How This Ice Cream Brand Went From 200 to 700 Stores | CPG Pivot
About this episode
Sam Rose discusses the pivot of Rosebud Ice Cream from pints to soft serve pouches, detailing the challenges and strategies involved in scaling from 200 to 700 stores.
He was in 200 stores with pints. He killed the entire product line and went to 700. The idea that did it came from his sister, talking about her toddler's baby food. Sam Rose founded Rosebud Ice Cream and spent two years making every single pint by hand. Wake at 5am, teach boxing, drive from Denver to Longmont, make ice cream from 2pm to 2am, then deliver to Whole Foods before they stop receiving at 11. Two years of that got him to roughly 200 stores. Then he pulled pints entirely, put soft serve in a pouch, and landed in about 700. This episode is the full mechanics of a CPG packaging pivot: why frozen retail distribution punishes new brands why a co-packer will take your machine and refuse to run it how he got retail buyers to say yes to a blank hand-packed pouch with taped-on artwork. If you are a CPG or FMCG founder fighting for a shelf facing that only opens when someone else loses theirs, this is the episode. GUEST Sam Rose, Founder and Cream Executive Officer, Rosebud Ice Cream LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-rose-19998b1b0/ Website: https://rosebudicecream.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail buyers…
People in this episode
Host: Devesh Tilokani
Guest: Sam Rose
Topics covered
- CPG
- FMCG
- retail distribution
- packaging pivot
- entrepreneurship
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Rosebud Ice Cream, Whole Foods
Places: Denver, Longmont
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