"Dessert" will never be the same

[DrJake]

This is it boys.

I've been a lifter for nearly 2 years of my life. (I started early, thank god, at the ripe age of 14). When my freshman year of high-school started, I had no friends, absolutely no social skills, weighed maybe 100 pounds, and hated everybody. I can honestly say I was such a weirdo because I had been playing video games 8 hours a day since I was 9. I had only quit the addiction half-way through my freshman year, after coming across the Bold-and-Determined blog.

A year and a half later: I have an awesome girlfriend, the respect of many of my peers, an improved physique, intentionally forced myself out of my introverted shell and into the extroverted world, and I refuse to ever waste one more minute of my life on video games. Now on to the thread.

About 1.5 months ago, sometime in July or maybe June, I had just finished a killer workout and was blending the daily protein shake. However, due to my clumsiness, I had poured a little too much frozen fruit into the mix. So when the shake was finished, it was more like an "ice cream" than a protein shake. (Needless to say it was the worst-tasting ice-cream ever.)

Then it hit me: protein ice cream! I figured that there had to be a recipe online for making some good tasting ice-cream with whey protein. After all, they're both dairy products. After some time searching, I found nothing. This got me fired up and I decided to wing it. I went through a typical vanilla ice-cream recipe, and just added some of Walmarts whey protein into the mix. (This is seriously a bad idea.) It tasted awful. However, this motivated me even more because I knew that the more difficult this was, the bigger the opportunity!

I worked from that day and every day after to formulate my recipe. I can't tell you the recipe for obvious reasons, but just know that implementing whey protein in ice-cream is NOT easy. I also read the Lean Startup and recently began crafting my business model. The ultimate goal is for my physical product to:

• Taste like classic, unhealthy ice-cream
• Have a dense amount of protein
• Have reduced sugar/fats

After a month of rigorous testing, experiments, talking to dairy experts, and punching a hole in my door, I finally got a recipe right. It acted as an "MVP" because it tasted okay, was vanilla flavored, was legal, and had plenty of protein. I tested it on friends and family members (Which I know is usually a bad idea) but at the time they were my only lead to starting my build-measure-learn feedback loop.

Throughout the month and a half I've been working on this, I've learned so many valuable lessons that will help me become the successful entrepreneur I want to be in the future.



Am I afraid someone on here is going to steal my idea? Yes, but I know that the person who is likely to steal my idea is also LEAST LIKELY to successfully execute it. If you plan on stealing my idea, go ahead, but refer to this quote:

"Work like there is someone working twenty-four hours a day to take it all away from you." - Mark Cuban

 

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[DrJake]

8/12/14 Today I was just informed that the college football team in my town wants to try my ice-cream. This is a real shocker because I hadn't said anything to them and they came to me. I know I'm gonna take advantage of this, but I'm not sure on the plan. I haven't had a lot of time to prepare. Right now I'm going to work on figuring this out. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[brandonrush]

Sounds interesting! I'll be watching this thread in hopes of updates.

 

[Jakeeck]

Sounds fun.

Dessert is spelled with 2 s's, though. Living in Arizona, the word desert enticed me to click this thread.

 

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[DrJake]

Sounds interesting! I'll be watching this thread in hopes of updates.

Thanks! I'll deliever.

Sounds fun.

Dessert is spelled with 2 s's, though. Living in Arizona, the word desert enticed me to click this thread.

Haha, whoops! Thanks.

 

[NoLackey]

I had thought about this myself, but not something I wanted to pursue.

A lot of people in the online fitness community already make their own protein frozen yogurt - calling it Frotein or FroPro. It's decent to get your protein intake, but a lot of fitness people will say stuff is amazing, because they know they shouldn't eat the real thing. lol. I've made it and it's okay, so if you can get a product that has a more traditional ice cream taste or texture, you're set.

I think it might be beneficial for you to study Quest products. Everyone knows and loves their protein bars, but they also make other products like pasta and more recently protein chips. I never hear anyone talking about the pasta and the protein chips didn't go over all that well when released recently; some didn't like the taste, most didn't like that their minds were thinking potato chip and apparently they don't give you the same experience when you bite in to them.

