2 years of ice cream!!

Two years ago today, our little ice cream shop opened ~ a great way to celebrate the June 1st Children's Day too! We brought all the kids down for a treat, and hung out with our employees a bit too. It has been an exciting two years of growth and changes in this massive Asian city! We are amazed to see more people actually recognize our name and know of our quality too!

Year #2 has brought some incredible growth as we expanded our production & delivery, and turned the little shop into a sit-down area, with extreme-sports being shown on a TV on the wall and fun music too! We even have longer hours in the summer while the sun is still awake - so please come and enjoy a sundae or double scoop!! Happy Anniversary to us!!

our first Ice Cream Cakes.

Two foreign friends requested some ice cream cakes for their big 40th birthdays! We haven't attempted to make these (to sell) yet, since we aren't really set up for baking, etc. Instead we prepared the cakes at home, and frosted/decorated them ourselves - with Ice Mountain ice cream inside! These two cakes have 2 layers of cake, with a middle layer of coffee ice cream, and almond ice cream. They are frosted with whipping cream. It's not that hard to make!!

This is my friend S - who is a master baker and incredible with all desserts!
She frosted them, right inside our freezer trays! (we have tiny freezers!)

How ironic that our first two cakes are in two different languages - Papiamento and Spanish! (not Chinese, English or a Central Asian language!) I wonder what language will be next?

*the cake on the right was made without artificial colors and sweeteners, because of an allergy. It was fun to color the frosting with natural blueberries - so our friend could eat it. You learn something new everyday!

Ice Mountain Creamery :: Partners

Here's a pict of the guys at the new Factory....looking quite cheery despite all the work & efforts they put into a days work. They are pretty amazing guys - navigating the Chinese business world in three languages. Figuring out new laws each day, and doing it all with integrity, creativity & (mostly) humble hearts. I really love the one on the LEFT. :)

taste-testing

Any trip to California is not complete until you have visited Marianne's Ice Cream at least 5 times, right?? Well, we have lots of reasons to continue our "market research" for the best ice cream in the world. :) J also got to meet Sam, the owner of Marianne's - and ask him lots of questions and take a guided tour of his production site. It was so amazing to sit in the presence of someone who has mastered so many flavors!! Still, my trusty favorite will always be chocolate & peanut butter.

oopsie.

BACK IN CHINA: We got an email today that made us cringe.
There is a LOT of snow and ice where we live right now. It's pretty much in the constant negative degree range for the majority of our winter.

And today, a garbage truck skidded on the ICE down the hill and straight into our NEW Ice Cream delivery van. Yup...couldn't stop if they wanted to. Here is the evidence and damage:


Crazy, huh??


We should have parked in a different spot. But thankfully, the garbage truck is insured by the city - and they are paying for all the repairs!! Isn't that incredible?? We are also SO very thankful for our amazing business partners who are taking care of all the details while we are away. We love them so much, and its less nerve-wracking knowing they are taking care of everything so well.

starting a business in China

For anyone who just loves "businessy stuff" I found a nifty article called "10 Steps to Starting a Business in China" on www.inc.com - and it gives a very thorough tour of the many steps we have taken to open our Ice Cream Shop here in Urumqi, Xinjiang China! We can attest to each of those steps - as it took us well over 16 months to get our Shop up-and-running as a Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE)! The whole process has been an adventure to learn, but we hope it was a smart investment!!

our employees are cute.

On the 1 year anniversary of the Ice Cream shop, the employees made this sign (inside) that I hadn't seen until now. I can't believe they cut out each letter by hand, and the slogan they came up with:

If you can't read the slogan: Really Good Ice Cream Can Build Bright Future For Its Development, then they wrote below, "Raj & Justin, Good Luck For Your Business!"

Aren't they cute??

ice cream update : Happy FIRST Year!

Wowzers! Since the internet was turned off last July, we haven't really posted much about the Ice Cream Biz. Even through all the roller-coaster of events in this wild western province - the love of ice cream has continued to GROW!! Here's a short recap of Ice Mountain Creamery's first YEAR!!

June 1, 2009 - Opening Day!!

We have five employees - managing our little production site, sales and accounting! They are wonderful, loyal and learning all the time. We have a fun delivery vehicle - and we deliver to lots of restaurants, hotels and cafes all across the city! Just this past week - 3 restaurants called US to ask for our ice cream!

We offer large tubs, smaller family size containers, and cups & cones for great affordable prices! Students get a discount too! ...while keeping our ice cream all-natural and of highest quality! We have 10-15 flavors, depending on the season!

There have also been major bumps along the way: One week the sewage pipes along our street got clogged and flooded every business along our little street. The guys were ankle deep in raw sewage for the day (yeeck!). Another week during winter, the water pipes burst - which caused all the water to be shut down. We managed to keep our customers happy with what we had stocked in our inventory - but it was a major job to get fixed. Another time - the electricity went out in the entire block, and we almost lost all our ice cream! So dealing with simple utilities has proved to be crucial!! We have navigated renewals of permits, banking, and doing our taxes - all in Chinese! The biggest challenge is dealing with picky restaurant managers - and making sure we get paid correctly and on time. But overall, we are learning SO MUCH!

