Photo credit Andrew Trinh
This summer, the FDA updated its guidelines for frozen desserts for the first time since 1989. The ramifications of compliance dates to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) were felt at boutique ice cream shops across the country, including here, at Serendipity Home Made Ice Cream.
The 15-year-old Webster Groves ice cream manufacturer and shop is owned by Beckie Jacobs, who summed up the changes.
“In the wake of more allergic reactions and bacterial outbreaks—including two well-publicized listeria outbreaks at two different Jeni’s manufacturing facilities in two different years—the FDA tightened their regulations for ice cream making operations, including small guys like us,” she says. “My understanding is that they wanted to take a preventive, proactive approach rather than be reactive, which I totally understand.”
The regulations, however, changed the way Serendipity does business. (In the interest of transparency, Jacobs was eager to tell the story.)
“The good news is, the regulations don’t impact the one-location producer, which we are,” Jacobs explains. “The bad news is they do affect multi-store producers and wholesale operations, and 50 percent of Serendipity’s business is at the wholesale level, selling gallon containers to restaurants and pints to markets.
“I had three options,” she continues. “Stop selling ice cream wholesale, build a FSMA-compliant commissary to the tune of $200,000, or partner with an existing compliant ice cream manufacturer who would sell my product.”
Jacobs opted for the last one.
Photo credit Ashley Gieseking
“It was the only option that made sense, so I started looking,” she says. And she stopped looking when she came across Madison, Wisconsin–based manufacturer Chocolate Shoppe, who private labels for many clients, a few of them in St. Louis. “We both use many of the same ingredients, and our mix comes from one of the sources they use,” she says. “When people talk about 'local’ ice cream, they have to keep that in mind. I don’t know anyone in St. Louis that uses a local mix.”
Jacobs does concede the recipes are different, but the Chocolate Shoppe's are “as good or better. They have a lower overrun, so their product is denser than what I was making.” And the flavors are similar. “Their version of my Funfetti is called Birthday Cake, but because of superior equipment, they can ripple in blue icing, which makes theirs better than mine was.”
Jacobs told SLM that before the changes, she was facing something no businessperson wants to do: raise prices. When Jacobs realized that due to Chocolate Shoppe’s economy of scale, a price increase was not necessary, the deal was done.
“No other ice cream I found was as good as theirs, and they’ve been around a long time," she says. “They have more controls, the product is tested constantly, my liability is reduced, and the price is the same. Everybody wins.”
The switchover was made in late September, and if Facebook comments are any indication, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
At Clementine’s Creamery, owner Tamara Keefe says that she insisted on being fully FSMA compliant as part of her business plan, because “having full traceability, from cow-to-cone, was the right thing to do.” And because she was launching St. Louis’ only microcreamery, “it was the only thing to do.” She admits that spending the extra dollars at the outset slowed Clementine’s short-term growth (two stores at present, the third opening soon), but she has since purchased Arctic Dairy, a FSMA-compliant local wholesale plant, which she says has the capacity to supply 10 stores.
Ron Ryan, owner of Quezel Sorbet and Glaces (better known as Ronnie’s Ice Cream), is a 39-year-old company with over 50 accounts, including supplying pints of ice cream for Straub's Markets. He says his South City plant “gets regular FDA inspections and has for years.”
Back at Serendipity in Webster, it’s business as usual, scooping into dishes, cones, sundaes, and floats. Mixing spirited shakes (just what it sounds like) and building “Dipity-Dough” ice cream sandwiches, catering parties, and servicing wholesale accounts. Jacobs continues to make two popular flavors—Cookie Monster and Gooey Butter Cake—which are now available exclusively "in my shop, for my shop."
