Promoting and supporting ice cream in your café does not have to mean mainstream branding, it doesn’t have to mean loss of precious floor space to big display freezers, and it doesn’t have to come from soft-serve machines which can take considerable time and money to clean and maintain.
On the contrary, ice cream can be simplistic beauty for the palate and the business bottom line, as ice cream parlours and franchises all over the world will tell you. But how can a café participate in this market?
Flavorama is an Australian-owned company which has designed and built a blending machine that bridges this gap, allowing cafés to customise ice cream, without a large investment for the owner.
Cafés can create their own ice cream flavours and flavour combinations to highlight their seasonal menus and still allow the customer to decide:
• whether or not they feel like a low-fat, healthy serve;
• whether they’re willing to cross the line to naughty; or,
• just to be deliberately bad!
The Flavorama machine is a single serve device that has a footprint smaller than a cash register and, if you are already serving milkshakes or smoothies, can be true value-add in terms of the ingredients required to make the machine work well.
2 scoops of either plain vanilla ice cream or frozen yoghurt and 1 scoop of fruit, chocolate, nuts, biscuit pieces, fudge, coffee etc. are put in the bowl. One hand holds down a button and the other holds the cone, cup or dish. Within 6 seconds, the blended, semi-hard product is dispensed.
Foodservice does not have to be expensive in the portion cost; this is particularly true with ice cream. Some Flavorama owners are selling servings from their machine for more than 10x the cost of the ingredients. When you consider that the machine can be used for breakfast too (e.g. frozen yoghurt blended with fruit and muesli for the busy commuter), a valuable quantity of servings each day can easily be achieved. The company’s claim that “return on your investment can easily be achieved in under 3 months selling just 20 servings a day” therefore seems reasonable.
If you’re a café in a fruit producing area, it’s a great way to highlight local produce, and it’s likely to do wonders for your bottom line. Profits can be further increased by using fruit which is overripe and therefore sold cheaper. This actually results in a better tasting end product, as the flavour of the fruit will be stronger.
Floor space is saved, as only 1 base product is required (ice cream or frozen yoghurt … or you can offer both to cater to a broader market). Therefore, you don’t need a large display freezer to show all of your ice cream options.
From a health perspective, all flavour and colour comes from the ingredients added – nothing artificial.
Frozen yoghurt is a great option, as it seems to be enjoying a resurgence in popularity. For many, it is the ‘ice cream’ of choice – guilt-free ice cream – as it is inherently low fat (typically around 95 – 98% fat free). For the health-conscious, frozen yoghurt blended, flavoured and coloured with real fruit makes for an easy decision to buy. As for the kids … don’t tell them it’s healthy, and they’ll eat it by the bucketful!
Intermittent cleaning during the day takes no more than a few seconds when required; a complete clean takes just 2 – 3 minutes.
Another feature is how easy it is to train and use. Flavorama machines have apparently been very successful with berry farmers simply selling from their farm gates. Ice creams are made with overripe seasonal fruit which they couldn’t move any other way, and their teenagers run the machines!
The Flavorama machine is a commercial grade blender, and the company is aware of many machines still in operation after 10 years of service.
Being a blender, you are not strictly limited to sweet offerings either. Boiled potatoes can be blended with savoury fillings to create a savoury line too. Again, the cost of ingredients per serving can be low, which means your profit margins remain high.
For more information, see the Flavorama website: www.flavorama.com