This coming Summer we have plans to expand our production, and hire more employees to share the goodness of Ice Cream to more and more people here! We will keep you posted as the adventure continues!

June 1, 2010 - Ice Mountain Creamery - First Anniversary!

restaurant packaging arrived!!

This may not sound exciting to you – but it has taken us WAY TOO LONG to purchase ice cream buckets so that we can sell larger quantities to restaurants! We finally found a place to order them – and got our first shipment today! They were delivered to our door – just like this! One of these buckets of ice cream sells for 55kuai ($8.00). It holds about 3 liters – which is 3 of the half gallon buckets you can buy in any store in America. That’s a great deal, don’t ya think?? We will see how long this first 500 buckets takes to sell.

It only took 4 months - even in this economy! I think Ice Cream is a great business!

Ice Mountain Creamery - Grand opening!

We opened our shop today and began selling ice cream out of the front windows, on Children’s Day! We had hoped to open earlier, but things never really happen how we expect out here. Of course, Children’s Day is a wonderful day to launch an ice cream business – and there were lots of people outside wanting a sweet treat!! Both Justin & Raj were at the shop scooping cones, which easily draws a crowd too. Who doesn’t want to be served ice cream by a white foreigner and have a chance to practice your English? We really underestimated the crowds – and almost ran out of ice cream the first day! Students crowded around the little window asking “which flavor is best?” and all ordering “strawberry” since the person before them got it. There is a ‘follow the crowd’ mentality that runs strong – even when choosing your ice cream. We will have to figure out the supply & demand aspect of running a shop in this big city – but we are amazed that there was such an overwhelming response! We hope it continues!!

Q&A with my friend Bianca Jane

"Hi McNabb clan! ….so exciting to hear the doors are opening for your Ice Cream business! What kind of shop will it be? Cold-Stone style or are the flavors already set...or do you deliver? Such a fun/interesting business – I’m curious how it came about!" ~ Bianca

Well – we are always eager to feature new Q&A times on here – so thanks for the great questions!

The ice cream business requires a ton of time & work. We finally got our business visas approved, but actually getting it up and running requires a bit more time & energy. Right now -- we have a tiny production site that is ready to go. There is a small kitchen, with all the machines we need to make our special dessert. We don't have a sit-down shop YET, but that would be a great by-product once the ice cream begins to make a profit. We decided to start small at first, which also helps with the amount of money we needed to invest up front.

We will launch (hopefully) in early June -- with about 8-10 flavors. We'd like to have seasonal ones too, but it’s hard to know what we can maintain at first. The basic flavors: vanilla/sweet cream, strawberry, coffee, almond, cookies & cream, banana, red rose tea -- those are the ones for sure. We are hoping to experiment with chocolate (hard to do well out here), melon, peanut butter, green tea, and a few seasonal ones like pumpkin, peppermint, pomegranate, peach/apricot....we will see. We have to get our recipes figured out....so those seasonal ones are still experimental. For each ingredient we have to get a supplier, which is hard out here!! We have to get paperwork, quality clearance, etc. More work than we thought!!

We also deliver! We are hoping to supply nice restaurants and cafés around the city – so we bought a delivery van! Justin made a Styrofoam cooler to go in the back – and we will deliver the ice cream buckets in the van. We still need to get our logo put on the side – but it’s a great mode of transportation! Justin is working on getting his drivers’ license already (which is a story in itself)!

Here's a pict of the shopfront!!

We switched our visa's!!

As of today, March 23rd, 2009 - we are official registered business owners of an Ice Cream Company in NW China! All our paperwork is accounted for - and we have been given the stamp of approval!! We are amazed, thrilled and in shock too! I guess even though we have worked hard for this outcome, we were a bit amazed at how "easily" it came about. Within 10 weeks we were approved! The waiting and suspense is over! Thank you China!!

Now we can move forward with all the rest of the details:

• getting bar codes for our packaging
• getting safety/quality seals for our packaging
• creating the final package design
• locating & pricing the cartons for printing
• finding an office (separate from production site)
• purchasing final machinery/freezers
• hiring & training employees

....just to mention a few of the things that will consume our energies in the coming weeks! The process of learning how to start a business from scratch has been educational & stressful, especially while speaking a foreign language and navigating all sorts of confusing laws that are new to us. But we are excited to offer high-quality ice cream with all natural ingredients....even if it is high in calories! I hope we can swoon the masses!

strictly business

Justin is becoming an ice cream connoisseur.

con·nois·seur; \ˌkä-nə-ˈsər also -ˈsu̇r\ noun, obsolete French (now connaisseur), from Old French connoisseor, from connoistre to know, from Latin cognoscere — more at cognition.

1: expert; especially : one who understands the details, technique, or principles of an art and is competent to act as a critical judge
2: one who enjoys with discrimination and appreciation of subtleties connoisseur of fine wines>

Part of his desire to make the best ice cream, means that he must taste test different flavors wherever we go. This is Pumpkin ice cream - and it was tasty!!

mixed emotions

The last few weeks have been rocky ones. Even with all the momentum, approvals & green lights....we were NOT given Visas for this time. We were held up by ONE signature - the final step before we can begin to sell our delicious creamy goodness. There are too many details to list, but we have done all we can during the Olympic season. We have mixed emotions about leaving our home behind (for 3 months), but we are content and eager to come back in the Fall when Visa's might be easier to come by. We definitely look forward to a break, seeing loved ones, and eating avocado again.

oatmeal cookie + coffee ice cream!

