For the first time in its 71-year history, Yelloh, formerly Schwan’s Home Delivery, will carry more than its own frozen foods to homes across America.

After renaming and relaunching the brand last year, Yelloh this fall debuted Partner Picks, a program that will open its distribution expertise and use its iconic yellow trucks to deliver other brands direct to consumers. Omaha Steaks was the first partner company to be “picked.”

“In some ways it’s revolutionary for us, because for 70 years, we haven’t done that. For us, Partner Picks does a couple of things: it gives us the opportunity to partner with some really cool, entrepreneurial and established brands that resonate with our customers, and it can help us expand to new customers,” said Garriock Firth, value creation director at Yelloh and lead of the Partner Picks program. 

Two pet food brands were announced in October as Partner Picks, marking the first time the company has offered a line of frozen pet food on its trucks.

Frozen snack brand for dogs, The Bear & The Rat, and Vital Essentials, the first pet food brand to be available via any frozen food delivery service, are both now available to the company’s 1.5 million customers via app or website ordering.

The Bear & The Rat manufactures human-grade frozen treats for dogs but has not sold direct to consumers themselves because of the high cost to ship frozen product.

“We are thrilled to partner with Yelloh, as they are the longtime leader in direct-to-consumer frozen foods. Pups will be excited to see our prebiotic frozen yogurt dog treats delivered along with their human’s high-quality frozen meals and ice cream,” said Meg Meyer, president and co-founder of The Bear & The Rat.

Firth said Yelloh’s history is part of what makes the program attractive to other companies. 

“Our entire chain is not just frozen, its ice cream frozen, because of the challenge of that whole cold chain,” he said. “Because we have that cold chain all the way through, what you’re receiving is what you intend to receive. That’s a really big differentiator for us, not only for ice cream, but across the categories we’re in.”

Partner Picks also allows Yelloh to bring in seasonal flavors or items requiring smaller production runs. 

“We’re able to a little bit more innovative and try some different things that aren’t in our portfolio to see what resonates with customers,” Firth said. “It’s about establishing that complementary relationship with our products. We’re always going to sell the high-quality products that we have. Partner Picks comes in as a complement to that. So, it’s not necessarily that we have ‘X’ number or partner brands. For us, it’s about finding those right brands that are going to resonate with our customers.”

The Partner Picks program follows a series of key milestones in the company’s transformation. In 2022, as part of its commitment to reinvention, the company announced its vibrant new name, Yelloh, a friendly greeting that also pays homage to the company’s yellow delivery vehicles. 

Minnesota-based Yelloh employs about 3,000 people across 250 local hubs, delivering to 20,000 ZIP codes nationwide via its yellow trucks and direct shipping.