The year was 1988. I was in Florida at the time, working for Multi-Vest Options in Ft. Lauderdale, shortly after graduating from Florida State. The phone rang and my older brother John said…..”Neil, I bought an ice cream delivery truck and just shipped it to St. Thomas. I need help. I’ll pay you $250 a week and give you a share of the business.”

 

At the time, I was clearing about $175 a week, so it didn’t take long for me to quickly blurt out, “I’m in!” A little history…. We grew up in Puerto Rico. Our father moved there from Chicago in the sixties and started a successful direct marketing business. John did a few years in different stateside colleges but did not graduate. Instead, he took flying lessons and got his pilot’s license. He started a distribution business where he would fly fresh produce from Puerto Rico to the US Virgin Islands, The British Virgin Islands and further down the Lesser Antilles. My brother was obsessed with perfection and delivering the perfect product. I remember helping him one summer while I was still in college. We were sorting through cases of apples preparing to fly them to St. Lucia. John made me go through each and every apple in each and every case and remove the bad ones and replace them with good ones. I asked him why he was so worried about an apple having a bruise, especially if it was in the middle of the case. Who would know? He said that the best way to grow your business is to deliver a better than expected product and delight your customer each and every time. “Over deliver Neil, and they will keep calling you back”

 

All I could think of at the time was, my back hurts….when do we pack up and hit the beach? Needless to say, word got around fast and more and more customers wanted to buy product from that guy that flies in from Puerto Rico. The business flourished. But John only had one plane, and he could only carry so much produce. He started looking for a higher profit product. No, not “that”– although drugs were exactly what was going through each and every customs agent John had to face. They found it hard to believe that John was actually trying to build a business around flying produce. As crazy as it seems, he was doing exactly that.

 

Enter ice cream, a much more profitable product than produce!

 

John noticed that the ice cream on the supermarket shelves and ice cream parlors in these islands was almost always re-frozen. Horrible quality, at a high price. People accepted it and figured that this was the way ice cream was. Icy, grainy, sandy. He saw an opportunity and ran with it. He developed a system of double corrugated cardboard boxes lined with polystyrene (like the inside of your basic foam cooler). While inside the walk in freezer of the ice cream distributor in Puerto Rico, John packed and sealed the boxes to ensure that the tubs and pints remained rock solid. The flight was about an hour long, and John could get about 5 hours out of these boxes before the ice cream began to suffer. The 5 hours would give just enough time to get to the last account and deliver perfect product. Once done in the walk in freezer, he would pack the boxes in his van, head for the airport and take off for that day’s island. Upon landing, he would quickly rent a pick up truck, clear customs, load up the boxes and head out to sell his accounts, who had pre-ordered the product. I’m not making this up…..although it seems hard to believe that anyone would try to build a business around this concept. Once John tired of the constant every day rush to avoid “meltdown” he realized that he needed to buy a truck. That is when I got the call and moved to St. Thomas, the island with the most promise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

John continued to fly the product in, but we decided to concentrate on building the business on St. Thomas. The picture at the start of this post is of the two of us, John by the plane and me loading Haagen-Dazs bars into the truck. John would fly back to PR, and I would calmly go out and make deliveries. About a year later, my brother Michael joined the business. We bought another truck and Michael moved to St. Croix, to develop that market. I remember how John would always set goals and break-even points around the number of boxes we could sell in a given week. He would say things like, “when we get to 90 boxes a week, we’ll be making some decent money…..so we need to open some more accounts to get there”. All I can remember was thinking, boxes? Boxes? We need to start thinking in dollars and another way to grow this business. It didn’t take long for John to start thinking in the same terms. At this point, we were starting to move enough product to start buying it in Florida and shipping frozen containers down to the islands.

 

We built walk in freezers on both St. Thomas and St. Croix. Our suppliers (Haagen-Dazs and Dreyer’s/Edy’s) were very happy with our performance and John was given the rights to distribute the Dreyer’s/Edy’s line for “the big island” – Puerto Rico. He later added Ben & Jerry’s to the mix. By 1998, we had built a business with over 15 route trucks in Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and St. Croix. John and Michael are still actively managing the business today. In 2001, I started to get “island fever” and decided to move my family (wife Amy and two girls, Chelsea and Coco) to North Carolina where I began to develop TurnKeyParlor.com.

 

I still talk with my brothers on a regular basis and frequently bore others with our constant ice cream business conversations. So, the moral is….I’m really not sure……. No, all kidding aside, the moral is….. work hard, “over deliver” on your promises and good things will come your way. The goal at TurnkeyParlor.com is to offer the “best apples” possible to my customers on a daily basis. So far, this approach has helped me build a really solid, rapidly growing business. TurnKeyParlor.com is visited by thousands of prospects a month, many who turn into long term customers. If you have a story you would like to tell, or would like to comment on my story, please do so. Thanks for reading this post.

