Can Your Business Make Money with Soft Serve Ice Cream ? (2024)

Take This First Step To Find Out.

Operating a successful Soft Serve Ice Cream Program is not difficult and can be very profitable.

If you own a restaurant, deli or convenient store, you may be a candidate to significantly increase your bottom line gross profit margins by selling soft serve ice cream.

In order to be successful you will need to ask yourself 3 questions:

Can I devote 30-60 minutes per day to my ice cream program?
Do I have a willingness to please my customers?
Is there a local equipment supplier, who is an expert in the industry that can guide my business through the set up process?

If you can answer “yes” to those questions, you’re on the right track. Keep reading.

Every good program starts with food cost analysis. It doesn’t make sense to sell something if you’re not going to make a profit from it. I have boiled that process down to 6 steps. Let’s look at these together and discover if your business can make money with a Soft Serve Ice Cream program.

Six Steps of Soft Serve Food Cost Analysis

1. The first thing we want to do is select a product. There are many soft serve products in the marketplace to choose from. There is everything from water based nondairy mixes, which are the least expensive; to the higher end, high butterfat content dairy products. The high end mix has a super smooth texture with a very creamy taste. This is usually considered to be a 10% butterfat product. The average cost of 10% butterfat soft serve mix per 5 oz. cone: 30 cents

2. The second thing we want to do is to decide if we want to offer a single flavor, two flavors with a twist, or FlavorBurst. FlavorBurst is a flavor injection system that gives you the ability to offer 8 different flavors from a single flavor ice cream freezer, all at the touch of a button. You can see a You Tube Video of the FlavorBurst in action HERE

FlavorBurst will typically double to triple your sales volume over a single flavor or Twin Twist machine. FlavorBurst is something that also gives you the ability to command a higher selling price since it is unique and highly impulsive. The cost of FlavorBurst Syrup per 5 oz. cone: 6 cents

3. Next we have to decide what type of cones we want to offer. Most Programs will offer the basic cake cones. Waffle cones/bowls are a great way to increase your sale per unit since you can charge extra for the waffle cone. We will price this out using cake cones since nobody charges extra for a cake cone, it is considered included; however, it is a food cost so we have to figure that into our food cost equation. The cost of a cake cone: 5 cents

4. One very important factor in operating a successful Soft Serve Program is the price you will charge. You cannot get premium price for a cone if you do not use a premium product. Your customers are smart; they will know a high quality ice cream product when they taste it. If using a premium product, you have a better chance of getting a premium price. Do not make the mistake of charging too much. A successful program will take time to build and the best way to build the program is with repeat business (I know I wrote that earlier…..but it’s worth repeating).

Repeat business will come when they perceive your product as a VALUE. In your customer’s eyes a premium product at a less than premium price with great customer service equals VALUE.

Factored into the equation of price is also competition. Be aware of what product your competitor is offering and the selling price. For a 10% butterfat product with FlavorBurst, the pricing could be anywhere from $1.79 to $3.50 per cone. Location for pricing is going to be a huge factor. Tourist town locations, Festival Events or Food Trucks can demand a higher retail. The QSR, Fast Casual Restaurant or Convenient Store should stick to the lower end of the retail scale. For the sake of being conservative with our figures let’s say the price will be $1.89. The Selling Price: $1.89

5. How many can I sell? That is a great question and is asked by all my customers. Sales are based on how well you take care of the customer, location, promotion, and traffic count. Typically, a convenient store or restaurant with a well-run program will sell about 10% of the current customer base. If you have 250 customers per day, you may sell 25 soft serve cones. If you have 1000 customers per day your sales could exceed 100 per day. If you are strictly an ice cream shop, the sky’s the limit depending on location. For our example though, let’s just be really conservative and stick with a minimum. If you can't sell this many, then this may not be the right program for your business. Minimum Sales per day: 25

6. More than just an ice cream cone - Maximize Your Profit! At this point you have to ask yourself, “Am I maximizing my opportunity?” The answer is a resounding NO! NO! NO!

If we have a soft serve program in place with the FlavorBurst and we are offering a premium product, we can double or triple our current profit outlook by offering more than just cones. We can now offer Value Added categories. We can now offer at least 8 flavors of Milk Shakes, Banana Splits, Sundaes, Floats, and the fast growing category of “Thick Shakes”. Dairy Queen calls these Blizzards, Cook Out calls them Fancy Shakes, Chick-fil-A calls them Hand-Spun Shakes, and Wendy’s calls them Frosty’s. I call them PROFIT.