Ice Cream Craze

A group of friends finds the right formula for a successful ice cream business

By: Anne dela Cruz

They were at the peak of their careers. Jose Celdran, Rosalinda Custodio, Vivien Ongkiko, and Edgardo Garcia were all executives in the international distribution arm of Magnolia ice cream. But when San Miguel decided to sell Magnolia to Nestle in 1996, the four executives already knew what they wanted to do after their                                                stint in the corporate world.

With a start up capital of P3 million, they founded Food People Inc. in July 1997 and came up with their own brand of ice cream – Fruits in Ice Cream. As its name suggests, Food People wanted to offer premium tropical ice cream to the foreign market.

“While we were still with Magnolia, we were able to get to know a distributor in Japan,” Celdran said. “When we told him about our plan to come up with our own line, he readily agreed to help us.”
With limited capital, they looked for a manufacturer who was willing to produce the ice cream in small quantities and found one small factory in Bulacan.

With limited capital, they looked for a manufacturer who was willing to produce the ice cream in small quantities and found one small factory in Bulacan.

With Custodio taking the lead in developing the ice cream flavors, Fruits in Ice Cream came up with their gourmet and premium line. The gourmet flavors are strawberry, raspberry, macapuno, caramelo corn, pastilles, dulce leche, and durian. The premium line flavors are cappuccino, cookies and cream, ube, green tea, halo halo, vanilla, nangkasuy, rocky road, tsokolate, and mango.

The team behind Fruits in Ice Cream

Half a gallon of a gourmet flavor costs P220 and the pint size is sold at P65. The premium line of flavors, on the other hand, was going for P200 per half gallon while the pint size was at P60.

The ice cream was a big hit in Japan. Kobo Company Ltd., the exclusive distributor of Fruits In Ice Cream in Japan, has been selling the product in specialty shops in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. With the initial success, Celdran said they had hoped to bring the product to other Asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. But due to the Asian financial crisis of the period that made it very expensive to export the product, the plan did not push through.

“We were forced to rethink our strategies because if we decided to distribute our ice cream locally, we had to really find our market,” Celdran said. “We had to find our own market, a market that wanted more than Nestle and Selecta but could not afford Haagen Dazs.”