ALUMNI
SWEET SITUATIONS
Tabor alumni can professionally cater a terrific spread of coffee and sweet treats, ranging from aromatic, artisanal coffee and one-of-a-kind cookies, to varieties of ice cream flavorings like the ones that helped make Howard Johnson’s “28 Flavors” a huge part of 20th century pop culture. By Jim Henry ‘75 The latter refers to Alex Katzenstein ’05, Vice President of Operations for Star Kay White Inc., Congers, NY. Star Kay White started out as a family business, which nearly went broke in the Depression. Today it makes millions of pounds of flavorings for ice cream manufacturers annually. The Howard Johnson chain used to be an important customer, he says. Everybody still loves the classics, like fruit flavors and caramel, but he notes today’s biggest flavoring category is what the ice cream industry calls “variegates.” “That’s our name for what you’d probably call crunchy ‘swirls’ in ice cream, like candy pieces, peppermint, things like that, chocolate-covered almonds. We also make chocolate-covered waffle cones — we do a lot of coating. But the biggest business for us is based around variegates for ice cream,” Katzenstein adds. The beauty of ice cream as a business is that it’s virtually recession-proof, he notes. “It’s a very American comfort food. People like it when they’re happy, or they like it when they’re sad. That’s why we survived the Great Depression, why we’re still here after 132 years,” he says. When the Roaring 20s suddenly ended, the Depression caught the family over-extended, and spread out among several other businesses. The only business that survived was ice cream > Alex Katzenstein ’05
58 TABOR TODAY | Spring 2022
