Working Cow Brand Herds in New Followers

Tampa Bay Business Journal - June 15, 2001 by G.G. Rigsby

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CLEARWATER -- They get business by fancy footwork, teasing the taste buds and word of mouth. And even by using a competitor's brand.

Two employees of Working Cow Inc. of Clearwater went to St. Augustine while trying to sell the company's gourmet ice cream. A restaurant owner they called on told them he'd run out and needed ice cream "ASAP."

The pair didn't have any Working Cow brand, but to show that they aimed to please, the went to a grocery store, bought a competitor's brand and delivered it to the restaurant owner.

He liked their attitude, and after he got a sample of Working Cow's brand, he liked it, too. The restaurant now buys Working Cow ice cream and so do seven other restaurants in the area.

Working Cow, privately owned by Tim Engel and Tim Pappas, employs 14 and makes gourmet ice cream, fat-free ice cream and frozen yogurt in an industrial park on Ulmerton Road .

The company sells dozens of flavors, including Grandmother's Banana Bread, Blueberry Cheesecake and Mississippi Mud, to ice cream parlors, retirement centers, restaurants and hotels.

It serves 600 customers who use a total of 3,500 tubs of ice cream a week, up from 150 customers and 1,700 tubs three years ago.

The only salesman, Roy Sattinger, jokingly calls his job easy -- all he has to do is ask people if they want to taste ice cream.

The rest of the company's business comes from customer testimonials.

"We're growing followers," said Pappas. "We get more accounts. It's contagious."

After getting its foot in the door with a Marriott International Inc. executive -- who got an earful about Working Cow from a nurse and relative of an employee -- the company got a visit from two other Marriott corporate employees. They said Working Cow needed to have certain operating plans in place and pass an inspection to become a certified vendor for the lodging chain.

Working Cow faced a deadline of three days to prepare for the inspector's visit, writing up policies and practices, flow charts and quality control rules -- and to make sure that all its manufacturing practices followed state law.

When the inspector arrived, Working Cow got a score of 92. The highest the inspector said he'd ever given was a 95.

That was several months ago. Working Cow already is in about five Marriott assisted-living facilities and can sell, on a one-by-one basis, to hotels in the Marriott chain.

The sales strategies have worked.

Engel says the 6-year-old company always has made a profit, but the owners invested the profit back into the business.

Working Cow began distributing its products statewide about two years ago. The Durango Steak House chain prompted Working Cow to go statewide, saying it wanted Working Cow's specialty Peanut Butter Blast ice cream in all or none of its restaurants in Florida.

Going statewide is a gamble, since Working Cow had to invest in trucks and drivers in hope of getting enough customers to make it worthwhile, Engel said.

Nationwide, ice cream consumption is growing, especially the creamy kind with the most butterfat, said David Landau, spokesman for the International Ice Cream Association in Washington .

Consumption in those categories grew 19 percent from 1998 to 1999, he said.

Sales are declining in the nonfat, frozen ice and low-fat categories.

Landau said Working Cow's growth strategy seems to make sense.

"It's just like any other business," Landau said. "You develop a niche, and people kind of jump on that."

Sattinger said Working Cow's goal is to be in every retirement center in the state, following the expanding population of seniors.

"We want to be on that bandwagon," he said.

Meanwhile, Engel said the owners want to move the company from 8,500 square feet of leased space into a 25,000-square-foot building it owns. And he's looking for more ice-cream-making equipment.

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