How I Built A $300,000-A-Day Ice Cream Empire Called Van Leeuwen

I think our first day in business we sold like 300 scoops, which was a ton of ice

cream

for us. Today, on a busy summer day, we will be serving more than 40,000 guests in our exclusive stores nationwide and that number is growing. In 2008, Ben Van Leeuwen saw an opening in the ice

cream

market for a product made solely with high-quality butter, fatty egg yolk and cream mixed with chocolate from farms in Ecuador, barrel-aged vanilla and pistachios brought in from Sicily. A year later, Ben, his brother Pete, and their close friend Laura O'Neill were selling this artisanal ice cream on the streets of New York City from a repurposed mail truck.

Today, Van Leeuwen has grown from a single ice cream truck to a national brand with 50 unique stores from coast to coast. More than 10,000 stores sell the brand's pints, and over its history it has offered nearly 500 flavors, ranging from honeycomb pie and wild blueberry to more unique combinations like Kraft Mac and Cheese and Hidden Valley Ranch. There are three numbers to keep in mind in this story. $60,000, the amount needed to get Van Leeuwen off the ground. $18.7 million, the amount secured in a 2020 financing round. And $300,000 is the amount of money Van Leeuwen earns on a good day in all of his exclusive stores.

Here's how Van Leeuwen turned a lonely ice cream truck into a multimillion-dollar ice cream

empire

. Hi, I'm Ben Van Leeuwen, co-founder and CEO of Van Leeuwen Ice Cream. And I'm here at our store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Ben Van Leeuwen grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. From a very young age he had an interest in business. Ben was just a college freshman when he first entered the world of ice cream. I saw an advertisement in the newspaper. He claimed to drive an ice cream truck and made $500 a week. He needed a summer job. I responded to that ad and ended up driving a Good Humor ice cream truck.

Ben drove that Good Humor truck for two summers saving money. Fast forward to when I was graduating college. I had done well in college, but not very well. I hadn't done any internships. I had just driven an ice cream truck and didn't think I wanted to work in the food industry. But all that changed when he came across a Mr. Softee van while walking down a New York street. Suddenly, he had the idea of ​​starting an ice cream company. There was no doubt. There was no maybe I'll do this, maybe it was a good idea. And part of that is because I knew it worked.

He had sold ice cream in trucks. This was not reinventing the wheel. This was not rocket science. Ben wanted to sell artisanal ice cream with simple, high-quality ingredients, and in 2008 Van Leeuwen and the ice cream was born. Creating a business plan took a year. Ben's inspiration for his ice cream recipe came from Thomas Keller's cookbook, Bouchon. It was a vanilla creme anglaise ice cream. And what was unique is that it had a lot of eggs and a lot of cream. Of course, whole vanilla beans. This foundation carried over into Van Leeuwen's recipe: the Greenpoint apartment that Ben, Laura and Pete shared became the tasting laboratory where Van Leeuwen's first flavors were developed.

I think there were 35 chocolate versions that I really liked. Single origin from here, single estate from here, blends from here. More coverage, more cocoa powder, less fat, more fat, a little less sugar. Once the flavors were finalized, it was time to get to work. We determined that we would need $250,000 to start Van Leeuwen Ice Cream. That was enough to buy a van for about $60,000 and spend another $60,000 to convert it into an ice cream truck. That figure would leave them enough money to build an inventory and find a factory. But from the beginning there were serious problems in realizing Ben's vision.

It was very difficult for us to get the money. We had no business experience. I thought it was a great idea. I thought he was a good pitcher. I guess I wasn't that good. We didn't raise $250,000. We're not even close to that. We were able to raise $60,000. But the trio was determined to make the $60,000 work. So how do you start an ice cream company with $60,000? That's not even enough to buy an ice cream maker or the two machines you need to make ice cream. For the first two years, we outsourced all of our production. So the first step in starting an ice cream company was finding what we call a co-packer, a co-manufacturer, a factory to make our ice cream.

Then we found a small factory in upstate New York. We went there for each production hand grinding traditional nutmeg and Ceylon cinnamon into large brewing bags. The second step for us was to purchase the truck on eBay and convert it into an ice cream truck. The first truck we bought on eBay cost $2,500. It was absolute nonsense. We bought old reproduction grills from '50s trucks and put them on these '80s trucks. And then marketing in those days was 100% about bringing our truck in, parking it on the street and selling ice cream. The brand's aesthetics were considered crucial from the beginning.

The team hired an illustrator for $80 an hour to create a logo, as well as paint botanical drawings for each flavor on his truck. But the logo was largely inspired by a combination of Victorian scriptures and a sort of 1950s Americana. After obtaining a permit, Van Leeuwen's truck was ready to hit the streets, but finding an ideal location to set up shop would be another challenge. Someone had said: Wall Street is really good, it's very busy. We spent about 90 minutes driving around Wall Street. We can't park, so we give up. We drive to Canal Street. It's like June 21, 2008, 80 degrees outside.

