Quick Access to Pages

IF YOU ARE USING ADOBE ACROBAT OR READER YOU WILL SEE THIS BUTTON IN THE UPPER LEFT CORNER OF THE SCREEN, OR A TAB MARKED PAGES. Clicking this button or tab opens an index allowing you to go directly to the page you wish.

Dream Cones Knowledge Base

Overview of Knowledge Base
This file has been written to give you a brief overview of the gelato manufacturing and sale business. Much more detailed information is available by downloading our eBook, Startup and Stay Up in Ice Cream, available from our website.

Whats in the Knowledge Base

The Gelateria Costs Doing your homework Important Elements of retailing Location Leasing Profit Starting a small gelato Factory Brief Introduction to ice cream manufacturing Ice Cream Business tips 2 3 3 4 5 5 5 7 8-15 16

The are two ways to get started in the gelato business. You can open a small shop or kiosk and make ice cream in it or off site. Or, you can open a larger factory with two or more batch machines and manufacture for many shops and also sell wholesale.

A typical gelateria as is commonly found in Italy

The small shop or kiosk: Making ice cream in a small shop or kiosk (or offsite) is not complicated but the required equipment is not cheap. Three pieces of equipment are required: an ice cream machine (batch freezer), a blast freezer and a display freezer. The cost of a small shop startup package containing all the basic equipment is about 14,000 Euro, plus about 3,500 for ingredients and this does not include the cost of the kiosk or dcor. In addition, any startup needs a cash reserve of at least 10,000 so that unexpected problems or a slow start does not drive them out of business. If you dont have about 30,000 it is unwise to proceed with a startup of this type. Operating an ice cream factory is more technical, requiring money, planning, expertise and good equipment to be successful. Since the investment is considerable, an adequate cash reserve is needed and a solid background in business management is essential. In order to be profitable a factory needs sufficient retail demand so that gross sales adequately cover fixed operating expenses. In general, this means that a 2-machine factory needs three retail shops or 4-5 small kiosks to be profitable. The total cost of such an operation is around 40,000 for the basic plant and a total of about 85,000 for the entire operation including machinery for the three shops but not decor. So, we think a minimum requirement is that the owner has a solid business background and a liquid net worth of at least 150-200,000 Euro. This does not mean you will have to spend that much!

How to Get Started

One must think of the ice cream business as a sort of a machine that turns ingredients into money. Like every machine, all of its parts are required. Your money machine consists of making your product, then displaying, marketing and selling it. There are two ways to do this: open an ice cream kiosk, shop (gelateria) or small restaurant or open a small gelato factory with several shops and outlets.

The Gelateria
A gelateria is a classic part of the Italian cities during the summer. In northern Italy they often close during the winter. A gelateria can be a take-out stand like the classic Italian one above, or it can be an ice cream shop with tables and chairs or a kiosk. Opening a kiosk: A kiosk of about 10-16 sq. m is an excellent way to get started. It requires much less investment than a shop and if the location turns out to be not so good, you can move. If you open in a mall sometimes the landlord will let you move to a better location if the first one does not work out. You can open 2-3 kiosks for the cost of a single shop and that increases your exposure. All of the machines in a kiosk are hard assets and if things dont work out you can sell them. When you look for kiosk sites, Take photos standing in the middle of the proposed location, so you will have a line-ofsight record of the surroundings. Be sure the landlord is cooperative. If you ask him about things like displaying signs and flags, handing out promotions, having raffles and you hear a lot of Nos move on.
Our standard (smallest) kiosk. We have a variety of larger layout plans available.

The basic equipment required is: display freezer cash register storage freezer cash counter cabinet-work counter cone maker

Of course you can also have a slush machine, a crepe maker and even a soft serve machine if you have the space. The ice cream making equipment can be located on site (in a slightly larger space) of elsewhere.

Think of where you will place your display. Fist, how many cones do you need to sell to break even? If 5% of all passers bye during the day make a purchase, how many passers bye are needed? Work bacjkwards from your break-even cost to find out. Stand at the proposed location at peak hours, 11:30-2pm and 5:50-8pm and count the people. At least 300/hour must pass bye. Lets say you need to sell a minimum of 150 cones per day to make a profit. So, if 5% (for example) of the passers-bye buy ice cream you need at least 3,000 people passing you shop every day to succeed. Keep in mind that even a few meters off the main walkway is probably too far. First floors are best and top floors are worst. Food courts are often disappointing. Ice cream is an impulse food. Shoppers usually decide to buy when they see your exhibit, not when they are hungry for ice cream. Location: Since gelato is an artisan product, made by hand, it does best in highly targeted locations where people can afford gourmet cuisine. Areas surrounded by office buildings, banks and close to upscale shopping are good. Since a shop is larger than a kiosk it must attract more customers and that means offering a wider variety of products. Time and again, small shops offering a light food menu, cookies, cakes and ice cream are solid winners. In most cases simple food with a good sauce and nice presentation makes people happy. This is a particularly good formula for airports. If you are considering opening a shop larger than about 20 s.m. sales improve if your product line broadens to include a light food menu. This might include sandwiches, spaghetti and food cooked off site and reheated for consumption. The shop below is about 40 sq. meters and sells a menu of ice cream, ice cream cakes and rolls, spaghetti, salads, sandwiches, salads plus cakes, pastries and drinks. In a shop of 30-40 s.m. you can manufacture gelato right in front of the customers. The advantage of doing this is that ice cream manufacture is fun to watch and becomes part of your marketing technique. Also, making gelato on-site is easier to manage and has no factory overhead or transportation costs. The disadvantage is that output capacity is usually just sufficient for the shop and maybe a few kiosks. The minimum equipment to manufacture ice cream in a shop is a 6 L batch freezer and a very cold chest freezer or (better) a blast freezer. In order to sell the ice cream you need a display freezer. The prices below are not a quotation. They just give you some idea of costs. 6L air cooled 220v batch machine 2 half-door -30C blast freezer Cone maker 16 tray display freezer Startup ingredients TOTAL
(this is not a quotation)

6,100 (Euro) 2,980 400 5,300 4,000 18,780

You will be able to produce 1 tub (4.6 Liters) every 15 minutes including extrusion time. You will also need some a digital scale, a mixer and some hand tools. Of course this price does not include the retail decor.

