HUDSONVILLE, Mich. — Childhood best friends become business partners. You can't write it any better.
Mike Meadows and Paul Reiss, both from Hudsonville, met each other on the school bus in elementary school. As Paul said, they've been friends ever since.
As kids, they went over to each other's houses all the time. Almost like clockwork, whenever Mike and Paul were together, they seemed to fall back into the same cycle.
"Every time we'd hang out, we'd be eating bowls and bowls of ice cream," Mike said.
Maybe they were just doing market research with their taste buds.
Fast forward to today, Mike and Paul have their own ice cream company called Protein Pints. As the name would indicate, the product is a little different than your average scoop.
"They all have 45 grams of protein," Mike said. "We also use allulose and monk fruit as our main sweetener."
That means their products are also low in sugar but still pack a full punch of flavor.
That's exactly what they were going for.
"Quite simply, it's just something we wanted," Mike said. "We were looking for it. I remember it was summer. We had gotten done with a workout and we were really hot. We wanted to eat something. So we went into the freezer section; we're looking for something high in protein and it just didn't exist. That's kind of where the genesis of this idea started, just from us wanting it.”
Paul added, “We got bored of traditional protein products really fast. So, we're talking about shakes and bars, you know, eating those every single day. A lot of times, they'd be chalky. They don't taste good. We just ... we just got bored. So we wanted something else. We wanted something exciting, fun and delicious."
Mike and Paul have been working with Chris McKellar, founder of Love's Ice Cream & Chocolate, to perfect the recipe.
Their path to this point didn't go exactly as planned. Mike, 22, went to the University of Michigan and "graduated with a degree in entrepreneurship."
I put that in quotes here because Mike tends to us air quotes in real life when mentioning that part of his journey. In other words, he dropped out.
Paul, also 22, started at Aquinas College before transferring to Michigan State University to join the Spartans' entrepreneurship program.
"I had one year left on my degree. I told [my parents] that I was going to pursue this and ice cream company; they kind of freaked out. But I think if you believe in yourself, and you trust your vision and you have faith, that things are gonna work out.”
Protein Pints debuted with three flavors: vanilla, chocolate and peanut butter chip. You can find them now at Bridge Street Market or at Grand Rapids City Gym.
They have plans to expand to more locations with more flavors in the future.