So we thought this is the place. We pulled up and literally after about 30 minutes, we hadn't sold a single ice cream, nor had anyone shown any interest in the truck. So at this point we thought maybe this idea wasn't a good idea. So, on the corner of Green and Prince in Soho, we stopped this old ice cream truck. When we open the window, there are 15 people in line. So at that moment, we knew, okay, we're onto something here. Van Leeuwen launched with ten flavors, including classics like chocolate and vanilla, as well as more unique flavors like Gianduja and ginger.

At the time, each scoop cost $3.95. On the first day of business, Laura, Ben and Pete sold over 300 scoops of ice cream and made about $2,000. That same day a representative from Whole Foods approached them. And they said: Do you do wholesale? We said, we'll do anything that generates income. So yes, we do wholesale sales. And three months later, we were on the shelves of Whole Foods. By the end of that first summer, they were operating three trucks in New York City. But despite his success, Van Leeuwen's early days were stressful. It was horrible. I mean, it was very, very difficult.

I mean, you're driving this particularly in our case, these trucks that were

built

in 1988 and were used by the post office for two decades, that we converted into ice cream trucks that ran half the time. There was no option to say, okay, the trucks didn't work, let's go to the stores or let's take a month off and regroup and decide what to do. We needed the income. We had to work hard. Their hard work paid off. In 2010, Van Leeuwen reached $1 million in revenue during those first ten years; Ben, Laura and Pete say they paid themselves around $40,000 each.

From there, things continued to improve. Then, two years after starting the business, we had the opportunity to open a physical store that was not part of the business plan. The Brooklyn store had things the truck didn't like: electricity and running water. It also generated more revenue than the truck. Literally within three hours of opening that store, we said we would never build another ice cream truck. The scoop shop kept the same aesthetic and design as the trucks and, along with Whole Foods pints, helped put Van Leeuwen on the map. In 2012, they started making ice cream in Brooklyn and in 2014 they hired an accountant and a part-time office assistant.

By 2017, Van Leeuwen had grown to ten exclusive stores, including three in Los Angeles. In 2018, the company secured its first institutional financing: a $3.9 million investment from Strand Equity Partners funded the opening of new exclusive stores, increased production, and the expansion of Van Leeuwen's corporate team. That investment also allowed Van Leeuwen to embark on a major overhaul of its brand identity. He enlisted design firm Pentagram to revamp the look of his now-iconic pints. We spent over a year and a half with them working on a design that was not only great, that was not only different, but that completely reflected what we had done, the spirit of the company, what we believe in, and our philosophy.

So Van Leeuwen's pints went from this to this. You have the logo, you have the name of the flavor, you have nothing else. An $18.7 million funding round in 2020 helped pay for increased wholesale production and another signature store, as well as a larger corporate team. Van Leeuwen has released nearly 500 different flavors over the past 15 years, some of which you might be surprised to see in ice cream form, like macaroni and cheese or ranch dressing. But these unusual flavors aren't just for shock value. They also serve a crucial business purpose. So Kraft macaroni and cheese is really good.

The caramelized onion jam and ice cream are delicious. From a more tactical marketing approach, they allow us to generate brand awareness very efficiently so that we do not advertise. We believe we can better serve our customers by investing money in our products and the development of our teams, not in advertising. So making a flavor like Hidden Valley Ranch and Kraft Mac and Cheese exposes a lot of people to the brand. And we hope you not only enjoy those really crazy flavors, but also try vanilla, honeycomb, and the upcoming Earl Gray tea. Van Leeuwen's most popular flavor is Honeycomb, followed by Brown Sugar Cookie Dough Chunk.

Nowadays, a scoop costs $6.90 in most places. The company constantly introduces new products. This year, he added ice cream sandwiches to his menu and his team has grown far beyond its humble beginnings. We have more than a thousand team members, 60 in the company, 50 in manufacturing and the rest are the people who run the ice cream shops. Today, Van Leeuwen operates nearly 50 upscale stores across the United States and its pints are available in nearly 10,000 grocery stores, including Whole Foods and Walmart nationwide. A really busy day in summer. We generate up to $300,000 in revenue by exchanging ice cream for money.

We will serve over 40,000 guests in our exclusive stores across the country and that number is growing in our wholesale channel, people will buy up to 50,000 pints each day. Ben, Laura and Pete continue to play a vital role in the day-to-day operations of the business. Here in their Greenpoint office, the team tests new flavors, reviews new store designs and any ongoing operations to keep Van Leeuwen growing. By the end of 2023, Van Leeuwen plans to open 18 new exclusive stores across the United States, as well as its first international location in Singapore. In 2024, between 25 and 30 new exclusive stores will open.

I think as long as we're happy, as long as we're able to run a company that makes our team happy and that gives people good jobs, and of course, as long as we're able to keep our guests happy and continue to serve them good ice cream. , we will continue to grow Van Leeuwen.