 

[throttleforward]

I just went to a protein-based restaurant in DC (http://www.theproteinbar.com/), and they have no dessert!

 

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[DrJake]

I had thought about this myself, but not something I wanted to pursue.

A lot of people in the online fitness community already make their own protein frozen yogurt - calling it Frotein or FroPro. It's decent to get your protein intake, but a lot of fitness people will say stuff is amazing, because they know they shouldn't eat the real thing. lol. I've made it and it's okay, so if you can get a product that has a more traditional ice cream taste or texture, you're set.

I think it might be beneficial for you to study Quest products. Everyone knows and loves their protein bars, but they also make other products like pasta and more recently protein chips. I never hear anyone talking about the pasta and the protein chips didn't go over all that well when released recently; some didn't like the taste, most didn't like that their minds were thinking potato chip and apparently they don't give you the same experience when you bite in to them.

That's good info man! I've never heard of the Quest product failures and I'll definitely read into that. The "taste" issue with the potato chips and pasta is reasonable, because whey protein always has a "dairy" off-taste and those two products are not dairy products. The dairy taste from whey protein can work in ice-cream though, I believe, because ice-cream is a dairy-based product. That is the main reason I decided to delve into this idea.

 

[DrJake]

I just went to a protein-based restaurant in DC (http://www.theproteinbar.com/), and they have no dessert!

Bookmarked. Hopefully I don't forget to hit them up once I launch in the future!

 

[Solrac]

I think this is great and all and I don't ever see anything like this in stores.
But I usually just take vanilla ice cream and mix in vanilla whey, or choc with choc whey.
I mean if you can come out with a product better than that solution for me I'm all in.

 

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[DrJake]

I think this is great and all and I don't ever see anything like this in stores.
But I usually just take vanilla ice cream and mix in vanilla whey, or choc with choc whey.
I mean if you can come out with a product better than that solution for me I'm all in.

Hey man. What you do is basically what I'm trying to achieve, except with a few issues and changes.

The final products will probably be sugar-free.

I also have to pasteurize, or heat up to kill bacteria, the whey protein while it is in the ice-cream mix, according to the law, before I can sell it to anybody. This seems easy enough, but heat treatment denatures and aggregates whey proteins, which makes the finished ice-cream sandy, and less tasteful. This is a fixable problem, but the different methods and complex processes make it a little complicated. This is what I'm talking to dairy experts to fix right now, and it is my number one problem at the moment.

Also, since my target market is mainly fitness enthusiasts, I will be targeting high-dollar gyms to retail my product. This makes for an easy, almost "naughty" protein snack right after a workout.

 

[Solrac]

Hey man. What you do is basically what I'm trying to achieve, except with a few issues and changes.

The final products will probably be sugar-free.

I also have to pasteurize, or heat up to kill bacteria, the whey protein while it is in the ice-cream mix, according to the law, before I can sell it to anybody. This seems easy enough, but heat treatment denatures and aggregates whey proteins, which makes the finished ice-cream sandy, and less tasteful. This is a fixable problem, but the different methods and complex processes make it a little complicated. This is what I'm talking to dairy experts to fix right now, and it is my number one problem at the moment.

Also, since my target market is mainly fitness enthusiasts, I will be targeting high-dollar gyms to retail my product. This makes for an easy, almost "naughty" protein snack right after a workout.

Hey I like the idea! I am very down to give it a try when possible. I would love Ice Cream protein, the shake gets boring every now and then and I drink one daily. Shoot me a PM when you have it ready to rumble!

 

[Jakeeck]

Hey man. What you do is basically what I'm trying to achieve, except with a few issues and changes.

The final products will probably be sugar-free.

I also have to pasteurize, or heat up to kill bacteria, the whey protein while it is in the ice-cream mix, according to the law, before I can sell it to anybody. This seems easy enough, but heat treatment denatures and aggregates whey proteins, which makes the finished ice-cream sandy, and less tasteful. This is a fixable problem, but the different methods and complex processes make it a little complicated. This is what I'm talking to dairy experts to fix right now, and it is my number one problem at the moment.

Also, since my target market is mainly fitness enthusiasts, I will be targeting high-dollar gyms to retail my product. This makes for an easy, almost "naughty" protein snack right after a workout.

