Blemished Bananas To Cult Brand: How Peel Is Redefining Soft Serve

Forbes

24-07-2025

Valeria Alvarez, cofounder of Peel, Photo Credit: Courtesy of Peel
It's a banana girl summer, but for popular ice cream brand Peel, bananas are a core part of its product. Between Jacquemus' summer campaign and Sabrina Carpenter's Prada Beauty lip balm, as well as Glossier's collab with Magnolia, bananas are having a moment.
Bananas are a magical fruit that serve as the base for Peel's soft serve ice cream. And that's a huge part of its appeal.
Peel soft serve is based in Miami, currently boasts three locations (including a truck in the buzzy Design Destrict and the newly opened Brightline location) and has already enjoyed a slew of cool brand collaborations (with brands like Crown Affair and Gucci). Made of only two ingredients, bananas and coconut milk, the soft serve is a sustainable treat fit for the future.
Peel is proof that with a strong vision, a clever twist, and a sense of humor, a simple banana can serve as the base for a full-blown brand.
Founder Valeria Alvarez experienced the initial spark for the idea while traveling to Indonesia in 2016. At the time, becoming a food & beverage founder wasn't on her bingo card.
It was during that Southeast Asia trip with girlfriends that Alvarez noticed the beauty — and lack of waste — in the way local vendors created smoothie bowls. 'They were using what they had: bananas, mangoes, pineapple, dragonfruit,' she recalls. 'And they made these stunning, vibrant bowls, topped with edible flowers. I couldn't stop thinking about it.' The experience planted a seed. When she returned home to Miami, the idea started to ripen.
At the time, Alvarez was working in tech and marketing, but the pull toward something more purpose-driven was undeniable. 'I loved the creative side of what I was doing, but I wanted to build something real. Something I could feel.'
Partners in business and in life, her husband Marshall became her cofounder.
She started experimenting with fruit, ingredients and local suppliers. That's when she stumbled on a striking inefficiency in the produce industry: bananas with slight blemishes or bruises were being discarded, even though they were still perfectly edible on the inside.
Rather than seeing waste, she saw opportunity. 'Bananas have the best consistency — and people throw them out because they're not aesthetically perfect? That made no sense.'
And just like that, Peel was born — built on a base of repurposed bananas, coconut milk, and zero added sugar.
At the heart of Peel's story is the idea that imperfection can not only be beautiful, it can be delicious. That's a philosophy Alvarez keeps coming back to, especially as a first-time founder and a new mom.
What started as a weekend activation at the Legion Park Farmers Market in 2019 quickly became something more. With simple, clean ingredients and an impactful mission, Peel was met with strong demand. But when COVID struck, the business paused for seven months.
As a result, Alvarez and her husband spent those months refining the recipe, sourcing a soft serve machine, and getting deeper into the food world — despite having no culinary background. 'I'm not a chef,' she admits, smiling. 'But I'm a builder. I wanted to build something joyful, and something I'd feel good feeding my own daughter one day.'
By 2020, Peel relaunched out of a truck. In 2023, they opened their first brick-and-mortar in Miami Shores — a tight-knit, family-centric neighborhood that served as the perfect fit.
Today, Peel operates three Miami locations, including a Design District truck (which is a permanent fixture), and a freshly opened location downtown near the Brightline.
If it sounds like Peel is simply a soft serve brand, think again. It's also a space to connect. A ritual. A vibe.
The banana-shaped smile in the logo is no accident — it's how Alvarez wants people to feel when they walk in and out.
'We've become that 'third place' for a lot of people. Not home, not work, but somewhere in between where they can hang out, meet friends, and feel good,' she says. 'It's not about sugar highs. It's about joy.'
Smoothie bowls with a really good consistency.
Fashion, beauty and lifestyle companies took note of Peel's aesthetic — minimalist yet bright, cheeky but clean.
Since launching, Peel has collaborated with high-profile brands like Gucci, Crown Affair, Glow Recipe, and even the Miami Dolphins (on a corporate level, not with the NFL athletes). But Alvarez is quick to clarify: she doesn't say 'yes' to everything.
'There's intention behind every partnership,' she explains. 'If we don't align on values, it's a 'no'. I'm not just doing this for exposure. It has to feel like a natural extension of Peel's mission.'
With Crown Affair, Peel used lemongrass — a nod to the clean beauty brand's signature scent — to create a custom flavor. With Glow Recipe, they sourced rare cloudberry to match the brand's new launch. For Gucci's winter-themed Art Basel activation, Peel unveiled a black-wrapped truck and snickerdoodle flavor topped with coconut and cherry drizzle — all to match Gucci's holiday palette.
Even the Miami Dolphins collaboration was a winner: they used spirulina to craft a soft serve flavor in the team's iconic turquoise and orange.
Peel has also partnered with the likes of Shopbop (on several occasions), Miami-based Reserve padel club, and local coffee, matcha and taco brands — always with the same creative filter: Do the brand values align? Does it bring joy? Is it fun?
Because at the heart of Peel is Alvarez's unofficial mantra: 'The moment it stops being fun, it's time to reconsider.'
Peel currently rescues about 40 pounds of surplus bananas a week. The business also composts all organic waste through a local company, Compost for Life, and uses plastic-free, compostable packaging and wooden spoons.
But Alvarez is careful not to overhype the mission.
'I'm not here to save the world. But I do think sustainability can be fun. And it starts with small, mindful choices.'
She's also open about the challenge ahead: how to maintain those sustainability standards as Peel expands. 'As you scale, it actually becomes harder to be sustainable. But we're committed to figuring it out.'
One of Peel's most community-centric moments came last year (and was repeated early this summer), when they offered a promo that invited customers to bring in four ripe mangoes in exchange for a free bowl: a kind of circular, crowdsourced fruit rescue effort. They brought this initiative back again this summer.
'I didn't plan to be the soft serve girl,' Alvarez says. 'But it's what lit me up. And that's enough.'