Israeli gourmet ice cream hits stores
New brand made of goat milk to compete against Ben & Jerry's, Häagen-Dazs in the premium category. Product sponsored by Sabra founder's new investment fund
One of the founders of the new fund, called Yula, is Jewish American businessman Yehuda Pearl, who sold the Sabra brand to Strauss and PepsiCo several years ago. The fund will invest NIS 2.5 million ($720,000) in the ice cream brand, which is its first project.
The ice cream was concocted by chef Boaz Kwintner and gastronomer Barak Beit Halahmi, who began producing and selling ice cream together in the Galilee.
Kwinter was the founder of the Capriciouse and Big Mama restaurants in Tel Aviv, and today owns the Boaz Mevashel restaurant in the northern community of Mitzpe Hila.
Beit Halahmi, a lawyer who has a master's degree in gastronomy from Italy, set up a gourmet ice cream lab in the Galilee, where the first versions of the product were developed.
The ice cream is being marketed in the Mega, Tiv Taam, Eden Teva Market chains in 500 ml containers decorated with an image of an ice cream scoop, which looks like the moon on different days of the month.
The brand has no name as a concept, and the fund members hope it will be known as "the ice cream with the moon" or "the moon ice cream". The first series includes four pretty ordinary flavors: Chocolate, vanilla and coconut, coffee and melon.
Premium ice cream brands make up 6% of Israel's ice cream market and their volume of sales totals some NIS 50 million ($15 million).
Manufacturers with added value
The Yula Fund, which made the marketing of the ice cream possible, will serve as an investment incubator for the development of products and concepts in the consumer goods area, mainly in the food and cosmetics industries.
Its goal is to sponsor new manufacturers and companies and turn their products into well-known brands. It will focus on health products, green products, products with added value of innovation (in the products, its logistics or the marketing level) and premium products.
The fund will provide the manufacturers with economic and operational support. It will invest some NIS 100 million ($30 million) in the first two years and will look into entering other companies and projects and helping in management, marketing and sales in Israel and abroad.
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