Ice cream franchises have been part of the landscape for over 60 years and still make for a great franchise opportunity, although things have changed quite a bit since the original Baskin Robbins ice cream parlor and the soft serve ice cream franchise. Of course those are still winners, along with the smoothie franchise, Cold Stone Creamery, and gelato ice cream and Carvel is still a presence among ice cream franchises. Smoothies, containing no dairy, appeal to the health conscious and are also available in many ice cream franchises. The founder of Smoothie King, the largest smoothie franchise, claims to have been the original creator.
The volume of ice cream and smoothies sold continues upwards and statistics support that trend continuing. The average American eats ice cream nine times a month. Cold Stone Creamery and others have put a new twist into ice cream franchises, but Carvel and Baskin Robbins still do well as a franchise opportunity with the more standard ice cream parlor. Baskin Robbins is the world's largest ice cream parlor chain. The first mobile ice cream parlor was started by Carvel in 1934. Carvel had other firsts, the first ice cream franchise opportunity was a Carvel and the first soft serve ice cream franchise also. A smoothie franchise will do well with the active teens and young adults if you can find the right location. Gelato ice cream is the current buzz, but for a steady player you can't beat a soft serve ice cream franchise. Examples of ice cream franchises, some serving smoothies and gelato ice cream are included here:
- Cuppys Coffee, Smoothies and More
- Miami Rice Pudding Company
- Cold Stone Creamery
- Carvel
- Maui Wowi
- The Smootie Factory
- Rick's Candy, Cones & Chaos
Your investment cost will vary from less than $100K for smoothies to over $250K for a Cold Stone Creamery. Baskin Robbins is the worlds largest chain in this category. Some ice cream franchises are labor intensive; others like a soft serve ice cream franchise or Carvel rely on more prepared product similar to the ice cream parlor. A franchise opportunity worth checking out is Miami Rice Pudding, similar to a smoothie franchise, but serving 35 flavors of healthy pudding along with something akin to gelato ice cream called Yolato.
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