I'm not sure if the gym thing is such a good idea. When people are leaving the gym they grab a smoothie or something because it's easy to drink on the way home. Nobody is going to want to have to spoon ice cream while driving home, and I can't see many people just sitting at the gym eating ice cream.

 

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[DrJake]

I'm not sure if the gym thing is such a good idea. When people are leaving the gym they grab a smoothie or something because it's easy to drink on the way home. Nobody is going to want to have to spoon ice cream while driving home, and I can't see many people just sitting at the gym eating ice cream.

I haven't really thought about it that way. I'll look into that whenever I try to enter the market. I may need to choose a better strategy for that...
Thanks for the insight!

 

[brandonrush]

@DrJake have you considered frozen yogurt instead of icecream? You might be able to supply the base vanilla or chocolate yogurt to all of the yogurt shops that are popping up. They can put it right on the side of the 1 or 2 "sugar-free" options they usually have.

 

[cautiouscapy]

http://www.wheyhey.co.uk/

Always assumed these people were US based, but apparently not.

I can't really mail you some ;-)

I've tried the chocolate, it's OK if you accept it won't taste like ice-cream. The vanilla gets baaaad reviews on the supermarket I buy from's website.
Not sure if this link will work in the US http://tinyurl.com/msjw8wt

 

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[Alveko]

I've taken a glimpse at google and came across a couple of europe based businesses on google selling protein ice cream.
Check out 'Fitfuel', 'Proteinfirst' and 'Wheyhey'.
Seems a bit strange to me there would be no similar offers in the US.

 

[DrJake]

@DrJake have you considered frozen yogurt instead of icecream? You might be able to supply the base vanilla or chocolate yogurt to all of the yogurt shops that are popping up. They can put it right on the side of the 1 or 2 "sugar-free" options they usually have.

I have considered that, and I still consider it. After I penetrate the fitness market with the protein ice-cream, and depending on its success, I think that a tasty, moderate-protein frozen-yogurt addition would be a great idea to grow to into the mainstream audience.

http://www.wheyhey.co.uk/
Always assumed these people were US based, but apparently not.
I can't really mail you some ;-)
I've tried the chocolate, it's OK if you accept it won't taste like ice-cream. The vanilla gets baaaad reviews on the supermarket I buy from's website.
Not sure if this link will work in the US http://tinyurl.com/msjw8wt

I've been watching wheyhey pretty closely since I've started. They promised to enter the U.S. market a couple years ago and never did. Their reasons why, I have no idea. It seems to me they're becoming less active nowadays as they've failed to continue updating their blog lately. Also, as far as I know, they're trying to shift their market into the "mainstream" audience such as grocery stores, even though they're prominent in fitness/supplement stores and communities already. I personally think this is a bad move if not executed correctly.

Their ice-cream is "gummier" than classic ice-cream because the overuse of stabilizers. Stabilizers in protein ice-cream are important for preventing denaturation/aggregation of the proteins, as I mentioned in a post above. So they use a ton of stabilizers in order to keep that from happening, which creates the side-effect of glue-ish texture.

I've taken a glimpse at google and came across a couple of europe based businesses on google selling protein ice cream.
Check out 'Fitfuel', 'Proteinfirst' and 'Wheyhey'.
Seems a bit strange to me there would be no similar offers in the US.

I think the main reason they have not expanded to the US is the FDA ice-cream laws. In the UK, I believe there is no MSNF (Milk-solids-non-fat) regulation in ice-cream, which means there is no limit to how much whey protein you can use in ice-cream there. In the U.S., however, the FDA states that food labeled "ice-cream" cannot have more than 25% MSNF, which greatly hinders the amount of protein you can use. Since these companies often exceed this amount, maybe they're a little afraid to continue into the market. However, as far as I know, there are loopholes around this, such as labeling your product an "ice-cream novelty" or something of the sorts, instead of just "ice-cream".

 

[Geeko]

Alot of yogurt companies label there yougurt as: greek style yogurt. The key is on the style part. I dont know what is the requirement to be greek yogurt but these companies have found an easy way around it. These greek style yogurts often have higher calories and poor amount of protein (some have 0).

