Alexa Norlin, the founder of Utah’s Normal Ice Cream, wants people to know her interests go beyond soft-serve treats.
“I love Normal, it will always be my baby, but I was excited to create a product that was not frozen,” Norlin said. “Frozen goods are complicated.”
So Norlin has launched a gourmet chocolate bar, called Hey Champ. It was first released around Valentine’s Day, with little advance marketing, she said. Since then, she said, “it has blown up.”
According to the candy’s website, HeyChamp.co, the bars are available at more than 90 retailers in the United States and two stores in the United Kingdom. They are also for sale on the website, for $4 each.
(In Utah, Hey Champ is for sale in five Salt Lake City stores — Atelier, 337 W. Pierpont Ave.; Central 9th Market, 161 W. 900 South; The Land of Salt, 177 E. 900 South; Curriculum, 865 E. 900 South; and Mabo Clothier, 925 E. 900 South — as well as Liminal Gift + Greenery, 56 S. Freedom Blvd., Provo, and Made Moab, 82 N. Main St., Moab.)
“I love candy and have always wanted to make some type of candy,” Norlin said. “I wanted to create something that was shelf-stable and didn’t have a retail space attached to it. It is exciting to see something take off that doesn’t have to be tied to something physical.”
Norlin started Hey Champ as a premium chocolate bar in three flavors — pretzel, coconut and miso. If that last one sounds strange for a chocolate bar, remember that Norlin delights in creating unusual flavors with her Normal Ice Cream products. (Have you tried her olive oil ice cream, Olive You?)
“Since there really isn’t anything on the market that is a high-end candy bar, I went that way,” she said. “I also like savory foods, mixing the high (quality chocolate) and the low (pretzels), and making a candy bar that is made with the best ingredients I could get. Every step is done by me — I mix every bar, cut every bar, dip every bar and pack them.”
(Hey Champ) Alexa Norlin, the founder of Salt Lake City's Normal Ice Cream, is marketing a line of gourmet chocolate bars, called Hey Champ, at select stores nationwide.
Norlin may be moving into a new line of confections with the Hey Champ bars, but the same care and attention to detail that made her ice cream creations so popular is evident. Norlin even makes the marshmallows for her miso candy bar. The bars are dipped in dark milk chocolate from Solstice, giving them a velvety texture that melts in your mouth.
The name “Hey Champ” was in honor of her partner Kevin Bolger’s father, who died five years ago. “He would say, ‘Hey, Champ’ to Kevin when he was a kid,” she said.
Norlin is a trained pastry chef, and worked as executive pastry chef for the Trio Group, and then as pastry chef for Handle and HSL. She launched Normal Ice Cream in 2017, first as a food truck (which still parks daily, noon to 10 p.m., at Millcreek Common, on 3300 South between 1300 East and Highland Drive), and in 2019 at a brick-and-mortar location at 169 E. 900 South, Salt Lake City.
Selling the Hey Champ line nationally has had its rewards, she said.
“My biggest source of pride amongst the stores carrying Hey Champ is Pop Up Grocer,” Norlin said. “It’s a curated market. It carries all the cute, new [consumer packaged goods] brands.” Now Pop Up, based in New York, is working with the Nordstrom department store chain, opening in eight cities across the United States. “They asked Hey Champ to be a part of it,” Norlin said.
