TallowTallow

Carvel

323 locations · 1 rating

25/100Avoid
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What the score is made of

Four categories, weighted. Seed oils count three times as much as plastics or ultra-processing, so a poor seed-oil score pulls the overall number down hardest.

  • Seed oil3× weight50
  • Additives2× weight0
  • Plastics0.5× weight
  • NOVA0.5× weight0

Plastics has no ratings yet and count as 0 toward the overall score — an unproven category isn’t a free pass.

Full methodology: how we score restaurants.

What reviewers said

@Fable_X_Tallow1w ago

Carvel's plain soft serve, scooped ice cream and sorbet carry no seed oil at all - it comes in with the cone, the peanut butter sauce and the baked mix-ins, hitting 60 of 230 menu items. The additive load is the real problem, with mono- and diglycerides and tetrasodium pyrophosphate in the ice cream bases themselves.

Carvel's own 91-page Nutrition & Allergen Guide gives a full ingredient statement for all 230 items, and the split is unusually clean: the plain soft serve, the plain scooped ice creams and the whole non-dairy sorbet line contain no seed oil at all. Seed oil arrives with the vessel or the mix-in - all three cones (canola, or a canola/palm/soybean shortening), the Reese's peanut butter sauce that carries 12 items on hydrogenated rapeseed, cottonseed and soybean oil, the pecans, the pound cake and the brownie bites. 60 of 230 items are affected. The Brown Bonnet shell is coconut oil, not a seed oil. Additives are the weaker axis: mono- and diglycerides in 173 items, tetrasodium pyrophosphate in 163, propylene glycol in 70, titanium dioxide in 13, TBHQ in 6 Reese's items. There is no fryer.

Common questions

What is in Carvel's food?

Tallow reviewers check Carvel on four things: whether it cooks in seed oils, whether the menu carries artificial additives, whether food touches plastic on the way out, and how much of it arrives premade rather than made in the kitchen. The answers to each are scored below.

Does Carvel use seed oils?

Sometimes. Carvel scores 50/100 here, so reports are mixed.

Does Carvel use artificial additives?

Yes. Carvel scores 0/100 here — reviewers report a lot of artificial additives.

Is Carvel healthy?

Not really — Carvel scores 25/100, a poor score. Tallow rates what a kitchen cooks with, not how many calories are on the plate.

Does Carvel serve premade or ultra-processed food?

Yes. Carvel scores 0/100 here — reviewers report mostly premade or ultra-processed food.

Carvel locations

Showing 40 of 323

  • Carvel
  • 180 Mary Esther Blvd, Mary Esther
  • 9822 Little Rd, New Port Richey
  • 15006 N Dale Mabry Hwy, Tampa
  • 3313 Lithia Pinecrest Rd, Valrico
  • 2494 W Brandon Blvd, Brandon
  • 111 104th Ave, Treasure Island
  • 5901 S Dixie Hwy, West Palm Beach
  • 121 1/2 N. Congress Ave., Boynton Beach
  • 255 NE Spanish River Blvd, Boca Raton
  • 1909 Cordova Rd, Fort Lauderdale
  • 3600 W Commercial Blvd, Fort Lauderdale
  • 9360 W Commercial Blvd, Sunrise
  • 11392 W State Road 84, Davie
  • 5621 Coral Ridge Dr, Coral Springs
  • 4953 W Atlantic Ave, Delray Beach
  • 6302 Forest Hill Blvd, Greenacres
  • 2076 N Haverhill Rd, West Palm Beach
  • 4254 Northlake Blvd, Palm Beach Gardens
  • 11955 Southern Blvd, Royal Palm Beach
  • 6859 Stirling Rd, Davie
  • 725 NE 167th St, North Miami Beach
  • 4900 E 4th Ave, Hialeah
  • 1611 NW 12th Ave, Miami
  • 12855 NE 6th Ave, North Miami
  • 9050 Biscayne Blvd, Miami Shores
  • 8349 W Flagler St, Miami
  • 5787 NW 7th St, Miami
  • 4226 SW 152nd Ave, Kendall West
  • 4226 SW 152nd Ave, Miami
  • 14740 SW 56th St, Miami
  • 13071 North Kendall Drive, Miami
  • 14607 SW 104th St, Miami
  • 9330 SW 56th St, Miami
  • 15880 Summerlin Rd Ste 301, Fort Myers
  • 1737 E Oak St, Arcadia
  • 511 Kissimmee Park Rd, Saint Cloud
  • 5976 20th St, Vero Beach
  • 5976 20th St, Vero Beach
  • 6230 W Indiantown Rd, Jupiter

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