Neil Williams, President of Keyword Farms LLC

www.TurnKeyParlor.com

877-817-5716

equipment@turnkeyparlor.com

Starting a soft serve ice cream or frozen yogurt business and don’t know where to start? We can help. Find out what soft serve machines will be the best for your customers in this snippet of our Soft Serve Buyer’s Guide:

 

Here at TurnKey Parlor we know that starting a soft serve ice cream or frozen yogurt business is a lot more complicated than eating ice cream and frozen yogurt. We pride ourselves in helping our customers with the process of bringing their business from an idea to their grand opening! We have decades of experience in the frozen dessert industry and never hesitate to share the ins & outs with our customers so they can achieve maximum success in their business. We have put together a FREE Soft Serve Machine Buying Guide for you weigh your options and make the best decisions on what equipment you’re going to need to make your dreams a reality.

What machine is right for me?

 

Choosing the right machine is a fairly complicated process, but we will try to simplify it by reviewing the things you need to take into consideration. Learn the differences between:

1. Air Cooled vs. Water Cooled
2. Single Phase vs. Three Phase
3. Gravity vs. Pressurized
4. USA Made vs. Imported
5. Single Plus vs. Two Plug

Choosing the best ice cream or frozen yogurt machine for your business does not need to be a guessing game!

For a more in depth analysis of all things related to soft serve ice cream machines, check out our this newest and more up to date article!

OTHER BLOG POST –>  Make Your Own Ice Cream or Buy 3 Gallon Containers from a Distributor?

1. 110/115V (volts) vs. 208/230V (volts)

99% of soft serve machines are 208/230 volt. You can’t just plug them into a standard outlet. You will need to have an electrician wire them to make sure it’s done properly. You are essentially manufacturing ice cream quickly, and that requires higher level electrical power than a standard ice cream dipping freezer or blender for example. A handful of lower volume/capacity machines with 115 volt electrical do exist. These machines will plug into a standard outlet. But keep in mind these are VERY light duty machines. You only want to go with a 115v machine if you simply don’t have any other choice. 115V machines are only made in single flavor. In other words, since they are low power, low capacity, they can only handle one flavor. You won’t find a good quality two flavor with a twist machine that is made with 115v power and a standard plug. If you find machines on the market that advertise 110V power, with 2 flavors, run the other way. We know of these machines, and they aren’t very good.  

2. 60HZ vs 50HZ

All machines manufactured in the USA are 60HZ, matching the country’s electrical frequency, which is 60 HZ. Machines manufactured for many international countries are 50HZ. WARNING: If you are an international buyer (outside of the USA) please make sure your country uses 60HZ electricity (also known as 60 cycle or 50 cycle). If your country is runs on a 50HZ electrical frequency, you won’t be able to buy used machines from the USA. You will be limited to buying new USA machines. If you are totally confused, please call us before you make any purchase. In the most basic terms, if your country’s electrical frequency is 60HZ, you are in luck, because you can take advantage of our great deals on used machines.  

3. Single phase vs Three phase

All locations have single phase power (aka 1PH), but they may not have three phase power. Most commercial locations typically have 3 phase power (aka 3PH) . Older buildings normally don’t have 3 phase power. Machines come in either 1PH or 3PH. So if you aren’t sure if your location has 3 phase power, you may not be able to use a 3 phase machine. You can always use a single phase machine. Why do 3 phase power machines exist? 3 phase power is a little less expensive to run as far as electrical usage. Three phase machines also run on less amps. So if your electrical service is low amps, you might be better off with 3 phase machines (again, assuming you have 3PH in the building)

Three phase won’t save you that much when you are running only a couple of machines, but when you are running a lot of machines, it can help reduce your electric bill. In certain situations, a customer’s location might not have 3 phase power in the electrical box, but there is 3 phase power in the building, so it may not cost that much to have an electrician put 3 phase in the breaker box. This is one situation where you might say,“That’s a great deal for that 3 phase machine, and it’s only $500 to have the electrician wire 3 phase into our electrical box, so let’s do it.”

But again, remember, putting 3 phase in the panel is only going to be a low cost deal if there is 3 phase coming into the building off the outside power company electrical pole.If there isn’t 3 phase power connected to the building to begin with, then forget about 3 phase machines. It could cost $15 to $20k to bring 3 phase into a building. In this situation, just understand that you are limited to single phase machines. So the simple question to ask the landlord or electrician is: DO I HAVE 3 PHASE IN MY LOCATION?

For more information on buying a soft serve ice cream machine, feel free to download our FREE Soft Serve Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt Machine FREE Buying Guide.

Ice Cream Machine Book If you have questions about soft serve ice cream and frozen yogurt machines, feel free to give us a call. We sell all the major brands new and used. 877-817-5716