Ice cream cone holders find hot global market

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The Cone Buddy’s Corp., the Rochester-based manufacturer of the Buddy System ice cream cone holders, has gone global.
New contracts in Italy, Australia and Kuwait are expected to help double the firm’s sales volume for fiscal 2005. Increasing international concern for preventing food-related disease is the primary factor for the increase, officials said.
The company sold some 21 million Buddies in 2004, up 67 percent from the previous year.
“We are already 20 percent over last year,” said Robert Sotile, company president.
Typical pricing is $42 a case, with 1,400 Buddies in each case. The company also sells dispensers and serving racks for the Buddies.
He declined to provide revenue figures for the company. However, 21 million Buddies sold at 3 cents each would represent roughly $630,000 in revenues.
Cone Buddy’s recently signed a contract with Carlo Minkowitz Caterers in Milan, Italy, for more than 7 million Buddy System holders. The devices will be distributed to some 400 stores, shops and restaurants in Italy, Switzerland and France.
The company also has signed with Australia’s AZ Paper Products to deliver 20 million holders a year in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. And a Kuwaiti national food service company recently bought roughly 4 million Buddy System devices.
The polystyrene cone holders-part of a series of products called the Buddy System and individually called Buddies-hold, cover and protect the ice cream cone during preparation and delivery. The holders, which come in a variety of sizes and shapes, also have a lip to catch ice cream drips.
“Cross-contamination on the cones-the servers wear gloves, but they take them on and off, they take money with them on-they are transferring bacteria all over,” Sotile said.
The usual paper jackets do not cover the bottoms of cones, making them relatively useless as a bacteria barrier, Sotile said. Buddies compete for a share of the $200 million ice cream cone industry with large manufacturers such as the Joy Cone Co., which produces the paper jackets.
In 2002, Cone Buddy’s protectors won one of the 50 AmeriStar Packaging Competition awards given out by the Institute of Packaging Professionals. The award focuses on preventing product tampering through improved package design.
When Europeans visit the United States and see Buddies in action at one of the Cone Buddy’s clients’ stores, they like the idea and want the same thing at home, Sotile said. Cone Buddy’s then sends samples to potential clients and they are sold on the product, he said.
Large-scale food vendors in other countries are stepping up sanitary practices, due to recent outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome and fears of other types of contamination, Sotile said.
“These people in Europe are more cognizant of food safety,” Sotile said. “The same with Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, France-they are all working to protect themselves from foodborne illnesses.”
“But the United States doesn’t consider ice cream cones a threat yet,” he said.
The U.S. Health Service estimates more than 800,000 food service workers do not wash their hands regularly, resulting in 80,000 emergency room visits each year for treatment of E. coli and other bacteria. The contamination accounts for 8,000 preventable deaths each year.
E. coli and salmonella consistently have been the top two concerns for food consumers in the United States, data from the NPD Group Inc., an industry research firm, show.
Buddies are used by some 1,500 ice cream stores and outlets, including 450 Carvel Corp. shops, Tastee Freeze Corp., Stew Leonard’s, the World of Ice Cream/World of Nuts and some Baskin-Robbins USA Co. stores.
Some Subway Restaurant franchisees use Buddies through a partnership with the Greater Omaha Refrigeration Co., which provides Subways with Goodrich Ice Cream. The Buddy System helps Greater Omaha Refrigeration ensure Subway’s food safety, said William Rolles, Greater Omaha Refrigeration president.
“Industrywide, more emphasis is being placed on food safety, and this is only going to increase,” he said.
Cone Buddy’s plans to retail cones already paired with Buddies in boxes of 12. The edible cones are manufactured by Bonbon Rio Candy Inc. in Montreal.
“We’re just finishing up prototypes for the packaging. We’re selling them to Wal-Mart, Kmart and the Dollar stores,” Sotile said. “Locally, Hegedorn’s in Webster has agreed to sell them. We’d love to do business with Wegmans, but they say they aren’t interested.”
Cone Buddy’s, with offices in Brighton, has four full-time employees, up from only Sotile when he began selling the protectors in 2000. The cone protectors are manufactured locally at CJK Manufacturing LLC.
Sotile invented Buddies in 1997. In 1994, he sold his first business, Brighton Medical Supply Corp., a $4.5 million business with 28 employees.
Clients have invented other uses for the polystyrene protectors. The company sold 150,000 of them to be used as candle holders for a vigil marking Elvis Presley’s death. And another client uses them to grow seedlings, he said.
“There’s probably hundreds of other uses for them,” Sotile said. “We’re happy as long they use them and we create local jobs to make them.”
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04/29/05 (C) Rochester Business Journal