Who doesn’t like to add a bit of spice to one’s life ? The spice loving Indians & videshis are going to love the unqiue concept of spicing up their ice creams too !!
An unconventional & unconvincing idea, calculated risk and wonderful execution are the ingredients that make `Spice Cream’ a reality ! Did any of us think that the famed Indian spices could be blended with ice creams and relished by people ?
Indian food has been traditionally known to have the heady flavor of spices, then why should ice creams be left out ? says co-founder and man behind this idea, Siddharth Shirole.
Our D2I Team tasted these innovative ice creams and were found to be yearning for more !
What an idea, Guruji !
It was in Oct’09, when Siddartha with his family were in Indore to meet their spiritual Guruji. Guruji threw an idea in the form of a question – did anyone of you ever try blending Indian spices with ice cream ? Gentle laugh, was the first reaction by everyone ! For some, it was like a joke, while for others it was a thought-provoking point. But for Siddartha, this was the inception of a concept which was soon going to create its own identity.
The Evolution !
After the Indore trip, the idea given by his Guruji was churning in Siddartha’s mind & heart. He shared this idea and discussed the feasibility with almost all ice cream vendors known to him, but the Idea enthralled none. The initial disappointment did not stop him from exploring further and one fine day he convinced his maternal aunt to experiment. She made normal homemade ice cream with Milkmaid and added cloves to it ! It tasted good & different and thus the first ever `spice cream’ was born !!
This encouraged Siddartha and convinced him to conduct multiple trials to evolve new spice flavors. With a vision to realize its potential, now Siddartha started hunting for a place to put the concept into action. He zeroed on the Sabree restaurant (which is one of most popular Maharashtrian restaurants in Pune & owned by Siddartha’s family) and soon enough, he started to experiment on spice creams along with the Master Chef there.
The next 2 months (Nov-Dec 2009) were spent in serving various spice creams to Sabree customers on complimentary basis and taking their feedback. The idea was to analyse each feedback carefully, work on the suggestions & complaints and serve the improved spice creams again. This went on for the next two months and helped to evolve many flavors.
The Launch
Fully convinced with this idea, Siddhartha’s friend Jay Joshi joined this venture and whole process accelerated further. Finally in January 2010, they set up their manufacturing plant at Gokhle Nagar, Pune. And now the spice cream was all set for the commercial sales from the Sabree and Sharvaree restaurants !
For next 21/2 months, they continued taking feedback and using it to modify the flavors. They added spices with fruits, spices with traditional ice cream flavors and gradually they had 20 flavors well accepted by customers from all age groups.
This gave them the confidence to go main stream and launch the brand. On 16th March’10, the Zayka Spice Cream opened its first outlet at __________ on F.C. Road and followed this with the second outlet at __________, Kothrud on 16th May’10.
Truely Indian
The theme of both the outlets is distinctly Indian - the interiors, Lantern shaped lights & hut shaped cash counter, traditional wooden serving bowls & spoon, which all help blend the spice creams with the traditional Indian aura.
The Spice Merchants
The biggest challenge for the Zayka Spice Creams now is to make the idea acceptable & palatable to a larger population of Pune. The Puneites who have tasted these spice creams have found the concept interesting. The very fact that the Pune citizens are quite urbane across the age groups, is what keeps the motivated. They are convinced that the mouth-to-mouth publicity will also help them.
Apart from these 2 outlets, the spice cream is now served at 4 different restaurants in Pune, including Nawab and Daalchini.
Siddhartha says ”the best part is that the spice creams are not just liked by Indians but the foreigners too are relishing the taste and that’s why the demand from Koregoan park area remains the highest”.
Taste Control
Apart from the spice cream catering that has picked up, spice cream is now aiming to set 4 more outlets by the summer of 2011. In Pune, all spice creams are produced at their Ghokhle Nagar plant, but to ensure the flavor & taste remain the same at all outlets outside Pune also, they have completely standardized the manufacturing process and even applied for the intellectual property rights too. The next step is to set up a franchisee outlet in New Delhi.
The Spice Dream
Spice cream hopes to establish a pan India presence and Siddhartha strongly believes that spice cream can create ice cream revolution in Europe and USA. You got it there ! His dream is to launch the spice creams in the European and American markets.
Give it a try, buddy !
The yummy Spice Creams are priced at just ` 35 a scoop. Needless to say, D2I strongly recommends everyone to try the spice creams, with the “honey-clove-daalchini” flavor being the D2I pick !
“This blog was originally published in blog.d2i.in under inside story of Jayka Spice Cream; republishing here with permission from D2i team”
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