Important Elements in Retailing

Everyone loves ice creamtheres lots of it around and many people dream of making and selling it. Its a wonderful business with a lot of room for creative expression and after all, one expresses love for people thru food. But because ice cream is so popular, the market is usually saturated and newcomers have to fight their way in. I should knowwe own an ice cream business in Bangkok, possibly the most over-saturated ice cream market in the world!

One starts off with the ice cream dream, floating on a cloud. First, there is all that gorgeous ice creamsinfully luscious and you get to strut around in your chefs uniform. Then, adoring customers tell you how wonderful your products are. Then business drops off and you discover that the competition took all your good ideas and did better with them than you! Soon, you realize that you are in a competitive business similar to all businesses. The guy selling shoes has the same problems as you. Listen to him, substitute the words ice cream for shoes, and you will hear yourself talking! Having helped hundreds of people get into the ice cream business, we are constantly reminded about how different we see the road to success compared to new ice cream entrepreneurs. Almost always the first thing newcomers ask about is how to make ice cream and how much money they can make. We think the right question is: how do I succeed in the business. One thing is certain: Its easy to make gelato, so do not focus on this when you start thinking about entering the business. 90% of our customers exhaust themselves considering which machines to buy and EXACTLY how much profit they can make per scoop. This is important before committing money but it is the least important thing in the beginning. Relax! You WILL learn how to make gelato, which is particularly easy using our ingredients but certainly not difficult no matter whose products you use. But making great gelato is different from making money. If you think that by making terrific ice cream the world will beat a path to your door, get your bankruptcy documents ready now. The world is full of ice cream and quality alone will not beat the competition. What you really need to know before devoting yourself to gelato manufacture is: how will you SELL your gelato. Ice Cream is Entertainment: An important thing to remember is that ice cream may be food but no-one buys it because they are hungry. They buy it for entertainment. There is a walking street in the city of Pattaya (Thailand) which is very exclusive and the rent is sky high. The street is jammed with tourists every night. There are a number of ice cream shops on this street, some of them very elaborate and one can only guess how much key money they paid to get in, how much their shops cost, how much rent they pay, the cost of their overhead and whether they are actually making money even though they have many customers. But there is ONE operator who is unquestionably the king when it comes to profit as a return on investment. It is a husband and wife team that doesnt even have a shop. They just have a dinky little freezer out on the street and they sell Turkish ice cream. They have no neon sign. They have no fancy graphics. And yet, their shop, if you could even call it that, is always surrounded by a huge crown, eager to buy their (terrible) ice cream. Why? The couple are dressed in Turkish costume. The man has a constant friendly banter. Most important, he tosses the ice cream into the air and his wife catches it in a cup. In other words, this couple has learned the most important lesson of all: ice cream is not food, it is entertainment. There is another shop on this same street that is dying. The brand is international and popular. Their ice cream is quite good. They spent a ton of money on their shop, but no-one ever goes in. Why? The designer of the shop thought it would be attractive to have the in tables in front, on a patio. The patio is made of dark wood and it is dimly lit, probably because the designer thought an intimate atmosphere would be good. But the result is a front as dark as a cave. This might be OK for a restaurant or a bar but NOT an ice cream shop! The shop itself is in the back. It is impossible to see the ice cream or in fact anything in the shop because it is far from the street. So, the designer violated Rule Number 1: Stick the Ice Cream in Their Face. You see it, you want it. You dont see it . . . Furthermore the interior of the shop has been done in aquamarine. That is a very lovely color but it is a cool color and food shops should always be done in warm colors as that excites people to eat. It does not matter if the food is cold food! Most important, it is true that the front sign tells you ice cream is sold inside but other than that one has not a clue about the product. If the owners of this shop dont wake up pretty soon and do a complete renovation they will be out of business. We always smile when people ask, How much can I make? Of course we always come up with charts and graphs but one thing is certain: you will be a success if you sell a lot and a failure if not. If you can sell a scoop for 4-6X the cost of ingredients you will probably do OK. We can certainly tell you the profit per scoop, how many scoops optimize fixed operating expenses, etc. But when it comes to money, ice cream is indeed a food, with a relatively short profit margin like all food and the success in the business relies on volume.

Location
The four most important things in the ice cream business are: location, location, location--and I forget the other one. Screw up here and your business will die. A location mistake of even a few meters can mean the difference between success and failure. A shop just around the corner from where the action is, is a shop on the moon. Here is a quotation from our eBook, Startup and Stay up in Ice Cream: Here in Bangkok there is a tourist walking street named Kao San Road. To have a shop on that street is like owning a money printing press, but one gelato kiosk died. It was in a perfect spot, separated from the street only by a sidewalk. Everything seemed perfect but there was a catch. The display freezer was not on the sidewalk at eye level, it was on a step and the case was just high enough so the tourists could not see the ice cream as they passed byeso they passed by. Conclusion: the step was the wrong location. What could this owner have done to save himself? We would have bought a huge flat screen and focused a video cam on the ice cream. Every time the scooping girl scooped, everyone on the street would have seen that and also seen the gorgeous ice cream inside much bigger than life. In other words, we would have added entertainment. The difference between a good location and a bad one may be just a few meters. We had a friend who called and was excited because he thought he had the perfect location for an ice cream kiosk. It was on the first floor of a mall (very good), right in front of the door (very good) and at a main walkway intersection (very good). But when we got there we immediately told him Dont do it! Why? Everything he told us was true but he omitted a few things. The big one was he didnt tell me about the column. It was a large column. It hid the shop from the people entering and also the people approaching from the left on the main walkway. And, to the left of the column on the main walkway was a kiosk with a big sign that further hid his location from that direction. The people approaching from the right had to pass a long line of confection and dessert stands that were the competition. They were in larger spaces and had better opportunities to market. Last but not least, the walkway where my friend would go was a dead end. He ignored my advice. He lasted two months.