Typically i just make a thick smoothie with whey and plain greek yogurt then freeze it to make a sort of ice creamy, smoothie. I think you should advertise this as a convience. Same way whey is a convience over regular healthy high protein food.

Sent from my SGH-S730M using Tapatalk

 

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[chrischapman]

Congratulations. You have a good idea.

This is a perfect example of how execution is everything.

The only things I see as potential obstacles to getting in the fastlane in the CENTS:

scale - how are you going to market & distribute this produce on a massive scale?
time - it seems like a typical business where there are a lot of demands on the owners time and may be difficult to automate, perhaps lots of reliance on human resource systems as the business grows.

Of course, these are not obstacles if you find the solution. They aren't extremely difficult to overcome as long as you plan the business around these principles from the start.

Is there a need - I agree, absolutely. I love ice cream and would enjoy protein in it.
Entry commandment - yes, coming up with this product is difficult and is a classic trailblazing innovative path.
control - it's your business, of course you control it. just make sure your suppliers don't control you.

I think that you can make this work on a grand scale. You'll figure it out.

Also, boldanddetermined.com is indeed wonderful. im glad to hear how Victor has changed your life and attitude too.

 

[AubreyJ]

This is actually a really good idea- I lift and workout a lot and I never drink protein shakes because I absolutely hate the taste of protein powder, so I have always opted to eat protein dense foods after a workout as apposed to a shake. If you could get the texture/flavor of real ice cream (or even something remotely similar) I think you'd have a really great product- I'd be a customer

 

[DrJake]

Congratulations. You have a good idea.
This is a perfect example of how execution is everything.
The only things I see as potential obstacles to getting in the fastlane in the CENTS:
scale - how are you going to market & distribute this produce on a massive scale?
time - it seems like a typical business where there are a lot of demands on the owners time and may be difficult to automate, perhaps lots of reliance on human resource systems as the business grows.
Of course, these are not obstacles if you find the solution. They aren't extremely difficult to overcome as long as you plan the business around these principles from the start.
Is there a need - I agree, absolutely. I love ice cream and would enjoy protein in it.
Entry commandment - yes, coming up with this product is difficult and is a classic trailblazing innovative path.
control - it's your business, of course you control it. just make sure your suppliers don't control you.
I think that you can make this work on a grand scale. You'll figure it out.
Also, boldanddetermined.com is indeed wonderful. im glad to hear how Victor has changed your life and attitude too.

Execution really is everything, and you can stand assured I'm not fiddling with the pawn of the game. With scale, especially physical products, I think it correlates directly with need. The more the market wants this, the more you can scale. And there are a huge amounts of possibilities of scaling this product. Some I can name off the top of my head:

• Supplement stores (Would need to provide a freezer if they don't have one)
• Healthy food stores
• Gyms
• Fitness conventions
• Possibly grocery stores. (May need an "economical" version of the ice-cream, with maybe less protein?)
• Ecommerce (Would be tricky. Would need to store the ice-cream with dry ice.)
• Restaurants
• Football teams?

The challenge is to find the best one to penetrate first.
The fitness culture is spreading like wildfire nowadays, and protein will probably remain the go-to nutrition for quite some time. As long as this upward trend continues, there is no limit to scaling this product.
With this great power comes great responsibility. I will need to be a master of execution if I really want to capitalize on this. Being only 15, I have a ton of work ahead of me, but I'm smart and I always have been. I know this is something I will do.

Alot of yogurt companies label there yougurt as: greek style yogurt. The key is on the style part. I dont know what is the requirement to be greek yogurt but these companies have found an easy way around it. These greek style yogurts often have higher calories and poor amount of protein (some have 0).
Typically i just make a thick smoothie with whey and plain greek yogurt then freeze it to make a sort of ice creamy, smoothie. I think you should advertise this as a convience. Same way whey is a convience over regular healthy high protein food.
Sent from my SGH-S730M using Tapatalk

I know exactly what you mean! There are so many loopholes in the FDA system that it isn't even funny. Did you know that hydrolyzed whey protein can be advertised as 100% hydrolyzed whey protein, even if there is only 10%? Make sense? No? Doesn't matter, the point is there are always loopholes in the system, and as long as they're used in ethical and value-creating ways, which they're often not, I'll gladly use them. You always have to be careful to stand by your morals though.

