By Karen Parr-Moody
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Store-bought Popsicles are vividly colored and super sweet due to artificial colors and high-fructose corn syrup. But a pair of English sisters have founded The Pop Shop to offer a cold and naturally sweet alternative.
Katie Egger and her sister Louise Neumann can be found every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Clarksville’s Downtown Market at One Public Square. 
But you might not see them at first; they tend to be hidden by the crowd in front of their booth. Customers clamor for their ice pops, you see.
The sisters offer the ice pops in a rainbow of flavors, including chocolate, grapefruit, “Supergreen,” zesty lemon, orange cream, tropical avocado, strawberry lemonade, berry cheesecake, lemon sweet tea, pink lemonade, chocolate-dipped coconut and sweet lemon cream. And they make these ice pops without corn syrup or food colorings, instead allowing the ingredients’ natural colors to shine through. They amplify the fruits’ sweetness with honey or cane sugar.
“The Supergreen pop is our healthiest one,” said Katie. It is made of lime, spinach, banana, pineapple, orange and mango and is sweetened only with honey.
The sisters are originally from the quaint village of Wells, which is near Bristol, England. While Louise moved to Clarksville first by way of the military, Katie recently joined her.
Of their partnership in The Pop Shop, Louise said, “Katie has good business skills and I’m a little more creative.”
Louise likes to bake and said that she created the ice pops’ flavors through “lots of trial and error.” She first solicited the opinions of friends before deciding which flavors to put in The Pop Shop’s roster of pops. And if the crowd of people paying $3 each for an ice pop each Saturday is any indication, the sisters have a winning recipe.
“It’s been wonderful,” Louise said.
Chocolate-dipped coconut and strawberry lemonade are just two of the ice pop flavors sold at The Pop Shop./Karen Parr-Moody
Karen Parr-Moody began a career as a New York journalist, working as a fashion reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, a beauty editor for Young Miss and a beauty and fashion writer for both In Style and People magazines. Regionally, she has been a writer at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper and currently writes about arts and culture for Nashville Arts magazine each month.