Strategic and Marketing Plan

Project Description and Competitive Analysis.
L.A. Creamery Artisan Ice Cream was acquired by Umami Burger Founder/CEO Adam Fleischman. It was an ownership stake that brought creativity in culinary talents to frozen treats. He had an innovative vision of the food industry. The partnership with L.A. Creamery was to bring the best ice cream in Los Angeles to the world. The ice cream company, known for serving in small batches, grew quickly to acquire shops in the Westfield Topanga, Westfield Fashion Square and the Americana site.
L.A. Creamery Artisan Ice Cream manufactures twelve different flavors of all natural ice creams. However, they contain less fructose corn syrup, no rBGH/rBST or added hormones, and the best part being absolutely free of artificial colors. The company has a large clientele base currently, including approximately fifty supermarkets, including upscale Albertsons’s in Southern California, Gelson’s, Bristol Farms and hotels and restaurants in the Los Angeles area.

What’s special about L.A Creamery?
L.A. Creamery Artisan Ice Cream boast of being the first ice cream company in the entire Los Angeles to use organic dairy from Straus Family Farms to create its ice creams. All the different flavors rarely have more than 5 ingredients. There are no preservatives, hormones or antibiotics, and free from any artificial ingredients. They prefer local sourcing from local farms and orchards which they use to make the ice creams, sorbets, and popsicles. According to the manager, in the interview, she feels that this is the reason why people love their products. The chef visit local farmers markets to buy fresh fruit and ingredients therefore eliminating the need for artificial flavors, preservatives, hydrogenated oils in any of the products and use of colors.
Range of ice cream products offered are: Manhattan, Honey comb, Brown butter toffee crunch, Turtle swirl, Salted caramel and Cinnamon toast.
Competition.
McConnell’s Fine Ice-cream. Its location from L.A creamery is not far. At McConnell’s, they are out to produce the finest ice creams in the world. They achieve this in the most responsible and sustainable way possible. Part of their mission is to enrich and enliven the surrounding communities and to leave the world just a little bit “sweeter” than we found it.
Products at McConnell’s: Boysenberry Milk jam, cardamom and gingersnaps, chocolate almond brittle, salted caramel chip, Turkish coffee, sweet cream, vanilla bean among other.
The competition is stiff because McConnell’s have stores in 4 different places. One is in Santa Barbara, Downtown Los Angeles, Studio City and Los Feliz. McConnell’s also offer more different varieties and flavors with a setup base in strategic positions where business is flourishing.
Many people are worried with the ingredients that McConnell’s use. This worries come as a blessing to L.A creamery since people know that L.A creamery uses organic dairy farm products. This gives them a competitive edge over McConnell’s.
The other competitor that comes in disguise is Straus Family Creamery. It is a Northern California, certified organic creamery producing and offering milk products, cream sour cream, ice cream, and a and a variety of specialty dairy products offered in wholesale distributed throughout the Western United States. Straus Family Creamery maintain collaborative relationships with the family farms that supply it with milk. They then offer stable prices and predictability of the market to take care of price. Although L.A creamery, benefits from them, they still offer competition since they produce the same end products supplied to the same market.

Managerial Interview
We met Antonella Loiacono, Corporate Chef and Director of Production.

[MHR=Marisa, Huda, Rawan. Manager=Antonella]

Interview:

MHR: How long have you worked here or in this organization?
Manager: I have been here since November 2015. The Company was LA Creamery then we changed management and became the IBG Food Group.
MHR: Did you start working in the food industry with this organization or you had different experience working with other food chains?
Manager: I have a lot of experience, hotel, pastry chef experience, bread baking, but very little ice cream or gelato experience. I opened a café in Chicago in 2007. From there I learnt lots of experiences, from making pizzas.
MHR: Do you find this different?
Manager: Yes, I love it, it’s a little bit different. It’s something that I definitely love. I love different flavors, I love cooking. I love the process of incorporating different flavors. Love the process of incorporating different flavors and making something powerful. Cooking does not have lots of opportunities but with this I am learning.
MHR: What are your hours of operation?
Manager: We have Monday to Friday 7 to 3. Very bizarre (laughing). We are actually trying to extend that because we are have very little down time and we are getting so big and need to meet orders and deadlines, so we are going to be taking that still through Monday to Friday but extending the hours to be 7am to 10pm.

MHR: Do you sell directly to companies?