This is actually a really good idea- I lift and workout a lot and I never drink protein shakes because I absolutely hate the taste of protein powder, so I have always opted to eat protein dense foods after a workout as apposed to a shake. If you could get the texture/flavor of real ice cream (or even something remotely similar) I think you'd have a really great product- I'd be a customer

Good to hear you're in! This all really boosts my motivation, thanks guys. I won't let us down.

 

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[DrJake]

You know, this all proves that innovation doesn't have to come from thin air, and it's often the problems that everyone figures are unfixable that have the most opportunity. Ice cream is the go-to unhealthy food. Everyone knows it's unhealthy. Why do they think so? All the sugar? Fats? Because mommy and daddy said so? Who cares, the point is disruptive innovation often happens where you would least expect it. Everyone these days wants to start the next social network that will be bought by facebook for billions(I have a friend working on that right now) or the next Victor Pryde blog, or the next amazon, but really, what are you disrupting? What innovation are you really bringing into the market with crap that everyone else already does? Either do it first, do it better, or don't do it at all.

 

[chrischapman]

Being only 15, I have a ton of work ahead of me,

well yeah, i think at any age you have a lot of work ahead. but damn, good age to start haha.

i think with good marketing, you have proven scale isn't SUCH an issue. think national though.

also, fyi i would be a customer, if I were in the US of A. if you could put some ice cream on a boat to Australia, that would be cool, but oh well, us Australians never get the best of international produce and always pay higher prices anyway

 

[DrJake]

well yeah, i think at any age you have a lot of work ahead. but damn, good age to start haha.

i think with good marketing, you have proven scale isn't SUCH an issue. think national though.

also, fyi i would be a customer, if I were in the US of A. if you could put some ice cream on a boat to Australia, that would be cool, but oh well, us Australians never get the best of international produce and always pay higher prices anyway

Actually, Australia is the country I want to go after once this is national. I remember somewhere a statistic that Australians eat a load of ice-cream, right under the UK and US. Since all the competition in UK, I may steer clear of that until I have an awesome opportunity. I haven't thought too far ahead to avoid mental masturbation, but sometimes I can't help myself

 

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[chrischapman]

I remember somewhere a statistic that Australians eat a load of ice-cream

hahahaha bloody australians....

yeah bro, aussies are loaded
with money (average full time wage is about $75k a year) and are super into their food. result: an obesity rate approaching the american level and a huge appetite for ice cream. lot's of people into their fitness though fortunately - not as many as the fat ppl though lol.

i think you would do well here. australia is a great test market as well, very business friendly environment. we love americans subconciously too, since all the good tv shows people love are american.

also australia is terribly uncompetitive imo and stuff is already VERY expensive here.

but yeah, focus on the US first and then come over. i hope you kill it bro.

 

[Couttsy]

Great Idea, I'd aim for the supplement stores / supermarkets.
When you get the perfect formula be sure to send some over to Australia for us.

 

[InLikeFlint]

Cool concept!

However, as a gym enthusiast and 6-day/week lifter I probably wouldn't use this. I'm taking a protein shake (along with all the other supplements I take) for the health benefits - I want the extra protein to build muscle and the amino acids to help provide energy to my repairing muscles; allowing them to grow. I understand that the taste is not going to be great because it is a health supplement, and I have accepted that full on. It fits in well with my dieting (6 clean days per week, 1 cheat day) because I am resisting my urges for sweets and unhealthy food everyday and then allowing myself to enjoy it on the 7th day. It builds self control and it is slowly allowing me to cut unhealthy foods out of my life entirely. I feel even if you make it sugar free it is still going to have the fat of ice cream, which to bodybuilders is almost worst than the sugar. Not to mention, there are some good tasting proteins out there (Syntha6 & Carnivore are my favorites) and mixing them with milk and powdered peanut butter is great. I take them in water with powdered peanut butter and they taste fine to me. Even a fruit smoothie with protein added in is very doable. In the long run, I think the people that take protein shakes regularly do it to be healthy and just down it quick if they don't love the taste. If someone wants great taste they can grab a quest/zone/clif builders bar, which still has ~20g of protein and generally less than 1g of sugar (and all the aforementioned bars taste phenomenal).

