The Inside Scoop On The Supply Chain Of Ice Cream

Dan:
I hope everyone’s enjoying our summer and whooping down some ice cream. Maybe during this episode, will I see, is that a bowl or cone a cup? I don’t know what your style is, but that’s a waffle cone. Yeah. Yeah. Not a cone guy.

Will:
Not a cool guy. You just went down one notch in my book.

Dan:
Well, how much further can I go down?

Will:
We’ll see. What else you say

Dan:
Favorite, favorite flavor of this all time? What do you got?

Will:
Favorite flavor all time. I am going chocolate chip cookie dough. Ooh.

Dan:
You know what not gonna, I’m a cookies and cream fan.

Will:
So also a great one. I was in between that. Those were the two

Dan:
I’m back up a point.

Will:
Yeah. You’re back up. All right. What’s your least favorite flavor or what is a favor? You don’t like that? A lot of people like,

Dan:
All right in small doses, min chocolate chip. I can do it, but not sometimes it’s too overpowering. If I go like a full couple scoops of min chocolate chip. Okay.

Will:
I hear you there. I can understand that.

Dan:
And like Rocky roads sometimes not, not always my favorite.

Will:
I don’t like chocolate.

Dan:
Yeah. I’m not gonna go into like the Ben and Jerry’s side where there’s a lot of different.

Will:
Right, right. I’m just saying like, just

Dan:
Traditional,

Will:
You know, your take your, you know, random flavor chocolate, whoever made it.

Dan:
Yeah. Well, on this episode of Safety Stock, we’re gonna talk about the supply chain of ice cream and what you may have seen at stores or rising prices, or even all games as well, where there’s been some shortages of late. Cause everybody deserves ice cream more than once a week in all seasons.

Will:
Yeah. absolutely. I mean, we’ve seen on the news recently that the taco tacos going away. Yeah.

Dan:
I think it was, that’s a beach. That’s a beach favorite right there. It is not my bee’s favorite, but it’s a good one.

Will:
Right. But I think what, you know, people have to keep in mind is like specific to ice cream. You know, the getting the ingredients is one thing and there can be a lot of there can be a lot of different ingredients that you’re having to source and it can be as easy or as hard as you make it, whether it be you’re getting your cherries from the place next door, or if you decide that you need macadamia nuts from a country in the middle east, who knows. Yep. But once you’ve made the ice cream, I think that’s when people need to realize that it gets harder from there because you’re transporting ice cream requires refrigeration. It requires cold storage and it is a good, that is perishable. So it doesn’t last forever. And it has to be consumed within really a timely manner. So getting it to consumers is challenging. And given the rising cost of you know, wages, inflation gas, people are seeing ice cream go up and people are seeing it harder to get certain ingredients depending on what they’re making.

Dan:
Yeah. I mean, Hogan’s well Nestle parent company, they raised prices six and a half percent in the first year, just first half of this year. Just be because of everything you mentioned there, but to your point on trucking, I mean, there’s already a shortage to begin with and just getting it from point a to point B. Like we’ve seen that even just not only ingredients, but things are just being held up. And that also plays a huge, huge factor. I thought one thing that was interesting and I it’s a minor league baseball team, the Portland sea dogs had to get a new substitute for ice cream sandwiches because their currently or manufacturer Giffords, which I’ve never had they’re ice cream S before can’t get the ingredients to make it on time. So they had a literally pinch hit in for a, for a substitute. I stole that headline, but it’s interesting how like, like even ice cream is not safe right now.

Will:
Well we talked about it too with the masters. Yeah. Like the masters back in April, they couldn’t sell their peach ice cream sandwiches because of supply chain issues. Yeah. which makes us think we were talking about the, you know, we talked a little bit about this in April and so

Dan:
Three months later here we are

Will:
Three months later, here we are, you know, as a business, when you’re going through these issues, you know, we talk about having suppliers on the ready and being diversified from that perspective, in that if you can’t get something, can you get it from someone else? Or if you can’t produce exactly what you’re doing, can you produce something similar that, you know, that’s gonna sell? I think Dan, you know, when I think about some of the companies that we’ve worked for, that we’ve worked with, you know, they’ve seen issues on getting some of the components or the raw materials that they have. One person they couldn’t, they couldn’t get tubes, you know, from overseas and during the lockdown. And, you know, they were in a tough pinch because how do you get a specific tube that’s not necessarily sold in the us because of its shape. How do you get that quickly without being changing your product ethos? And so, you know, they did a good job with identifying another vendor and then getting something, moving on that side of things. But those are the things you really need to have in place, or be able to act on, or you’re left out in the cold.

Dan:
Oh, I see what you did there mm-hmm, no, it’s, it’s, it’s no different than, as you mentioned, like any other sector, there’s certain things that you need to have redundancy in your Subhi chain. And, and you touched on it earlier, like even just the, the macro side of things with, with other countries that you’re dependent on for, for ingredients or just store a cold chain storage as well. There, there’s just so many factors that go into making ice cream. And it’s not one of those things where I actually am curious seasonally. Obviously there’s probably a spike in the summer, but I also grew up having ice cream all seasons. So I wonder how much of this demand is shifted now in the summer, I guess you have local Creamery that are also feeling the pinch too, these local shops with inflation coming in, like their prices have all gone up. So even just going to your, your local place by the beach is more expensive this year for one scoop than it was last year.

Will:
Yeah. Well, I think I, I remember listening to a listening to how I built this with the two guys from Ben and Jerry’s obviously Ben and Jerry, and they talked about how in all seasons in Vermont, you know, they still solve demand and basically went onto the counter and how they, he went with a counter on a corner to determine like where their store was going to be. And then that’s how they got to the place. There is just seeing what foot traffic, and obviously in Vermont, it can get pretty cold in certain times, but they still had traffic to drive what they were making.

Dan:
Yeah. So, Hey, any of you listeners out there that wanna share with us, your favorite, favorite ice cream, maybe we’ll send you a little care package of whatever that ice cream is. Can’t guarantee it won’t melt on its way to, but it’s our reward to you.

Will:
It’s the thought that counts, right?

Dan:
Yeah. I mean, how would you feel if you opened a package with melted ice cream? I would feel cutting, cutting ice.

Will:
I would be sad, but then I’d also be happy that they thought of me.

Dan:
So any of you listeners out there, shoot us a note at hello@anvyl.com and we will get on that ice train for you.

Will:
Yeah, it’s been sweet, we’ll talk to you later.