WEBVTT	#Elemental Media Engine(TM) 2.17.1.0

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I think our first day in
business, we sold like 300
scoops, which was a ton of ice
cream for us.

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Today, on a really busy day in
the summer, we will
serve over 40,000 guests

00:00:20.061 --> 00:00:25.942
in our scoop shops across the
country and that number
is growing.

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In 2008, Ben Van Leeuwen saw an
opening in the ice
cream market for a product made
with only high quality

00:00:33.158 --> 00:00:39.998
butter, fat egg yolk and cream
mixed with chocolate
from farms in Ecuador,

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barrel aged vanilla and
pistachios flown in from
Sicily.

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Fast forward a year and Ben, his
brother Pete, and
close friend Laura O'Neill were
selling this artisanal

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ice cream on the streets of New
York City out of a
repurposed post office truck.

00:00:56.765 --> 00:01:03.480
Today, Van Leeuwen has grown
from a single ice cream
truck to a national brand with
50 scoop shops from

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coast to coast. Over 10,000
stores carry the brand's
pints, and throughout its
history, it's offered close

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to 500 flavors, ranging from
honeycomb and wild
blueberry shortcake to more

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unique combinations like Kraft
Mac and Cheese and
Hidden Valley Ranch.

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There are three numbers to look
out for in this story.

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$60,000, the amount it took to
get Van Leeuwen off the
ground.

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$18.7 million, the amount
secured in a 2020 funding
round.

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And $300,000 the amount of money
Van Leeuwen pulls in
on a good day across all of its
scoop shops.

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Here's how Van Leeuwen turned a
lone ice cream truck
into a multi-million dollar ice
cream empire.

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Hey, I'm Ben Van Leeuwen, the
co-founder and CEO of Van
Leeuwen Ice Cream.

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And I'm here at our shop in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

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Ben Van Leeuwen grew up in
Greenwich, Connecticut.

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Even from a young age, he had an
interest in business.

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Ben was just a college freshman
when he first entered
the world of ice cream.

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I saw an advertisement in the
newspaper.

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It said drive an ice cream
truck, earned $500 a week.

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I needed a summer job.

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I responded to that ad and I
ended up driving a Good
Humor ice cream truck.

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Ben drove that Good Humor truck
for two summers saving
money.

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Fast forward to when I was
graduating college.

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I had done okay in college, but
not great.

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I hadn't done internships.

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I had just driven an ice cream
truck and I hadn't
thought I want to work in food.

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But that all changed when he
came across a Mr.

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Softee truck while walking down
the street in New
York.

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Suddenly, the idea to start an
ice cream company hit
him.

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There was no hesitation.

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There was no maybe I'll do this,
maybe this was a good
idea.

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And part of that is because I
knew it worked.

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I had sold ice cream off of
trucks.

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This wasn't reinventing the
wheel.

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This wasn't rocket science.

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Ben wanted to sell artisanal ice
cream with simple,
high quality ingredients, and in
2008, Van Leeuwen

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and ice cream was born.

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Creating a business plan took a
year.

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Ben's inspiration for his ice
cream recipe came from
Thomas Keller's cookbook,
Bouchon.

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It was a creme anglaise vanilla
ice cream.

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And what was unique about it is
it had a lot of eggs,
it had a lot of cream.

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Of course, whole vanilla beans.

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This base carried over into Van
Leeuwen's recipe, the
Greenpoint apartment that Ben,
Laura and Pete shared

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became the tasting lab where Van
Leeuwen's first
flavors were developed.

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I think there were 35 versions
of chocolate that I
really liked.

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Single origin from here, single
farm from here, blends
from here.

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More couverture, more cocoa
powder, less fat, more
fat, a little less sugar.

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After the flavors were
finalized, it was time to get
down to business.

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We determined that we would need
$250,000 to start Van
Leeuwen Ice

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Cream. That was enough to buy a
step van for about
$60,000 to spend another

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$60,000 turning it into an ice
cream truck.

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That number would leave them
with enough money to build
inventory and find a factory.

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But from the outset, there was
serious trouble
realizing Ben's vision.

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It was really hard for us to get
the money.

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We had no business experience.

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I thought it was a great idea.

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I thought I was a good pitch
guy.

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I guess I wasn't that good.

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We didn't raise $250,000.

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We didn't even raise close to
that.

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We were able to scrape together
$60,000.

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But the trio were determined to
make the $60,000 work.

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So how do you start an ice cream
company with $60,000?

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That's not even enough to buy an
ice cream making
machine or the two machines you
need to make ice cream.

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For the first two years, we
outsourced all of our
production.

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So step one of starting an ice
cream company was
finding what we call a
co-packer, a co manufacturer,

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a factory to make our ice cream.

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So we found a small factory in
upstate New York.

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We went up there for every
production run hand
grinding, heirloom nutmeg,
Ceylon cinnamon

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into big brewing bags.

