![]() ![]() "We both had hundreds of thousands of dollars - more than $200,000 each, I believe - in student loan debt coming out of law school," Bouton tells CNBC Make It. To make things even more risky, both had massive student loan debt and maxed out credit cards, too. "e were outsiders coming in," says Bouton. Neither Bouton nor Woolverton had any experience launching an ice cream company. The two went on a couple of business trips together in early 2013 (one to Whole Foods in Oakland, California, in January and another to the product trade show Expo West in March) and then formalized the partnership. He brought on Bouton (a friend and former lawyer who'd recently quit his job too). The company was growing and Woolverton knew he needed help. Woolverton kept his job until around mid-2013 when he quit to work on Halo Top full time. That year, revenue was "something like $12,000 bucks," says Bouton. Woolverton bootstrapped the business and the first iteration of Halo Top hit the market in June 2012. When Woolverton hit on what he thought was a winning recipe, he started cold-calling production and distribution partners. (Today, "we use egg whites where we can, skim milk where we can," says Bouton.) Early iterations were based on Greek yogurt, but Woolverton then started using milk and more traditional ice cream ingredients, says Bouton, like cream, eggs and sugar. "He experimented with virtually every variation of ingredients and sweeteners to try to find the perfect recipe," Bouton says. There was a lot of trial and error because he had no experience with recipes. Woolverton spent 18 months playing around in his kitchen. ![]() "And that's kind of how it happened," says Bouton. He thought, "Wait, if I like it, maybe a lot of other people will like it. As Woolverton made his recipes in the ice cream machine, he had a eureka moment, says Bouton. He liked his creation so much that he eventually bought an ice cream maker (on sale on Amazon for $20). So he mixed together some Greek yogurt, fresh berries and Stevia (a natural sweetener). To satisfy his sweet tooth, he wanted to concoct something that tasted like ice cream but was healthier and had less sugar. ![]() In 2011, Woolverton was a lawyer, working in the litigation department of Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles. Woolverton just wanted to eat a whole pint of ice cream Because that certainly hasn't always been the reality. "It's surreal to even say that," he tells CNBC Make It. In roughly the last year, Los Angeles-based Halo Top did $347.3 million in sales, according to the company.įor Bouton, even being in the top three is "insane." And a representative for Nestle, which licenses the Haagen-Dazs trademark in the U.S., says Haagen-Dazs had a strong season "with steady upward growth.") (A spokesperson for Ben & Jerry's tells CNBC Make It that low-cal option Halo Top gained "quick popularity" but its growth has slowed. "Depending on what period you look at it, it shifts among all three in terms of who's the biggest or who's selling the most," he says. Since then, Halo Top has remained in the top three best-selling pints with Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Dazs, Bouton says. He immediately called Margie Brevidoro, who runs Halo Top's public relations, and said: "You won't believe this. "I remember emailing and texting Justin, my business partner, and then we got on the phone and digested the data," he says, referring to sales numbers for the four weeks ended July 16, 2017. "I would say that's probably the single most memorable moment we've had in the company's history," Bouton tells CNBC Make It of Halo Top, which launched in 2012. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |