The DIY ice-cream parlour: Flavours are “tapped” like beer

 You buy your ice cream at the vending machine. That is something real. You insert coins, choose the product, take the small cup and fill it. Et volià, the DIY ice cream. A revolution in the concept of ice-cream making that you can find in Laveno.  In fact, in the lakeside town a shop, which its owner defines as “ the new boundary in the ice cream making sector”  has been opened for two months. His neighbouring competitors, however, are likely to stick up their noses.

The shop is at the entrance of the town and it has a very clear sign: “ The DIY ice cream, 1 €.” Inside the shop there are rows of coloured vending machine, which are divided  according to taste,  with taps, which allows the ice cream to be dispensed. There is also a machine, that dispenses just the small cups, and that allows you  to decide the price and so the quantity of your ice cream: 1 €, 2 €, 3€. You insert the money and the vending machine supplies the bowl that you are going to fill.

“ I had this idea three years ago,”  Daniele Mezzanotte, owner of the shop, explained, “ but there was nobody that could supply the right equipment.  I wanted the ice cream on tap.  Last year I eventually found out that there was something similar in Milan and I immediately contacted the suppliers. I managed to achieve my aim.”

Strawberry, lemon, nut, chocolate, smurfs and fiordilatte ice-creams and so on. The clients can find a wide range of tastes in this ice-cream shop. “The cup can be filled up as far as the ice-cream fits it, and the clients choose its flavour and quantity.”

The strong point of this idea is in offering to the client an ice-cream that costs less and in bigger quantity. Consequentially, the shop owner does not have the costs of the staff and of the activity. “In this moment of crisis, the wining idea is the one with lower costs. In my shop the entire family can allow themselves to buy ice cream.” And the quantity? The shop, the way it constructed, does not have workers, and there is no one to fill up your cup or cone. “The artisanal ice-cream shop, in some ways doesn’t exist anymore. Many sellers use the same ingredients that I use and there are few who use real fruits or real products. I think that my ice cream is rather good”, said Daniele. Some objections come in mind, but Daniele replies: “The most part of people who think about launching an activity like mine are entrepreneurs, not ice-cream sellers. I think that this is a real revolution in ice-cream making, and in the future many sellers will adopt it. Of course this idea is innovative; you can buy the draught ice-cream, but the machine will not give you the smile of ice-cream seller who wakes up early in the morning to prepare your favourite flavour that you find at counter.