Churning Up The Industry

Making ice cream is more than just a sweet idea, it’s big business...

- Nicole Cameron

In 1660, ice cream was first made available to the general public, having previously been reserved for the tables of royalty. The first café in Paris introduced a recipe blending milk, cream, butter and eggs and the rest, as they say, was history. While the traditional ice cream parlour gave way to pre-packaged products sold in supermarkets for many years, the whole foods trend has brought with it a return to hand-made ice cream, with a focus on all-natural ingredients and careful craftsmanship. We chat to some local ice cream-preneurs to get their insights on this decadent industry.

Paul Ballen’s journey into business reads like a tale from an entrepreneurship textbook – as a child he was exposed to American ice cream on regular trips to the US, and, as a student he received an ice cream machine and began making a litre a day, sharing his indulgent and exotic creations with family and friends before investing in another machine and moving his enterprise from his parents’ kitchen into the garage. A year or so later he partnered with a university friend to run the business side, and, as the orders started to roll in, the team grew. Paul’s Homemade Ice Cream (PHIC) has just opened its third retail outlet in Johannesburg in Hyde Park and is about to open another store in Parkhurst.

Customers have developed an appetite for super premium ice cream and there’s no going back. “In the same way that good coffee and craft beer have become the norm, we’ve found that South Africans are developing an appreciation for real ice cream,” says Ballen. “We do feel that we’re taking on the role of educator though, as there is not much of an ice cream culture here; internationally it is a lot more extensive and there is less of an association between ice cream and season, whereas South Africans have strong associations between ice cream and summer and stray away from it during the cold months.”