How A 24-Year-Old Ice Cream Entrepreneur Turned $60k Into A Multi-Million Dollar Business Using Postal Trucks

Like many kids, Ben Van Leeuwen enjoyed ice cream. He grew up in New York City, and would follow his dad to local dairies to watch the ice cream-making process and enjoy some fresh flavors. While most kids like ice cream, not all of them run with that interest and turn it into a multi-million dollar business. 

As a college sophomore, Van Leeuwen answered a newspaper ad for driving a Good Humor ice cream truck for $500 per week. This experience gave him some money to take a gap year from college, which he mainly spent traveling through Europe. This European exposure to different culinary tastes reminded him how much he enjoyed food and playing with different flavors. It was this inspiration that drove him towards reinventing ice cream by incorporating new flavors sourced with the very best ingredients. 

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From Retrofitted USPS Trucks to Whole Foods

In 2008 he and his other founders of Van Leeuwen Ice Cream started the company with $60,000 and an idea to transform the industry through unique flavors and high-quality ingredients. Just 24 years old at the time, Van Leeuwen and his team consisting of his wife and brother did all of the tasks necessary to create the ice cream brand. They outsourced production to a factory in upstate New York because they didn’t yet have the capital for their own production facility. They would travel from the city to this location to grind spices and other ingredients as they tried different production runs. 

The business began with Van Leeuwen and the founders buying old post office trucks and turning them into ice cream trucks. They would receive ice cream at a freezer in the Bronx, and Van Leeuwen would load the product into his car and then quickly drive it to the trucks before it melted. They were excited to have fast success and quickly grew a following, but after two years they opened a store location in the popular Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn which took the brand to new heights. He saw a stable store location was much easier to manage than a refrigerated truck, so they focused on growing sales, opening more locations, and selling wholesale through Whole Foods and other retailers. 

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Mainstream Success at the Shops and Stores

As of 2023, the company sells around 50,000 pints per day through various channels. It also serves about 40,000 customers per day through various scoop shops and has plans to launch more than a dozen more shops by the end of the year. Van Leeuwen is also taking his brand international, with a planned shop location in Singapore. It operates 50 scoop shops located in seven different states and has deals with multiple grocery store outlets that further its brand awareness. 

Van Leeuwen and his team attract social media attention to more than 200,000 Instagram followers and through other channels. These social efforts include significant buzz for flavor collaborations with brands including Kraft Mac & Cheese and the supremely popular Hidden Valley Ranch dressing brand. The brand garners attention for these striking flavors, but its main appeal is using fresh ingredients for its popular Honeycomb and Sicilian Pistachio flavors, among many others. Van Leeuwen sources milk and cream from local farms, uses fresh herbs and fruit, and also expands the company’s market share with vegan ice cream options. 

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