Manager: Well we have a distribution company who does that. We work with DPI distribution center. A lot of stores can’t order directly from us so they buy from them. They don’t have to worry about the logistics. Here, we just worry about the production end of the product.
MHR: So what is your role or responsibility in the LA Creamery?
Manager: Well, am the corporate chef here as well as the director for production, I do all the hiring but I work on recipes, recipe development, a lot of R&D, outsourcing of products, I can find for example, a clean peanut butter with a good price, something that would be cost effective for us, figure the cost per pint to produce, manage staff here, know the day to day orders, I am trying to build the inventory, so I need to know what we have as we have, I am trying to fulfill future orders, for right now I am doing everything. We just brought two additional employees. One is giving us the opportunity to extend our hours, more on the production and the other one is going to be filling in, in different areas as well as deliver to other markets for example Santa Barbara or San Diego and other longer distance places. The person is filling all those gaps.
MHR: In terms of marketing, let’s say you want to venture into other markets, do you think it’s going to affect people in New York, no L.A creameries?
Manager: if you think about it... You want that New York Cheese Cake. You wanted to build that brand that is sold out, you want to be the destination restaurant, the place where people go. Let’s say you see a new product and you are like I know this shop from L.A, so I am going to get it, so I don’t know if it’s limiting us. Well that just defines who we are. We source so much that we can from L.A. Like the dairy, is local. Especially with the new lines, we try to get one strong ingredient from each pint that is made in L.A representing the area.
MHR: Well this question is not relevant but what time is the busiest?
Manager: In the winter, we are a lot busier than summers, which is surprising. Holidays are also busy. Christmas is busy, Valentine’s is busy. Shipping ice cream with dry ice.

MHR: Question regarding the creativity of the recipes... So, the ideas come from you? Who gives input about any changes where do they come from?

Manager: It is a collective effort. The company principal gives me ideas, and I am from Chicago, I execute their idea, use my recipe and we are putting it together. Or if I come up with some crazy idea I give it to them, and they decide too. Frank the Principal is wonderful and his ideas are great. It’s either once a week, they bring up this or that flavor, they come up with ideas and I run with it.
MHR: How many customers do you serve daily?
Manager: We have about 10-15 customers that we deliver to a week. It is not a lot. Most of our businesses is coming from those larger companies, the distribution centers. We just sent 500 cases of ice cream pints to the company in Oregon and that company distributes the ice cream to grocery stores. Right now we don’t have a definitive number of what we do every day. I know what we do every week to provide to our customers.

MHR: How many employees do you have at one time?

Manager: 5 to 6. They are all part-time. Nearing 40 hours/week each. Regarding orders, we send each week on Monday 120 cases to the East coast. We send samples to companies so they can pick us up anytime.

MHR: What are your three best sellers?
Manager: Manhattan, salted caramel and turtle swirl.
MHR: What product does not do too well on the menu?
Manager: I would say it is honeycomb crunch. Honeycomb is tossed into chocolate. Not a big fan (laughs).

MHR: Why is this?
Manager: It’s because you start with something sweet, then when you reach half way, you get something bitter.
MHR: Is the company considering upgrading the ingredients?
Manager: We are working on keeping some flavors in line with what we have. We have been with these flavors for quite a while, people’s flavors are changing, their palates are too, and so the need for different flavors. We are trying to work on Lemon Merengue, Almond Milk Caramel…
MHR: What do you do with the food at the end of the day? Do you sell it, considering that you have expiration date?
Manager: Expiration for the ice cream is one year from the date of production. We don’t waste any ice cream. We deliver a lot, so I don’t think there is any waste.
MHR: Who is your competition?
Manager: I guess it’s not really about competition. McConnell’s, you see them in WholeFoods the same area of the freezer with us.
MHR: When I read the ingredients of McConnell’s, there’s just a lot of stuff going on.
Manager: We want to be extremely organic, we want to be local, and we want to be like extremely clean. We don’t want anything artificial. We don’t want anything that is going to comprise the true flavor of the product.
MHR: What clients are you looking for? Any new clientele?
Manager: Our clientele has been the same. We have two food lines (the other one is frozen yogurt). One is a little bit more high-end. L.A creameries is more accepted, more understood by more people. Everyday kind of people. Everything is global, natural, clean… that kind of drives the price up. Not just a big name with random ingredients. We take a lot of pride on what ingredients we use. So, anybody that appreciates different flavors, anybody that appreciates what ice cream or gelato really is. We are redoing our cups and our pints, we expect lots of changes in the next 6 months.

MHR: What do you think is your company’s strength?

Manager: I think our strength is that everybody has an opinion that is valuable. A big family. We are all in this for the same reason. Your idea is not going to be discarded because of your position here. Also, to make a great product and make some money out of it. Having a product that is just so natural. Giving us the true edge.

