Well – we are always eager to feature new Q&A times on here – so thanks for the great questions!
The ice cream business requires a ton of time & work. We finally got our business visas approved, but actually getting it up and running requires a bit more time & energy. Right now -- we have a tiny production site that is ready to go. There is a small kitchen, with all the machines we need to make our special dessert. We don't have a sit-down shop YET, but that would be a great by-product once the ice cream begins to make a profit. We decided to start small at first, which also helps with the amount of money we needed to invest up front.
We will launch (hopefully) in early June -- with about 8-10 flavors. We'd like to have seasonal ones too, but it’s hard to know what we can maintain at first. The basic flavors: vanilla/sweet cream, strawberry, coffee, almond, cookies & cream, banana, red rose tea -- those are the ones for sure. We are hoping to experiment with chocolate (hard to do well out here), melon, peanut butter, green tea, and a few seasonal ones like pumpkin, peppermint, pomegranate, peach/apricot....we will see. We have to get our recipes figured out....so those seasonal ones are still experimental. For each ingredient we have to get a supplier, which is hard out here!! We have to get paperwork, quality clearance, etc. More work than we thought!!
We also deliver! We are hoping to supply nice restaurants and cafés around the city – so we bought a delivery van! Justin made a Styrofoam cooler to go in the back – and we will deliver the ice cream buckets in the van. We still need to get our logo put on the side – but it’s a great mode of transportation! Justin is working on getting his drivers’ license already (which is a story in itself)!