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Step two for us was buying the
truck on eBay,
retrofitting that into an ice
cream truck.

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The first truck we bought on
eBay was $2,500.

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It was an absolute piece of
bleep.

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We bought old reproduction
grills from 1950s trucks,
put them on these

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1980s trucks.

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And then marketing in those days
was 100% bringing our
truck, parking it on the

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street and selling ice cream.

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The brand's esthetic was
considered crucial from the
very beginning.

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The team hired an illustrator
for $80 bucks an hour to
create a logo, as well as to
paint botanical drawings

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for each flavor on its truck.

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But the logo was very much
inspired by a combination of
like

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Victorian scripts and sort of
Americana 1950s

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After obtaining a permit, Van
Leeuwen's truck was
ready for the streets, but
finding a sweet spot to set

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.

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up shop would be yet another
challenge.

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Somebody had said, Wall Street's
really good, it's very
busy.

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We spend like 90 minutes driving
around Wall Street.

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We can't park, so we give up.

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We drive up to Canal Street.

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It's like June 21st ish, 2008,
80 degrees outside.

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So we're thinking this is the
spot.

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We pull up and literally after
like 30 minutes, we had
not sold a single ice cream,

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nor had anyone even like showed
an interest in the
truck.

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So at this point, we think maybe
this idea wasn't a
good idea.

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So the corner of Green and
Prince in Soho, we pull up
this old ice cream truck.

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By the time we've opened the
window, there's 15 people
in line.

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So at that moment, we knew,
okay, we're on to
something here.

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Van Leeuwen launched with ten
flavors, including
classics like Chocolate and
Vanilla, as well as more

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unique flavors like Gianduja and
Ginger.

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At the time, each scoop cost
$3.95.

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On the first day of business,
Laura, Ben and Pete sold
over 300 scoops of ice cream and
brought in about

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$2,000. That same day they were
approached by a
representative from Whole Foods.

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And they said, Do you do
wholesale?

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We said, we'll do anything that
brings in revenue.

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So yes, we do wholesale.

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And three months later, we were
on the shelves in
Whole Foods.

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By the end of that first summer,
they were operating
three trucks in New York City.

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But despite their success, the
early days for Van
Leeuwen were stressful.

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It was horrible.

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I mean, it was so, so hard.

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I mean, you're driving this
particularly in our case,
these trucks that were built in
1988 that were used by

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the post office for two decades,
that we turned into
ice cream trucks that worked
half the time.

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There wasn't a choice to say,
okay, the trucks didn't
work, let's pivot to stores or

00:09:07.588 --> 00:09:11.968
let's take a month off and
regroup and decide what to
do.

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We needed the revenue.

00:09:14.095 --> 00:09:15.429
We had to work hard.

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Their hard work paid off.

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By 2010, Van Leeuwen hit $1
million in revenue during
those first ten years,

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Ben, Laura and Pete say they
paid themselves about
$40,000 each.

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From there, things continued to
pick up.

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So two years into the business,
we had the opportunity
to open a brick and mortar shop
that

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was not part of the business
plan.

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The Brooklyn shop had things
that the truck didn't like
electricity and running water.

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It also generated more revenue
than the truck.

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Literally, within three hours of
opening that shop, we
said we are never building
another ice

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The scoop shop kept the same
aesthetic and design as
the trucks and together with the
pints at Whole Foods,

00:10:01.058 --> 00:10:07.231
cream truck.

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helped put Van Leeuwen on the
map.

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In 2012, they started
manufacturing ice cream in
Brooklyn and in 2014 hired a
part time

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bookkeeper and office assistant.

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By 2017, Van Leeuwen had grown
to ten scoop shops,
including three in Los Angeles.

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In 2018, the company raised its
first institutional
financing a $3.9 million

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investment from Strand Equity
Partners funded the
opening of new scoop shops,
increased production and

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the expansion of the Van Leeuwen
corporate team.

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That investment also allowed Van
Leeuwen to embark on
a major overhaul of its brand
identity.

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It enlisted the design firm
Pentagram to refresh the
look of its now iconic pints.

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We spent over a year and a half
with them working on a
design

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that wasn't only great, that
wasn't only distinct, but
that was completely reflective
of

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what we had done, the ethos of
the company, what we
believe in, and our philosophy.

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So the Van Leeuwen pints went
from this to this.

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You have the logo, you have the
flavor name, you have
nothing else.

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In $18.7 million funding round
in 2020 helped pay for
increased wholesale production
and another scoop

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shop as well as a larger
corporate team.

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Van Leeuwen has released nearly
500 distinct flavors
over the past 15 years, some of
which

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you might be surprised to see in
ice cream form like
mac and cheese or ranch
dressing.

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But these unusual flavors aren't
just for shock value.

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They serve a crucial business
purpose as well.

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So the Kraft mac and cheese is
actually really, really
good.