Do Your Homework
Why re-reinvent the wheel? Drive around town and see what the competition is doing. If a shop is successful, copy what you like about it. Stand around at different times and find out how many people go in. Once you know that, go to your proposed location and see if you have at least equal foot traffic. If not. . . . Look in the window of the competition and see what the customers are eating. Get a copy their menu and look at what the sell and the price. Look at the color schemes and dcor. See how the waitresses are dressed. Go in and see how the food is presented. Buy something. Be friendly. Probe the cashier for information indirectly by starting a friendly conversation. Wow, nice shopbeen busy? Do you like it here, etc. A chat with the scooping girls who are usually a bit naive can often get huge amounts of information, greatly aiding you in your research. The ice cream business is lots of fun, you can make good money in it and have the added pleasure of having many people tell you how much they enjoy your stuff. But getting from here to there requires more than dreams. It requires unending determination and doing your homework. You can learn lot more from our eBook or (better) by taking our training course.

Leasing
Lease cost is important and you can fail because of excessive rent but on the other hand upscale malls, walking streets and prime locations obviously rent for premium price because they make more money. People who go into up-scale malls know they have to pay more---and gelato is an upscale, premium product. Thinking of leasing in a high rent space? Ask the people in the surrounding shops how they are doing. Ask many questions.

But, do not be lured into upper class malls that are really better suited for something like a jewelry store, which may be a success making just one sale a day. They can get buy with low foot traffic if the few passers-bye are rich. An ice cream shop has the opposite characteristics. Relative to a jewelry store, an ice cream shop has inexpensive inventory, low ticket price, may require space for seating and needs hundreds of sales per day to prosper. Location in a mall: We always urge our startups to try and get a kiosk into a mall. The reason is that a kiosk is a cheap startup and a mall is prime territory if the location in it is right. If you dont do well in your first location you may be able to move. If everything fails you can load the kiosk onto a truck and move. In malls, the first floor is prime space for gelato, near entrances, escalators and main walkway intersections are best. Near or in food courts is only good if the people in your country regularly eat desserts. If not the food court may not be a good area although locations in or near take-away food may be good, especially if there is seating. Why? People who are buying food to take out are induced by the food to become hungry but they are going to eat later (take out), so maybe they will eat an ice cream now, Location elsewhere: First, if you open on a street where most of the shops close at days end, it is likely that the street will be deserted at night, robbing you of one of your most lucrative periods. Check out the action at night. If the location has foot traffic count it. Do not assume anything. Look at the passers bye. I actually score them based on dress, attempting to determine how many can afford our products. Do they look affluent enough to buy gelato? For Women: nice hair, jewelry, nice shoes, nice pocket book, make-up count. Do they have a nice watch? It does not mater if it is fake. They bought it to look upscale and that is what counts. People who look like workers are usually habituated to low-priced ice cream. They dont want to spend for quality. If there is little foot traffic passing your location, can the location be seen easily from the street? Drivers have to get your marketing message in 2 seconds, no more. That is how long it takes to pass your location at 40 km/hour. Do not fall in love with beautiful places. The beauty is only useful if all the other elements of your requirements fit. People often lease beautiful places only to find that the beauty does not turn into profits.

Profit Ratio
Cost of Ingredients: The retail ingredient cost of a scoop using the powdered milk, is about 0.18 per 65 gr. (not including freight or duty) for the powdered milk base. Price does not include freight or duty. That cost decreases depending on how much ingredients you buy. At typical 15% discount means a scoop would cost 0.126. It can go down to as little as 0.10. And what a surprisethe more you buy the less you pay! If fresh milk is inexpensive in your country you should be able to make further savings by using the fresh milk base. Profits: a typical bag of powdered milk mix makes plus 150 gr. heavy whipping cream makes about 4.6 liters of ice cream which weights about 3.3 Kg. A typical scoop is about 60 grams. So you get about 50 scoops from a tub. Once your sales volume increases, ingredient costs go down. A 1-ton order gets a 40% discount. We ship 20 containers everywhere. Due to global economic conditions container costs are now very cheap. Over time you will learn to make many of your own flavors (pastes), significantly cutting costs but we strongly recommend you do not try to make your own base as it is inexpensive and contains many ingredients. Synopsis: Gelato manufacture seems more complicated that it really is. After a short amount of training we can get your whole factory going. There are many advantages to become a franchisee. But in exchange you have to buy ingredients from us for two years. Manufacturing ice cream is a craft but selling it is a business. Marketing and promotion play a larger roll in selling anything than having the best product.

Starting a Small Gelato Factory

Small Gelato factory: The advantage of opening a small gelato factory is that you can rent in an inexpensive industrial space or maybe even a house or a garage and use equipment with considerable capacity capable of supporting many kiosks, restaurants and hotels. But, you will absolutely need at least three retail outlets selling your products to cover the fixed operating expenses of the factory. Retail Outlets: A factory needs sufficient distribution to break even. That usually means that you have to open 2-4 outlets of some kind, in order to sell sufficient product to break even but more importantly to create sufficient public exposure to encourage other retailers to buy your product. Do not forget to build the retail outlets into your business plan. If you are a franchisee good way to increase sales is to develop retail franchisees of your own. We (the parent company) are very god at finding people interested in opening retail shops and we receive many inquiries from all over the world about this. The ice cream manufacturing machinery for a small factory will cost about 40-50,000 including two batch freezers, a pasteurizer, blast freezer, chiller and display freezer. A gelato factory usually uses water-cooled, 3phase machines. They are less expensive and much more efficient than air-cooled but you need a chiller to produce cold cooling water. A gelato factory, consisting of two batch machines, a large blast freezer and a pasteurizer can produce almost a ton of ice cream per day, an astonishing amount. Two machines are best because of sudden demands from hotels and parties. Also two provides security in case one breaks down. A small factory can operate in a surprisingly small space such as a spare bedroom or garage. You will find more detailed information in our article base in the file titled Small Gelato Factory. A 2machine water cooled factory can produce about 900L/day, enough to service 20-25 kiosks plus hotels. Office: Requires an office big enough for a desk, a telephone, internet, a computer and other equipment. Power: Minimum of 70 amps 3 phase plus 50 amps 220v/1 Air Conditioning: factory: 30,000 BTU water cooled, 40-50,000 air cooled equipment. Wateris the main ingredient of our gelato. It must be tasteless and odorless with a low bacterial count. Personnel: 1 manager/head cook, two factory workers and a delivery team. Gelato is labor intensive craft and therefore well-suited for countries where labor is cheap. A factory of this size should have no trouble supplying 5-10 restaurants plus other wholesale buyers. Regarding ingredients, you should start with our powdered milk base, which does not require buying a pasteurizer. You can buy one later and you can also consider switching to the fresh milk base if you have the space. If you become a franchisee we send private newsletters to teach you how to make fruit pastes, which greatly cuts cost.

Advantages of a small gelato factory compared to a shop: Lower rent than retail sales space Faster production rate Higher output- more than 1-ton per day Ability to service many shops, kiosks, hotels and restaurants Permits quick development of an area beating the competition to it.

Disadvantages of a factory compared to a shop Manufacturing costs associated with overhead and salaries Requires more retail outlets to be profitable Requires a marketing plan and distribution system

Our Pattaya, Thailand manufacturing franchisee is a classic example. Two brothers opened a single kiosk and bought finished ice cream from us for about six months. Then they opened a second kiosk and built a factory with a second-story apartment where they lived. After that they opened a third kiosk. They then found three retail customers who opened three franchise kiosks. They also attended several food trade shows where they acquired several hotels as clients. Now they need to expand their factory. None of this would have been possible if they had a small machine in their kiosk. Cash reserve: If you are opening a factory you should have money reserved for promotion. Very few ice cream businesses fail because of bad ice cream. They fail because of inadequate promotion.

A Brief Introduction to Making Ice Cream

The most common ice cream made by the small manufacturer is called gelato, which means ice cream in Italian. It is a low-fat product made mostly with milk whereas other ice creams are higher in fat, made with cream. Overview of gelato manufacture: Gelato begins its life as a mix. The mix has only a slightly, sweet, milky flavor. It consists of solids (called the base) and water. The solids usually represent 34-38% of the total mix weight. The rest is water. The solids consist of milk solids, non fat (MSNF), fat (butterfat and/or vegetable fat), table and corn sugar and a small amount of stabilizer/emulsifier.

The mix is first pasteurized and then aged, meaning chilled for three or more hours, a process which makes the ice cream creamier. The mix is then poured into a batch machine and flavor is added. About 15 minutes later the mix has turned into very soft gelato, about the same temperature and texture as soft serve. After the ice cream is extruded from the machine it is decorated if in a tub or packed in a container. The next step is to freeze the gelato as hard as a rock as quickly as possible, to minimize ice crystal size growth. This is done in a blast freezer at -28 to -60C. Sorbets and sherbets are made the same way. Once the ice cream is completely frozen it can remain in storage for several months but usually is made on demand, not for inventory and therefore sold within a few days of manufacture. Ice cream is an extremely complex food. It is an emulsion of fats, oils water and sugar that are bonded together. It is also a foam, because air is trapped in it and it is also a matrix of ice crystals and sugars that are held in place by a stabilizer. The chemical bonds that do all this are weak, which is why ice cream can melt and separate if kept cold. Creating ice cream ingredients used to be something done in the home kitchen but modern manufacturing, where cost is an important factor is a sophisticated science. Most small operators prefer to purchase their ingredients from a supplier who must carefully balance cost and quality.

Butterfat is an important component of ice cream, contributing to its texture, taste and aroma. Butterfat plays an important role in bonding the dissimilar components of ice cream together. Butterfat consists of many triglycerides (different types of fat) which solidify at widely different temperatures. When ice cream mix is frozen some of the triglycerides remain liquid and some solidify, with every variation in between. This adds to complexity of taste, which is exciting. In the days before the health dangers of cholesterol and saturated fats were understood, some countries passed legislation requiring ice cream to contain not less than 10% butterfat. In countries where this law does not exist, many ice cream manufacturers use a combination of butterfat and vegetable oils to achieve the desired level of fat. This reduces both cost and health risks. Because gelato is low in fat it is stronger in flavor that commercial ice cream. It is higher in protein (good gelato has about 40% of the protein found in meat) and other solids so it freezes about 2-3C colder than commercial ice cream and is a very creamy semi-solid, much higher in milk solids and much lower in air than commercial ice cream.

A Few Important Terms

Several terms are used in the ice cream industry you should know: Milk solids non-fat (MSNF): also called serum solids. These are the non-liquid, non fat solids, as are found in powdered skim milk. Base: All of the solids used to make ice cream, including milk solids, sugars, fats and emulsifiers. Oils are considered solids. The mix: ice cream base including the liquids. Overrun: refers to the volume increase after the mix is made into ice cream. Overrun consists mainly of air but also includes expansion in volume of water that has been converted into ice. To calculate: (finish volume-start volume/start volume) x 100. Example 3L mix becomes 4L of ice cream: 4-3=1; 1/3 x 100= 33% overrun.

The Base
Gelato is made with a milk base also called white base. which provides body and texture. White base is made from milk, cream, vegetable fats, several sugars and emulsifier-stabilizers. The solids of the base are mixed with milk or water and pasteurized. The solids are about 35% of the mix. The rest is water.

Powdered or Fresh Milk Base

We sell a Powdered Milk base, which contains New Zealand powdered whole milk. Just add boiling water and cream. We also sell a fresh milk base (Fresh Milk Base) that contains no milk, cream or sugar. It is possible that in your country fresh milk is cheap. The advantage of the powdered milk is that it is easy for workers to use--you just mix it with boiling water. No pasteurizer is needed. Also, the powdered milk base does not require refrigeration as does fresh milk and the consistency of the product is always the same, which the customers like. The fresh milk base is preferred if fresh milk is cheap in your area. You also save on freight, duty and can sweeten as you wish. You will need a double boiler, pasteurizer or a combo machine that heats on top and makes ice cream underneath.

Sherbet Bases
Sherbets contain only 2% vegetable fat, to make them smoother and sorbets are really fruit-ices with no fat at all. Both bases are made th same as gelato but sorbets are so acidic from the high citrate and acid-fruit content that the fruit part is never heated. Bacteria cannot develop in such an acidic environment.

