SUCCESS IN ACTION
CHIEF TALK
CEOS TELL HOW TECHNOLOGY is TRANSFORMING THEIR BUSINESSES INTERVIEW BY LEE LUSARDI CONNOR
D
oes the world really need another highend specialty ice cream? Maybe not. But it definitely wants one, as Neal Gottlieb has proven over the past 10 years while building Three Twins Ice Cream. Made of certified organic ingredients, sourced from local family farms, the Petaluma, California-based company has two factories, 100 employees and five scoop shops, and is sold in 3,000 locations across the United States Gottlieb’s goal is to be as ubiquitous as brands like Ben & Jerry’s or Häagen Dazs. Here, he shares what he’s learned so far:
Make a plan to set your brand apart.
THREE TWINS ICE CREAM: GROWING ORGANICALLY FIERCE IDEALISM CRACKS A CROWDED MARKET
20
Summer 2015
In the ice cream category—as with any food category—one thing you’ll never see is an empty grocery store shelf just waiting for your product. Our initial differentiator was that we were a certified organic product with no stabilizers. However, not that many people care solely about being consumers of organic ice cream—they’re not going to buy it en masse, at scale, if it doesn’t taste good. So our real differentiator is to be “inconceivably delicious.” Each flavor has our own stamp, our own little twist. For example, for our confetti mint with dark chocolate flavor, instead of using hard, waxy chocolate chips, we take Italian dark chocolate that we melt in a proprietary system and inject as flecks into the ice cream. Because our flavors are unique, people ask for Three Twins ice cream by name.