Making ice cream sandwiches are easy! This is another (of many) reasons to come visit us out in Urumqi, China! We will make you one of these to order. I think they are better than anything you could buy, but we might be biased.

can it get any crazier?

In the last 2 weeks:
Our health inspection passed in 2 days!
We began doing taste testings
The shop is complete
We got our Business License!
We hired our first employee
AND we were given official stamps for our business (pictured here)

One crazy story:
This whole process has been quite unnerving, as each step relies upon the previous one so that we can keep moving ahead. One such step requires an official signature from one official, in order to receive our Business License. We went to his office to request his signature, and he told us he was too busy to sign the papers, because he was preparing for a singing competition. We ended up waiting almost 7 days for him to process our papers. He simply told us, "This singing competition is very important to me." While we are huge advocates of ART in every form, we struggled to understand the rationale.

Ice Mountain Creamery storefront!!

...it's been a long process, but the shop is finally DONE!! We recently got the sign finished, and all our equipment installed. We even began experimenting with our recipes in the industrial machines, and its been fun!! This is the final week before our visa's expire - and (as usual) every approval is down to the wire. I will have Justin explain in further detail - but I wanted to post a picture of the storefront to share our excitement. Its been a grueling few months - and here you can see the humble beginnings to Ice Mountain Creamery....and beyond!

Can you see my little munchkins inside? They have cones in their hands!! Our first official taste-testers.

Strawberry Bonanza '08

To make strawberry ice cream YEAR ROUND - you need lots of strawberries (cǎo méi 草莓)! Fruits are only available out here during their peak season - and strawberries are not going to be around much longer - so we had to act fast!

This week began our Strawberry Bonanza 08: Early morning trips to the fruit market to bargain for the best boxes at the best price. Over the course of 3 days - we bought 10 huge boxes of strawberries (160 kilos = 353 pounds), and gathered a faithful crew to help prepare them for ice cream. This should be enough for our first year in business....but next year, we may need about three times this much!

We washed, strained, hulled, and blended countless strawberries - spending about 65 man-hours to finish the job! It was a fun learning experience, and good bonding for all involved. Here are some highlights of the mess we made!

boxes of strawberries - fresh from the market

hard at work: sorting and taking the tops off

blending into a fresh mushy pulp

some bags ready to freeze

'08 Strawberry Price Comparisons:
Basket of strawberries in CA: about $4.99/basket
Pick your own @ Gizdich Ranch: about $1.45/pound
Average price here in NW China: $0.17/pound*

*Just another reason to come visit!

in the way.....

As our ice cream shop gets closer & closer to production readiness, we are finishing the remodeling, buying our equipment, finding suppliers, etc. It is never dull, as I am learning new things every day and encountering new challenges as well. In fact, it seems that at just about every turn we are faced with another challenge; some minor, some major. Here is a picture of the finished shopfront! We still need to outfit the kitchen and sanitize the work area! The picture below is both an example and a word-picture of our challenging experiences thus far.

Today I went down to the shop to receive the delivery of our kitchen sink as well as pick-up of another item that was delivered not as ordered. Upon arrival, we find a CAR parked less than a foot from our door…

No owner in sight
No way to move the car (we tried)
No way to open the door enough to get anything through it.

Normally, this might not be so challenging, except that it is not always so easy to reschedule these delivery guys for a suitable time. This is such a good word-picture of our business experience thus far, in that there always seems to be something blocking our way. We are constantly required to make adjustments, be flexible, have patience, and learn new ways of doing (or getting around) things.

There is literally enough room to squeeze by the car. Just barely.

almost done!!

It has been about 1 week since our shop was gutted - and the transformation process has been fast and educational. Besides all the kinks, it looks pretty amazing!! Here are a few of the changes that we've been working on:

• upgrading the electricity
• fixing the leaks in the back wall and ceiling
• new tile on walls & floor
• painting ceiling
  
• new storefront & windows
• building dividing wall between service counter & kitchen
  
• purchasing ice cream machinery
• shopping for kitchen appliances & supplies
• securing ingredient & packaging suppliers
  

Day two:
insulating back wall, mixing cement

Day 5:
new tile, electricity upgrade

installing new storefront

Day 8:
installing door, new front tiles!!

In the next few days they will do some final touches with the plumbing & light fixtures, put up a red awning and our new sign! These pictures make it look kinda small - which it is. You also can't see the floor, which is black & white checkered, similar to the front wall - but larger. It looks really snazzy. We will be sure to include a picture of the end result soon.

Next steps: installing the kitchen, buying supplies & raw ingredients, testing our recipes in the new machines, continued research, and the biggie: our health inspection & quality control testing. We will also be working on the sign out front, cartons/labeling and more to come. Having a tangible place has made the excitement grow!!