H&M Gelato Ice Cream Center

Starting an Ice Cream Shop

June 30th, 2011

Ice Cream Business Guide

Introduction

Starting any new business on your own can be stressful and frightening.  In this book, we will try to teach you the basics on how to choose an ice cream vendor, negotiate your lease, hire employees, and market the business.  Step 1 is…..don’t panic. You have a lot of information to go through and it will take time. You won’t necessarily understand everything, and not everything will make sense to you right away. If some of the business terms are foreign to you, don’t worry. You will learn little by little.

At the end of the day, the most important thing is your drive to succeed. If you are a people person, you will take good care of your customers and the business part will take care of itself….one step at a time.

Why should you choose the ice cream business?  It is said that 90% of Americans love to eat ice cream.  With that in mind why not choose a business whose product is loved and enjoyed by so many people?

In general, ice cream is a mixture of cream and milk, sweeteners, flavoring and air.  As it freezes air is beaten into the milk making the final product light and easy to eat with a spoon.  There are other ingredients such as eggs used in rich French ice creams and emulsifiers and stabilizers that are added to many commercial ice creams to help keep ice crystals from forming.  Quality, freshness of ingredients and the amount of air that is whipped into the product are factors that separate the best from the rest in the world of ice cream.  Dried milk products and a lower percentage of milk fats (butter fats) are usually seen in economy ice creams.  The higher quality ice creams are denser and less airy.  Fresh products are used in premium ice cream plus they contain up to 20% milk fat and include minimal additives.  The less air the higher the quality. If it doesn’t have at least 10% Butterfat or has more than 50% air, it has to be labeled “frozen dairy dessert”. Some of the major national ice cream manufacturers have product on the shelf that has a lot of candy chunks in it and because this adds cost, they either reduce the butter fat or add air in order to lower the cost. If you look closely, some of them are labeled “frozen dairy dessert” because they are more than 50% air.

The three segments in commercial ice cream are super premium (Ben & Jerry’s and Haagen-Dazs, premium (Dreyer’s, Edy’s and Breyer’s) and economy (supermarket Private Brand).  You should at least strive to sell premium ice cream in your ice cream parlor.  Customers can taste the difference and they expect something more that the local dairies ice cream, although it depends on your local dairy. Some dairies make a fantastic product, so give them a shot too and “see what they got”.

Entry Filed under: Gelato Ice Cream Machines