley said.
The Northeastern flavor was developed in part through crowdsourcing ideas on an Instagram poll in May. From there, Green Line Apothecary got to work.
They considered eight different iterations of the chocolate element before the final version, including chocolate chips, brownie or hot fudge, said general manager Ben Copans, who started working at Green Line Apothecary at age 16 as a soda jerk, the name of the employee that mans the soda fountain.
“I think that something special about ice cream is that everybody can enjoy it,” Copans said. “When everybody enjoys something, you can really get creative with it.”
The Procacciantis said they were particularly impressed by the students’ flavor profiles.
“They had a very discerning palette,” Christina said. “They were just so interested in what’s in their food. The Northeastern student not only appreciates the complex flavor profiles but they want to know that their ice cream is clean and that what they’re eating is not artificial.”
Their ice cream is made in their Town Made commercial kitchen, converted from Green Line Apothecary’s first pharmacy location on Main Street in Wakefield, Rhode Island. The ingredients in the sweet cream base are mixed in a process called “cold blooming,” in which the flavors become more pronounced the colder the product gets. That mixture is poured into the Hard-o-Dynamic machine to be slowly frozen and churned for about 10 minutes.
The sweet cream mixture that comes out of the machine and into a three-gallon bucket is the consistency of a milkshake. The cherry compote and fudge pieces are folded in, and the process repeats until the bucket is filled. Then the blend is frozen for at least 24 hours to get to that classic ice cream texture.
“A consistent theme for us in making this ice cream was: this needs to be worthy of Northeastern,” Ken said. “This flavor would have been delicious if we used a vanilla ice cream base, but…”
Christina concluded: “We needed it to be really extra special, as amazing as Northeastern is. We wanted them to be proud. We wanted to knock this one out of the park.”
