Fendant, Syrah, Williamine or abricotine ice creams did not survive the high production costs, the tough market competition and the Covid. The Valais company Iscream has shut down.
The Iscream website has left the web and no longer means to taste alcoholic Valais ice cream. “The bankruptcy of the company was pronounced at the end of July”, explained Friday to Keystone-ATS Gaëtan Brigante, at the origin of the creation of the products with two other partners.
The three Valaisans were unable to overcome all the pitfalls linked to this type of trade. ‘We didn’t have any skills in agri-food, logistics or sales in particular. We each had a side job and worked with subcontractors. When we finally managed to solve one problem, another one arose’.
Gaëtan Brigante remembers, for example, how batches of ice cream with “a minor labeling non-compliance” might not be marketed. He also recounts ‘the coup de grace’, in the spring of 2022, when one of the recipes containing too much sugar was declared non-compliant during a quality control: ‘We had to destroy four tonnes of ice cream. A net loss of some 30,000 francs, a significant sum for our young company.
From rocket to calippo
The story had however started well, with first of all an artisanal production, between carnotzet and cuisine. In 2013, Fendant ice creams seduce during a festival in Sierre, even if they tend to run down the fingers of tasters.
In 2014, the partners collaborated with two Bachelor students from the University of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Sciences in Zollikofen (BE) to concoct a recipe and a more convincing texture in the mouth. The rocket format becomes calippo-type and the range expands with williamine and abricotine ice creams which are a hit on social networks.
Manor plays the game in 2015, then gives up, sales not being there. Coop remains faithful, but deliveries are not always forthcoming, Iscream having to face in particular the defection of its German-speaking producer, ‘with whom relations have never been easy’.
Stabilizers required
Aware that with alcohol-only ice creams, they are depriving themselves of a large share of the market, the three Valaisans create an apricot ice cream and a raspberry-rhubarb ice cream which will be sold by Migros Valais. ‘They will be in the top 20 of sales in 2016’, recalls Pierre Carroz.
But Iscream has to give up when the distributor asks him to add stabilizers to prevent unsightly ice crystals from forming on the products. ‘It involved a new recipe, tests and additional costs that were impossible to bear,’ explains Gaëtan Brigante.
fierce competition
With an ‘atypical, local, ultra-niche product, with studied packaging, we straddled the artisanal and industrial models and we were a little lost between two commercial realities’, notes Pierre Carroz. The management of the conservation of products and that of stocks is proving to be ‘a very complicated and costly challenge’.
Ice creams have also not withstood the fierce competition of this market where giants like Nestlé and Unilever are roaring. Nor have they withstood two years of pandemic and as many canceled events ‘which were the heart of our business’.
‘Our HEC to all’
After six products launched mainly on the cantonal market, the company is financially at the end of its possibilities and its margins are very low. She can no longer wait for help from the canton, which has already granted her a start-up fund.
Pierre Carroz is the first to throw in the towel in 2019. ‘We were convinced by the concept and the products we wanted to develop, but we weren’t strong enough. With our savings and the start-up fund, we had 150,000 francs. We would have needed 1.5 million, ten times more, ‘said Gaëtan Brigante.
‘We learned a lot from this whole adventure,’ smiles Pierre Carroz. ‘She was our HEC at all’.
/ATS
