Peekaboo Ice Cream: Here's What Happened After Appearing On Shark Tank

Jessica Levison knows her ice cream. A former contract attorney, she pivoted careers in 2008 when she opened Serendipity Creamery in sunny Surfside, Florida. There, she dished up house-made favorites like pistachio and cookie dough. In early 2019, however, Levison dreamed up an ice cream vision so big it would take a shark bite to make it a reality — an ice cream line that tasted delicious, but also concealed whopping servings of hidden vegetables. Aimed at kids, Peekaboo Ice Cream combined what children like (sweets) with what parents want (more veggie consumption). Ice cream's origin story began with frozen yogurt in China and treats like Peekaboo are proof the confection has come a long way, baby.

Levison is a mother of three, so she knew all about the struggle to get more nutrition into kiddos' bellies. She crafted Peekaboo Ice Cream as something she would want her own children to eat: GMO-free, gluten-free, certified organic, and made from domestic dairy products. The vanilla flavor hid zucchinis while the strawberry flavor had carrots. There was spinach in the mint chip and tomato in the strawberry sorbet. Levison sold almost half a million dollars' worth of Peekaboo Ice Cream before setting out on the company's biggest venture yet: a trip into the "Shark Tank" on the hunt for an investor.

Armed with samples of her ice cream, Levison dove into season 12 of "Shark Tank." All the assembled sharks were impressed by the creamy, delicious taste of Peekaboo, noting unanimously that they would not have guessed there were veggies in it. Levison proudly boasted that the ice cream was already available at Whole Foods, Safeway, and Kroger. She sought an $800,000 investment in exchange for 8% equity in the company.

Immediately, the sharks took issue with her valuation of the company. Levison claimed that Peekaboo Ice Cream was worth $10 million, but the sharks argued she didn't have the sales numbers to back that up. Lori Greiner took the bait, offering the $800,000 as a three-year loan at six percent interest, along with five percent equity in the company. Her offer came with a caveat: She wanted Levison to offer low-carb and low-fat versions of the ice cream. 

Kevin O'Leary countered Greiner's offer, matching the three-year loan at nine percent interest and eight percent equity, with no other strings attached. Ultimately, Levison stated that she was looking for an investment and not a loan. She opted to leave the show with no offer, a fate similar to that of the founder of KidsLuv, another child-friendly product that appeared on Shark Tank.

Although Levison left Shark Tank empty-handed, she hit the ground running after the show aired. After Shark Tank, Peekaboo Ice Cream launched a rebranding campaign and successfully grew, expanding into new flavors and new retailers alike. Levison described the famous "Shark Tank" effect (in which participants see tremendous growth after appearing on the show) to be breathtaking. Peekaboo sold out of its stock of mini cups as well as its cookie dough and unicorn flavors.

Things appeared to be coming up roses for Levison and Peekaboo. In November 2020, the company took top honors at the California Snackcelerator competition, a contest held by the California Milk Advisory Board to reward fresh developments in dairy products. That prize netted Levison a cool $200,000 to be put toward marketing and expanding her business. The company's cheeky Instagram account touted collaborations with other female-founded businesses as well as a spate of giveaways. Unfortunately, all that momentum appears to have come to a crashing halt by the end of 2021.

Social media accounts for Peekaboo Ice Cream stopped posting after December 2021. As of the time of this writing, there appears to be no place you can actually buy the treats — all products are listed as "sold out" on the Eat Peekaboo website and the link to find participating retailers is a dead-end.

There's no official explanation for why Peekaboo Ice Cream didn't go the distance. To be sure, the internet is ripe with criticism of the products. A Reddit thread makes the damaging point that Peekaboo's nutrition labels showed higher saturated fat, cholesterol, and carbohydrate content than a leading competitor, challenging the assertion that Peekaboo Ice Cream was healthy.

Furthermore, Redditors shed light on the fact that, in order to get a full serving of vegetables as advertised, you'd have to let someone (a child, as per the marketing) eat a full pint of ice cream. Doesn't sound like the best idea. There's also the fact that the "healthy ice cream" market had become a bit crowded for newcomers to thrive. Halo Top, despite having discontinued several popular flavors in early 2025, is worth almost $350 million and has bigger name recognition. At the end of the day, though, this is all speculation. It's unknown why exactly Peekaboo Ice Cream is no more; we only know the apparent fact.

Jessica Levison's LinkedIn account still shows her listed as working at Peekaboo Organics LLC at the time of writing, despite there being no indication the company is still in business. The account also shows that her original ice cream store in the Miami area is still going strong. Serendipity Creamery's Instagram feed is loaded with recent shots of smiling kiddos holding towering cones of luscious-looking ice cream. Levison is pictured at local events with a pink, branded ice cream cart whipping up special flavors for Passover (indicating that at least some of Serendipity Creamery's products are on the list of foods you didn't know were kosher).

The ice cream biz can be a bit of a dog-eat-dog industry. Even heavyweights like Häagen-Dazs have discontinued favorite items (like Black Walnut ice cream) for reasons that make no sense. Levison may not be innovating ice cream loaded with hidden veggies any longer, but it's good to know she's still dishing up sweet treats in her own corner of the proverbial sky. We'll be watching keenly to see what Levison does next.