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The #1 Secret to Success for a Gelato Business

Monday, November 04, 2024

Primary Blog/Must Reads/The #1 Secret to Success for a Gelato Business

When it comes down to it, there is one key similarity that all successful gelato shops have and that is they all make AMAZING gelato. Not good gelato, or great gelato, but AMAZING gelato! This blog post will explain what goes into making amazing gelato.

How do you know if you have AMAZING gelato?

You know you have an AMAZING gelato product when you are seeing a lot of the same faces at your shop at least 2-3x a week. This kind of repeat business means you have an AMAZING product and is a key pillar for success in the gelato business. Now don't get me wrong, there are a lot of other things that go into running a successful gelato shop like friendly service and cleanliness but right now I want to talk about what makes an AMAZING gelato product. Not good, not great, but AMAZING. To understand that, we must first go into the gelato making equipment.

The piece of equipment used to make gelato is called a batch freezer. Typically, there are 2 kinds of batch freezers: freeze and heat and freeze. All the top shops in Italy use heat and freeze machines, the process of first heating your gelato base, and then freezing it is known as hot process. And it is much superior to cold process gelato.

Why is this important? Well a heat and freeze machine adds more to equipment costs compared to freeze only machines. Now that you can make the gelato, you will still need a blast freezer and display case. Blast freezers are another important piece of equipment for making AMAZING gelato. And of course you'll need your display case for serving 12-16+ flavours which is another expense. All in all, making AMAZING gelato is expensive, because all the equipment can easily run you $50K-$100K+ alone!

The second thing you must have to make AMAZING gelato comes down to your recipe and ingredients. Simply put, AMAZING gelato requires an AMAZING recipe. You need a well balanced gelato recipe made with top quality fresh ingredients. Your great equipment will only enhance your AMAZING recipe. This often means you need to use only high quality and fresh ingredients. The good thing is making gelato is fun and you can run a lot of tasty experiments. 

Should I cheapen out and get a freeze only batch freezer?

You will be making a worse product than what you can achieve in a heat and freeze machine but it can also be a fraction of the cost. Freeze only machines are available in a lot of smaller models. For example, instead of the heat and freeze machine that produces 20L/hour, you can get a freeze only machine with a lower capacity that only produces 2L/hour... Perfect for starting out and since these small machines are making such a small amount, you don't need to invest in a blast freezer or display case; significantly reducing your costs.

Next thing to know about cold process is it needs to sell quick, 1.5 days max, even in a display case, with cold process gelato, you need to sell it quickly. I like cold process machines for one of three reasons:

# 1. You are testing the model: you are starting with a small machine and proving the concept, if it works you gradually move up to higher volume machines as you sell more and more gelato.

#2. You are refining a recipe: you are starting with a small machine to find your perfect recipe.

#3. You have a "captive audience": for example, you have a gelato shop on a cruise ship. Or you're in an extremely busy touristy area, they buy from you once and you probably never see them again. You are not as concerned with product quality. 

​Ciao

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