Sorbet Bases
Sorbets are also called fruit ices and contain no fat. Most of the liquid in them is from fruit and fruit juices. Because they entirely lack fat, they are quite tart and very refreshing. But, because the have no fat or protein they have no overrun and the small increase in volume is caused by the formation of ice. Sorbets are sold as is and also used as the base for fruit slurpies or slush drinks. The best quality slush drinks (also called graneta) are made from sorbet mix. Sorbets are tart because they are acidic from the fruit. They are so acidic that it is impossible for bacteria to reproduce in them. So, while the base can be pasteurized, the fruit is added later, to prevent heat from damaging the taste.

Other Bases
Soy ice cream is technically not ice cream but a frozen desert, because it contains no milk or cream. Our Soy-So Delicious! is made from soy powder and soy protein concentrate but it is otherwise similar to gelato and is made the same way. Soy-So Delicious is made without any animal ingredients. Sugar-free products have the table sugar replaced with something that does not significantly elevate blood glucose. A variety of substances have been used, such as saccharin, sapartame, sucralose, neotame, and acesulfame potassium. We use Maltitole, which is made from corn starch or cassava. Our Maltitole sweetened products taste the same as sugar-sweetened products but have 40% less calories and do not raise blood glucose levels as much as table sugar. Some manufacturers use Fructose, the sweetest of all corn sugars. This is a true sugar but the intense sweetness highly reduces the amount needed. Other natural sugaralcohols such as sorbitol and xylitol are sometimes used. Although classified as alcohol-sugars, they are actually not alcoholic and are halal. Making ice cream ingredients is a sophisticated food science but making ice cream from prepared ingredients is extremely simple.

Pasteurization
When pasteurization was invented in the 19th century its primary intent was to destroy harmful bacteria in various liquids. Pasteur was actually motivated to develop this process to stop the deterioration of wine caused by bacteria. Today pasteurization is still of critical importance to commercial ice cream manufacturers who buy raw milk. They add ingredients to the raw milk to create the ice cream mix, then pasteurize and homogenize it. This makes he ice cream, safe and very creamy in texture. But smaller manufacturers usually buy pasteurized, homogenized milk. Therefore, since the milk is already pasteurized, the legal requirement to pasteurize a second time falls into a gray area not covered by law. For the small operator, particularly those who use commercial packaged bases and sell their ice cream quickly there is relatively little risk of bacterial contamination. The reason is that commercial manufacturers use ingredients such as powdered milk, sugars and whey, which are virtually sterile when produced and then they are mechanically bagged. Commercial base-makers mix these materials mechanically and nothing is actually touched by people.

Today the pasteurizer plays a role in gelato manufacture quite different from its original intent. Today the main job of the pasteurizer (when making ice cream mix) is to combine it thoroughly, entrap maximum air and age the mix so that long chains of ingredients can be formed. This makes the mix more creamy. And of course it also pasteurizes! Although Louis Pasteur discovered the benefits of pasteurization in the 19th century, many otherwise knowledgeable people often misstate the temperature requirements to achieve pasteurization, which are different for various liquids. The most commonly used ice cream pasteurization process heats ice cream mix to at least 80C/175F for 1525 seconds or from 90C/194F for 3 seconds. This is called Hi-Temperature, Short Time Pasteurization (HTST). Powdered milk is actually almost sterile because it is manufactured at high temperatures. Therefore, like pasteurized milk, pasteurizing a powdered milk mix falls into a gray legal area. If you use our powdered milk mix, you start with water right out of the boiler, at about 98C and when the base is added the temperature drops to about 83C. Believe me, you would not want to stick you hand into this hot mix! In a pasteurizer the mix is usually heated to 83C and then cooled slowly over a period of an hour or more to +4C. So, in all these cases pasteurization is achieved. Another pasteurization approach, called Batch Pasteurization heats to 69C for 30 minutes. This is often used for cream and custard mixes to better preserve the aroma. Pasteurization greatly reduces the bacteria and mold count in the mix. But pasteurization does not sterilize. Some bacteria and mold spores survive, which is why pasteurized milk eventually spoils even if it is not opened. Most modern batch pasteurizers also age. This means that after they heat to 83C, they chill to +4C, allowing the components of the mix to bond. This makes the ice cream creamier. A high-speed beater drives air into the mix during chilling and this improves lightness and texture. Powdered milk base is instantly pasteurized when poured into boiling water. If fresh milk is used it is heated in a pasteurizer or double boiler. The resulting thick liquid is called--what a surprise--the mix. After mixing, the mix is chilled, then poured into a batch freezer which turns the mix into gelato in 8-18 minutes. Most modern pasteurizers are also agers, meaning that once pasteurization temperature is achieved, a refrigeration compressor chills the mix to +4C and keeps it there until it is used. The beating and mixing that go on during the pasteurization-aging process injects the maximum amount of air into the mix which is then trapped by the emulsifier. The other ingredients have an excellent opportunity to crystallized and bond. This makes the mix noticeably creamier. Many startup ice cream entrepreneurs begin operations using our powdered milk base, using an electric kettle or tea warmer to deliver boiling water. When the business gets to the point where you are turning out several hundred liters or more per day of ice cream, using the teak kettle becomes extremely annoying. It is then time to consider buying a pasteurizer-ager.

Homogenization
Homogenizing is a method of forcing heated raw milk thru a narrow orifice at high pressure. This ruptures the fat membrane, which cannot reform. This disburses the fat thru the liquid and it cannot separate. Commercial ice cream manufacturers always homogenize because (1) they start with raw milk and (2) their product may sit around for many months. Over time un-homogenized fat would migrate to the surface and make it greasy. But gelato makers using raw milk make and sell their product within a few days. They do not have to worry about this. On the other hand, buying raw milk really obliges you to fat test, a complicated and/or expensive process. Dairies have a tremendous temptation to skim a bit of cream off of raw milk. If the milkman realizes you do not fat test he is tremendously tempted to skim a bit of cream. Since milk is only about 3.4% butterfat, or 34 grams/liter, you can see that skimming even 4 grams, a tablespoon, would reduce the butterfat content 10%. Therefore, manufacturers who buy raw milk have to institute a testing program to be sure they are not cheated.