MHR: What equipment is essential?

Manager: Definitely a scale, to make sure the ingredients are properly measured, from there, a blender to make sure the ingredients are properly incorporated, then we take that and put into the gelato machine which is Magianni and a freezer of course. The machine does not clean itself unfortunately. We pack every pint by hand. We eyeball, measure, mix and put it in the pints.

MHR: How do you evaluate customer satisfaction?

Manager: Sales? A lot of customers if they have any comments or concerns, I take it in. We are having problems with opening of new pints. We are barely closing them now. Just barely tweaks here and there. The other day we shipped some products to Kansas City and some of the new pints broke. It is just work in progress. We don’t have complains locally. Never about the flavor or something. The other day a customer complained that the ice cream they got was really soft. I told him that I would check the product here, didn’t get defensive or anything. I told him I would check the product here. We did not have any problems. So, I told him maybe check your freezer. His freezer was broken!!
MHR: What do you think attracts customers?
Manager: Especially in LA, I think of local sourcing. Whatever is appealing to the eye. The freezer section of the store, that all plays a role in the perception of the people.

MHR: Who did the nutrition label?

Manager: I am not sure! The owner sent it to another company.
MHR: On the day of presentation we will come back to have some.

Menu Analysis:

L.A. Creamery prides itself on using only the most fresh, natural, “least” processed products. They aim to purchase as many local ingredients as possible. No artificial colors, no added hormones, and no fructose corn syrup are using in the ingredients. They want to target the everyday people. People who care about taste and an “honest” product. They are an “open book” They don’t create fake flavors. The flavor is as honest and true, to the blended ingredients, as possible. The company does not aim to target the health conscious, calorie counting, trendy, gluten-free minded customer. They want to sell a product that tastes incredible and that motto is their guideline. The analysis of ingredients shows that these products are rich in nutrients, vitamins, and minerals such as vitamin A, D, E, and C, calcium, potassium, iodine, folate, and iron. They are low in sodium and carbohydrate with no trans-fat.

Menu:

Salted caramel

The best seller.

Honeycomb

Made with handcrafted honeycomb candy.

Madagascar vanilla

Made with pure Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract.

Manhattan

Rittenhouse Rey with brown butter toffee and Bing cherries.

Turtle swirl

Vanilla ice cream with candied pecans, brownie bites, caramel swirls.

Brown butter toffee crunch

Made with toffee from pure cane sugar, California almonds, Oregon hazelnuts, award winning Guittard chocolate.

Facility Analysis

In the facility, they use up to 4 equipment:

Burton Scale: They use the scale so that they can measure exactly what they put in the ice cream.
Waring: This is a mixer machine they use by hand to mix up all the ingredients.
Carpigiani: This is the ice cream maker, this is where all the ingredients are mixed well and become frozen.
Kelvinator: This is a freezer they use for storage of the ice cream after it has been put in containers and packaged.

Labor Analysis
Number of employees physically working in the facility is 6.

Job Descriptions of 3 positions:

Driver- delivers the product to customers throughout the LA area, as well as Santa Barbara and San Diego. Hours: As needed, but usually leaves by 8:00am. Returns to LA after delivery is made because he delivers within 150-200 miles.

Production Employee- runs the ice cream/gelato machine. They build inventory, take inventory, assists with daily duties. Hours: 7:00am-3:00pm

Production Lead- Follows the correct recipes for mixes, dictates what is needed for inventory, works on daily orders, assists with administrative duties. Administration duties include orders sent out through drop ship. (Mail orders) Hours: 7:00am-3:00pm.

Organizational Chart

This organizational chart depicts an organization where everyone is contributing to the benefit of the company. Everyone is a valued member and is an equal part of the organization regardless of their job description. That is the company’s culture and that is the feel we received during the interview at the ice cream factory in Chatsworth. The Corporate Chef, Antonella, is the closest in line with the CEO that is why her position is a bit separated from the rest of the employees. She develops, produces, and oversees execution. The company is expanding, however, their goal is to maintain their small company mentality and continue growing while at the same time, keeping their “mom & pop” small family style organization.

References
Fine Ice Creams. McConnell’s. Accessed April 4, 2017, www.mcconnells.com/collections/fine-

ice-creams
L.A Creamery. Artisan Ice Cream. L.A Creamery. Accessed April 4, 2017,

http://www.lacreamery.com/
Straus Family Creamery. Accessed April 4, 2017, www.strausfamilycreamery.com/