Close-Up TV News Recognizes Festival Ice Cream
Close-Up TV News recognizes Festival Ice Cream as the largest distributor of ice cream in the state of New Jersey.
Festival Ice Cream is a full-service distribution company that specializes in the storage and delivery of various ice cream products to small convenience stores and supermarkets throughout New Jersey. From his humble beginnings as a local ice cream man, owner Mario Calbi has since grown Festival Ice Cream into the largest ice cream distributor in New Jersey, a virtual one-stop shop for every store from the local bodega to supermarkets like Stop & Shop.
“Because of the extreme temperatures necessary to properly store ice cream, a lot of other distributors simply can’t do what we do,” says Calbi. “Ice cream has to be stored at 10 degrees. We know how to store the most extreme product you can handle.”
Calbi first started Festival Ice Cream in 1975. Today, the company is the largest distributor of ice cream in New Jersey, handling everything from Good Humor and Ben & Jerry’s to Edy’s and Häagen-Dazs. Though Calbi admits much of the company’s success has been due to good timing.
“In the 70s and early 80s, household names like Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s weren’t even around yet,” recalls Calbi. “All you had was normal ice cream: sandwich, cup and cone. Then Chipwich came around and started a real excitement in ice cream. A whole new channel of creativity opened up and all these new products and varieties started to come out. We became the vehicle to get these exciting new products into the stores.”
According to Calbi, the industry is about to enter its next big change as more companies are beginning to develop products specifically for the Spanish market. Festival Ice Cream is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this market change given their relationships with local bodegas.
As for the future, Festival Ice Cream recently purchased the trademark to its own brand of ice cream, Welsh’s Farms, a 118-year-old brand Calbi hopes to return to its original quality and popularity.
“I see Welsh’s Farms becoming more of a player in the region,” says Calbi. “We can control the quality of the product and pass along the savings in the price.”
For more information email info@CloseUpTVNews.com