Batch Freezing
The batch freezer is a simple machine consisting of a compressor, which drives heat out of the refrigerant gas, turning it into a liquid. The gas is then delivered to the space between the double walled freezing chamber (drum), where it expands and gets very cold. Inside the drum is a beater assembly called the dasher. The blades of the dasher are turned by a huge motor. The motor has to be huge because more and more force is required to turn the dasher as the ice cream gets hard. The dasher scrapes the ice cream off the chamber walls and tumbles it, forcing air into the mix. As the mix hardens it expands. The expansion is partially caused by the freezing process and partially by the introduction of air. If one liter of mix becomes two liters of ice cream it contains 50% air but in the trade we say 100% overrun. You can expect 60% overrun from our products but most gelato has 35% overrun. Overrun is important for two reasons. Without it the mix would freeze as hard as ice and be inedible. Also, the air increases the bulk, so a scoop can be made much larger without increasing the weight. In other words, you get to sell air for the price of ice cream. I LOVE this business! The entire process of turning the mix into ice cream is controlled by a circuit board that operates relays called contactors. In the relay panel are several protective relays that act like circuit breakers. These are set at the factory but usually require adjusting at your site. Normally the machines shut down and appear to break until the relays are properly adjusted. Ice cream is made by removing heat from the mix. The heat has to go somewhere. In air cooled machines the hot refrigerant gas passes thru a radiator cooled with blowers, just like the radiator of a car. But air cooled machines have to operate in a 24C environment so air conditioning is usually required. In a water cooled machine chilled water circulates around the hot gas tubes a process called heat exchange. Water cooling is about 45% more efficient than air cooling so a batch is made much faster. But water cooling usually requires chilled cooling water. So, a chiller is often required if the city water is not cold.

Blast Freezing
Blast Freezing: Gelato is extruded from a batch freezer at about -6C. At this temperature considerable water remains unfrozen, but it is bonded to the other ingredients by the emulsifier. Without rapid freezing the ingredients would separate. To prevent the water from separating and forming large ice crystals (and become coarse). It must be frozen as quickly as possible. This is the reason the finished product is chilled in a blast freezer at temperatures for -28 to -60C. After it is frozen as hard as cement in the blast freezer the product is stabilized. It can be stored or placed in a display freezer at -18C. At this temperature it is easy to scoop. Since gelato freezes about 2C lower that commercial ice cream, so special gelato freezers that chill to at least -20C are needed. If a freezer is rated to freeze to -20c, it will maintain -18. But if a freezer is rated to -18C, it will just reach 15-16C, too warm for gelato. Sometimes, because of power failures, gelato melts. It should never be re-frozen but it can be reprocessed by running it thru the batch freezing process.

Retail Display
Ice cream stored in a blast freezer is so hard it is often impossible to drive a spoon into it. Sometimes to get a sample we have to use a screwdriver and hammer! This extreme cold arrests ice formation and makes it transportable without damaging the finish. Once it reaches the display freezer the ice cream warms to about 18C. The difference between too soft ice cream and too hard ice cream is only about 5 degrees. The temperature controller in the display freezer is usually not sensitive enough to give you the perfect desired texture, so it has to be adjusted one degree at a time. People often ask, How long will ice cream stay fresh? Technically packaged ice cream stored at -25C will last a year. In reality, you make it, put in on display the next day and it should be sold within a few days, far less time than it takes to spoil. If you have a flavor that sells very slowly, replace it with something else.

Mass Produced Ice Cream

Commercial ice cream is made in a continuous freezer that can produce 1,200-20,000 liters/hour. The continuous freezer is pressurized. The pressurized air benefits the process in a number of ways. It forces air into the finished product, making it lighter and cheaper. Ice crystals made under pressure are much smaller and more numerous than ice cream made in a batch freezer. Therefore most of the water in commercial ice cream is removed by turning it into ice. So, commercial ice cream is dryer and therefore more solid than gelato. Since ice cream made in a continuous freezer is pressurized, once made it can be forced downstream thru pipes into packaging machines, cone makers or ice cream sandwich machines. Since commercial manufacturers can force a great deal of air into their ice cream, they have to add more fat to give body and make the customer feel satisfied. The fat content of premium commercial ice cream is about 18% but chocolate, nuts and some other flavorings can result in a fat content above 25%. So, commercial ice cream is cheaper than gelato but not very healthy. The highly automated continuous system greatly reduces the cost of manufacture. A disadvantage of the continuous process is its huge setup cost and the need for an expensive and very extensive marketing and distributing system.

Flavors
Ice cream base is kind of bland and uninteresting. It is the flavorings that make ice cream exciting. Flavor: Some flavors such as chocolate are included in the base, but most are added to the mix after it is running in the batch freezer. Those flavors are called pastes and are almost as thick as jelly. They can be made from fruit, sugars, natural flavors and aromas. They can also be made from nuts ground into paste. Some are extracts such as vanilla, almond or coffee. Flavor can be added to the mix in the batch freezer or swirled in as the base comes out of the machine. Some flavors can be used in all frozen desserts and some are specialized. Fruit flavors: Real fruit, pulp, etc. mixed with a variety of sugars are reduced in volume about 30% by slow warming at 60-70C. Some people think making a premium fruit pasts is simple, like making jelly, but this is not true. A complex process of acidification with citrate such as lemon juice creates a variety of new sugars that bond with the fruit, greatly intensifying the flavor. Then more flavorings and natural aromas are added. Finding the right aroma and flavor essence is every ice cream manufacturers deep secrete. The manufacturers are extremely secretive, more like alchemists than chefs. The acidic nature of fruit pastes helps preserve them and the long low temperature heating process pasteurizes them. Vanilla is probably the most expensive flavor by weight and also the most popular of the ice cream flavors. Natural vanilla consists of about 250 different flavor substances, the main one being vanillin. Good natural vanilla is expensive because it the seed pod of an orchid, not easily grown and also the flavor is developed by slow curing. Artificial vanillin is manufactured from various plant fibers and is cheap but since it lacks the other 249 flavors it tastes flat. Normally a maximum of 25% vanillin can be used to substitute for natural vanilla in ice cream but not more. The vanilla flavor is extracted fro the seed pods using alcohol. Any extract, including vanilla implies an alcohol content of 35%. However, the heating process used to make vanilla paste drives off all the alcohol. Vanilla is also sold as a powder, meaning vanilla extract has been mixed with glucose powder and the alcohol is evaporated. In both cases the resulting product is halal, meaning it can be consumed by Moslems. Chocolate is the second most popular flavor of ice cream. It is made from fat-reduced cocoa beans. Defatting results in a 12-15% fat content, which must be accounted-for when calculating the content of the mix. Otherwise the ice cream ends up being very fatty and somewhat gluey. Chocolate releases pleasure endorphins in the brain and also contains caffeine and other stimulants. Chocolate is highly addictive. Giving up ones after dinner chocolate can be as difficult as giving up smoking. Whiskey flavors: Since alcohol lowers the freezing point of ice cream and whiskey is expensive, actual whiskey is almost never used to make whiskey flavored ice cream. For example, Rum-raisin flavor has no alcohol whatsoever in it and is not made from rum. It is in fact halal. On the other hand, raisins are often soaked for weeks in rum and then used in rum-raisin ice cream. So, ironically, it is the raisin, not the rum flavor which contains alcohol.