Just my two cents!

 

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[DrJake]

Cool concept!

However, as a gym enthusiast and 6-day/week lifter I probably wouldn't use this. I'm taking a protein shake (along with all the other supplements I take) for the health benefits - I want the extra protein to build muscle and the amino acids to help provide energy to my repairing muscles; allowing them to grow. I understand that the taste is not going to be great because it is a health supplement, and I have accepted that full on. It fits in well with my dieting (6 clean days per week, 1 cheat day) because I am resisting my urges for sweets and unhealthy food everyday and then allowing myself to enjoy it on the 7th day. It builds self control and it is slowly allowing me to cut unhealthy foods out of my life entirely. I feel even if you make it sugar free it is still going to have the fat of ice cream, which to bodybuilders is almost worst than the sugar. Not to mention, there are some good tasting proteins out there (Syntha6 & Carnivore are my favorites) and mixing them with milk and powdered peanut butter is great. I take them in water with powdered peanut butter and they taste fine to me. Even a fruit smoothie with protein added in is very doable. In the long run, I think the people that take protein shakes regularly do it to be healthy and just down it quick if they don't love the taste. If someone wants great taste they can grab a quest/zone/clif builders bar, which still has ~20g of protein and generally less than 1g of sugar (and all the aforementioned bars taste phenomenal).

Just my two cents!

Hmm, this is a valuable perspective. Maybe it would be smart to target the mainstream ice-cream market AND fitness market? I know exactly what you mean though, I always down my protein shakes when they taste bad, and continue to down the same nasty protein the next day. I generally don't really care about the taste, just the health benefits. With this in mind I think it would be a good idea to target the healthy food markets/supermarkets before I meet the fitness community head-on in supplement stores and gyms, which was my original plan. When people walk into a supplement store they usually aren't thinking "I want a healthy snack that tastes awesome.", they're usually thinking "I want X and Z supplement because J person on this blog/forum/list said so."

This changes my perspective from bringing icecream to the healthy world, to bringing the healthy world to icecream. Most healthy people opt out of eating ice-cream most of the time. On the rare occasion they decide to indulge, wouldn't they be exited to have an option with high-protein?

It would be awesome to hear peoples opinions and insights on this! Which channels does everyone think would be a good starting point for this product?

 

[InLikeFlint]

Hmm, this is a valuable perspective. Maybe it would be smart to target the mainstream ice-cream market AND fitness market? I know exactly what you mean though, I always down my protein shakes when they taste bad, and continue to down the same nasty protein the next day. I generally don't really care about the taste, just the health benefits. With this in mind I think it would be a good idea to target the healthy food markets/supermarkets before I meet the fitness community head-on in supplement stores and gyms, which was my original plan. When people walk into a supplement store they usually aren't thinking "I want a healthy snack that tastes awesome.", they're usually thinking "I want X and Z supplement because J person on this blog/forum/list said so."
This changes my perspective from bringing icecream to the healthy world, to bringing the healthy world to icecream. Most healthy people opt out of eating ice-cream most of the time. On the rare occasion they decide to indulge, wouldn't they be exited to have an option with high-protein?
It would be awesome to hear peoples opinions and insights on this! Which channels does everyone think would be a good starting point for this product?

I think targeting the healthy crowd first and then working your way up to the fitness group would be a great approach. Health foods and the accompanying grocery stores are thriving right now, and people trying to be healthy (whether they do it right or not) will try to make any unhealthy option healthy (ice cream with fruit on top, frozen yogurt over ice cream, custard over ice cream, dark chocolate, low sodium, fat free, sugar free, the list goes on) and by offering protein in a way that they can indulge too will attract a lot of people. While it might not be for the right reasons, healthy junkies (or as I call them, bandwagons) will jump all over this.

I like how you took my advice well and didn't feel threatened. You agreed my points were valid and found a solution that incorporated the ideas I brought to the table. This alone is a business skill that many many people lack and I truly commend you for having this skill already and by actively using it. Regardless of the market you end up choosing, I feel you are well ahead of the game with your mindset and approach and I expect you will do well!

Cheers!
Sam