Wow! The Last Time I Penned a Note…

The last time I penned a note, I was talking about March not being a peak sales month for ice cream. Who’d have thought then that March would be better than April, perhaps better than May and perhaps the last real month of sales for a considerable (and as yet unknown) length of time.

We’ve pretty much hit the wall as well. With no parts coming in, we can’t finish (or start) equipment which means once we get back to building, we’ll be behind. I get the feeling that the ice cream world will also come back to life with a bang – which will tax employees and suppliers alike. Those days will be most welcome.

There’s a few things we’ve been working on – some new marketing activities, equipment redesign, some R&D activities and we’re also working on a couple of projects to provide ice cream to the local community. Oh, yeah, we’re also in the middle of repainting the office. While we’d rather be building equipment and opening stores with people, these activities at least help move things forward and sometimes the perception of progress is needed to keep optimistic.

If you want to open a store right now, it will be a challenge but there will be opportunities moving forward – whether in cheaper rents, incentives from local governments and pent up demand. If you’re using a business plan from early 2020, it should be reviewed and changes made.  Many of our customers make initial contact 9-12 months before opening. While we might not be building frozen custard equipment at our normal pace, we’re still here, open and ready to help in any way we can.

Please stay safe, don’t believe everything you read or hear, and treat people kindly. There’s no handbook for how to handle this pandemic, we’re all doing our best to figure it out as we go along. Remember, we’re closer to the end of it than we were yesterday.