On the other hand, some specialty manufacturers do produce a whiskey ice cream using about 6% real whiskey. In most cases they reduce the alcohol content by warming. They also have to use an artificial stabilizer, carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC) because natural stabilizers are rendered ineffective in the presence of alcohol.

Other Flavors
Companies that call themselves all natural cannot use synthetic flavors but often use what are technically termed artificial. These are mimics, identical to natural flavors in their molecular structure and cannot be detected by normal testing. For example, vanillin is the artificial mimic of the main flavor component in real vanilla. President Bush did the US confection industry a big favor by allowing them to call vanillin, made from wood pulp, natural because it is an identical mimic. But the EU did not buy this and still requires their separate listing as an ingredient. Huge quantities of synthetic flavors are used in all kinds of foods and drinks. People who want all-natural ingredients try to avoid them but if they were actually poisonous we would all probably be dead by now, so many are used. Nevertheless, synthetic flavors have one overwhelming negative: they taste synthetic. And that is why premium gelato makers do not use them.

Aromas
Since ice cream is a frozen product it has no smell. Any smell from the product before consumption comes from the tiny film of melted ice cream on the surface of the scoop. Since aroma is an important part of the pleasure of food, this creates a problem. Premium ice cream manufacturers solve this problem by adding aromas made from distillates or extractions of natural flavors or by buying artificial natural flavor mimics. In both cases the aroma is added to the paste. The usual does is 1-3 gr./L. When the ice cream melts in the mouth the aroma is released and enters the nose thru the nasal pharynx. Customers do not realize they are smelling the ice cream but now that you know this you will detect aroma in premium pastes when you taste the ice cream. Aromas are quite expensive and only premium paste manufacturers use it. It adds about 3% to the manufacturing cost which is one of the many reasons why you pay more for premium pastes. Aromas are extremely concentrated and the banana oil is considered flammable, so shipment by special air couriers is fantastically expensive. Sea freight requires shipment of at least several cubic meters of freight, so only large manufacturers can afford to buy aromas.

About Display Freezers

There are good display freezers and also a lot of really lousy ones and unless you are really knowledgeable it is easy to get burned.

Before shopping for a display freezer I really recommend you buy my eBook, Startup and Stay Up in Ice Cream. It has a chapter about how to tell the good display freezers from the bad. As a very minimum, remember that gelato freezes 2-3C colder than commercial ice cream and the case you buy MUST chill to at least -20C.

Ventilated vs Chest/Static Freezers

Real display freezers are ventilated. They contain blowers and temperature controllers. Ours are self defrosting and open from the front for cleaning. The ones with top-opening front glass are more expensive than those which open from the bottom because the top hinge is expensive. The ones with all-thermalinsulated glass are more expensive than those with tempered glass. Upper-end display freezers have thermal-insulated glass fronts and sides. This is a double layer of glass with a vacuum in between. This keeps the glass from frosting. In humid climates even thermally insulated glass can frost on the inside but the frost goes away. Thermally insulated glass cases are more efficient because the glass keeps the heat out. Less expensive cases use 7-10mm safety glass. This is like auto window glass. It may accumulate moisture on the outside of the case, especially in poorly air conditioned spaces. But the moisture is easy to clean and actually promotes cleaning because the water is already present. The least expensive cases have acrylic panels instead of glass. They are Ok but one must be extremely careful to clean them only with a soft cloth, never a paper towel. If the plastic becomes dull it cannot be easily polished. Smaller freezers usually run on household current. Once cases get wider than about 180 cm they either require 3-phase compressors or they have two household voltage compressors which increases the price of the case. Household compressors are quieter than 3-phase but are not a practical power supply for larger compressors. Cases with two compressors actually require that both compressors function. They cannot keep ice cream cold if one compressor fails, but the two compressors have a longer life than a single one. Display cases are designed for selling, not efficiency. They are inefficient at holding the cold. Some retailers remove the ice cream from the case at night and put it in a chest freezer. You can also improve the efficiency of the display freezer over night by covering the front glass and back door with a heavy quilt. For health/safety reasons display cases have to be shut down about once a week, allowed to defrost, then be washed and finally sprayed inside with alcohol. The freezer is then run immediately so that the blowers circulate the alcohol vapor. Within about 15 minutes the alcohol is gone and you can add the ice cream.

Chest or Static Freezers

A passive (static or chest) freezer is an ice box. They have no blowers and usually require manual defrosting although some have electric wire defrost to keep ice off the walls. Be sure you know what you are buying. They are therefore much simpler and cheaper. Since they are a closed box, they hold cold really well, even outside in the shade. But because they do not have blowers the cold air sits in them like water in a tank. The ice cream has to be kept a bit lower to be covered by the cold air, so they do not display as well as ventilated freezers. Most static freezers are used for self-serve, as you see in a 7-11. Some have been modified so that there is a front display glass. This tells the customer that they will be served as opposed to self-serve.

Transporting Ice Cream

Ice cream straight from the blast freezer is the equivalent of a giant ice cube and can be transported up to 30 minutes in a corrugated cardboard box. Beyond that rang dry ice is required. A urethane chest with a few KG of dry ice will provide up to 8 hours of cold. If you do not have dry ice, a mixture of ice and salt will keep your ice cream cold for a few hours. Ice/salt can maintain about -18 until the ice melts.

Ice Cream Business Tips

Making ice cream is a lot of fun and very satisfying. Also, if you make a good product, many people will compliment you on it. But business is not about making. Ice cream is about MAKING MONEY! The best ice cream in the world is not worth much if you cant sell it. Success has to do with four things: 1. Having sufficient customers with money who will buy your products 2. Manufacturing a product at a marketable price 3. Marketing-creating a demand for what you make 4. Having a good retail location 5. Making the buying and eating of your products fun.

KNOW YOUR MARKET: Before you spend any money, examine your market. If there are no established competitors, be suspicious. Why not? What happened to them? It is better if other ice cream companies have established themselves. If they can make it, you can make it. If ice cream manufacturers have come and gonewhy? If there are none are you sure there is a market for premium ice cream?
Take a look in the freezer cases of the local supermarkets. Is there any premium ice cream there? And, what is its price? Can you make a profit if you sell yours for 20% more than what is in the store? If you dont like the answer, sell something else. Next, you have to look at the retail price of ice cream sold in shops, and then see how yours fits into the existing price structure. Can you can produce it cheaply enough to make a profit. In general regarding retail sales, a 6X markup over ingredient cost is good and a 4X markup isnt. Do your homework before spending money. Batch freezers make gelato. Gelato is a premium product, richer in milk solids and more in tense in flavor but about 15-20% more expensive than middle-bottom brands. It can only be sold where people can afford it. In general, the middle and upper-middle classes can afford it so you must be sure there are enough of them around to have success.

Understanding Your Product

Remember, You are not selling food, you are selling entertainment. Ice cream is about fun. And, even though you think you are selling ice cream it is only part of the fun. Your real product is a package of ice cream and ambiance. A combination of friendly service, the food and drink, innovative dcor, the color of the walls, even the right pictures on the walls all contribute to an atmosphere that promotes sales. There is a shop in Bangkok that makes for sure the worst ice cream in the world with a dinky little counter-top machine. They dont even know about emulsifiers and the ice cream is full of ice. But the shop is always full. Why because it is located in an old, gorgeous house with fantastic views and is surrounded by a deep, comforting silence, something one can hardly find in noisy Bangkok. People go there because the place makes them happy, not because they have great ice cream. The ice cream you sell is just one part of what makes them happy. That is why we make gelato beautiful and why we try so hard to create shops that are a pleasure to enter. Design and colors: It is easy to see that design and colors are very important because you will se so many wellconceived shops in every mall and most malls demand a rendering (architectural drawing of your plan) before allowing you to proceed. In general well lit, clean set-ups are with light warm-colored walls and modern design do well or making it look like an old-fashioned ice cream shop do well. If you are not strong in this area hire someone who is and dont let your ego talk you out of getting professional advice. Product flow: Every process that delivers product to your customers requires a flow chart, so that they are served quickly and cheerfully. Failure to do this usually results in wasted labor and slow service. A layout that saves your employees even one step is important because that one step is repeated many times. Management: Kiosks do not require on-site managers but larger spaces do. When you interview for managers look for people who show up well dressed (not necessarily in a suit) and have friendly out-going personalities. Their job is to keep things running but making the customers happy is a real skill and most important. Keep in mind that you may be selling food but entertainment and ambiance make or break your operation. Franchising: Your shop or restaurant is your baby, a product of your imagination. Your ego tells you it is an extension of yourself but it is not! It is a place to make money. It is OK to be happy when people tell you how

wonderful your shop is and that ice cream is delicious but you are not in business for compliments. Creating a shop name is a lot of fun and you may even name it after yourself but the power of branding and partnering with a larger company greatly improves your chances of success.

What Size Shop to Open?

THE KIOSK As a rule-of-thumb, a kiosk is about 9-12 s.m. (12=40 sq.ft) and can sell ice cream in cones or cups, cookies, and other small packaged treats. The advantage of a kiosk is that the rent is low because the space is small and there is not much training for the employees. Equipment and machinery required are minimal (but not cheap). A kiosk is easy to maintain, the limited number of salable items makes theft control easy and the required supervision is light. Relocation: In a mall, if you discover that you are in the wrong pot you can move from one location in to another. If you were smart and got an escape clause in your leasing Agreement, you can just move out. You can close a kiosk at night and open in a new location in the morning. In the right spot a kiosk is a real money maker. And, what other kind of business or investment could you buy for the price of a kiosk? THE SMALL SHOP is about 20 s.m. (65 sq. ft) and has seating, suggesting sundaes, a variety of cakes and cookies but also a small light food line of 3-4 dishes, such as sandwiches, food like spaghetti, soups, stews that can be made off premises and heated in the microwave. The food broadens your product line and attracts people who want to eat something before eating ice cream. It also appeals to people who want a quick, light meal and, since it is light they may want ice cream afterward. This is an advantage over a kiosk. THE SMALL RESTAURANT is about 45 s.m. (147 sq. ft) requires a 20-flavor display freezer, a cake case, an upright ice cream cake and roll freezer that also holds cold dishes and mugs. A glass-door refrigerator holds drinks and ingredients that require refrigeration. A coffee machine is worthwhile and good coffee sells. Get a slush machine. You need a cake and pastry line and can show models of your light food line in the cake case. You should have a menu of 8-10 meal selections. Your small restaurant may have a kitchen but if space is at a premium most entres can be made off premises and reheated. In countries where pizza or gyro sandwiches are popular these are nice additions. You can also make crepes and flaming deserts. In addition to the right location, skills in marketing, advertising and knowledge of restaurant management are essential. If you are not knowledgeable in these areas go to school or get books before starting.

Want to know more: check out www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu/icecream.html OR, BETTER YET, Download our eBook, Startup and Stay Up in Ice Cream.