Jennie Dundas (left) and Alexis Gallivan (right), co-founders of Blue Marble
Jennie Dundas and Alexis Gallivan are making the guilty pleasure of ice cream infinitely less guilty with artisanal, organic Blue Marble ice cream that comes with a twofold goal: One, in making yummy food you feel good eating and two, by also inspiring women around the globe to do the same. Today the co-founders joined ‘Dot Complicated with Randi Zuckerberg’ to discuss the process of creating a profitable, ethical, and philanthropic business.
“After the gorilla incident I’ve become much more aware of ethical involvements with animals.”
“I had been itching to make a change in my career. At the time in Brooklyn there was no place to get a scoop of artisanal ice cream.”
“I knew I could never run a business by myself. I knew I needed help.”
“Another idea I had was to name a business Blue Marble—another nickname for planet Earth.”
“When you’re eating our ice cream you are tasting nature, pure and simple.”
“When we had to search high and low for compostable spoons and straws, we had to have them shipped from OR & CA.”
“Now it’s interesting to watch the proliferation of biodegradable flatware and how it’s brought costs down.”
“We’re still working on our distribution, which is growing every day.”
“Social enterprise didn’t exist in 2008-2009 like it does today. We were moved by our own sincere intent.”
“The universe had ideas of its own. It came through the form of a woman from Rwanda named Kiki. She wanted women in her town open up their own business.”
“We were aware of some of the challenges that Africa was facing at the time. Kiki wanted to create jobs. Women were eager to work.”
“Rwanda as the land of milk of honey. There are actually milk bars. Ice cream was virtually unknown though.”
“12 – 15 years after the genocide of Rwanda, survivors are still grieving. What better way to make the community feel whole than through an ice cream that spreads peace, joy, and empowerment.”
“We didn’t know if ice cream would translate in Rwanda. We were up for the challenge.”
“We were consumed by inspiration.”
“The success we achieved in Rwanda had so much positive impact in the area. We were a catalyst to creating other opportunities.”
“We had an empty nest syndrome and wanted to see if we could replicate what we helped create in Rwanda in Port au Prince Haiti.”
“Genocide and earthquakes are different occurrences but the aftermath is similar. We joined with Haiti155 to build another Sweet Dreams in Port au Prince.”
“We repurposed three shipping containers to create a beautiful ice cream shop for the people in Haiti.”
“Find someone with complimentary strengths. You want to find someone who compliments you as a cohesive whole.”
“It takes a village to start and run a business.”
“Jet Blue has been very supportive of our Haiti shop. They expanded service from New York to Port au Prince.”
“Make sure your business comes from the heart. For us it wasn’t a marketing ploy. We weren’t trying to keep up with the Joneses.”
“I’m a big believer in each to their own.”
“I think we should have ugly fruit on all the shelves. Changing nature to look like it’s not meant to be is ridiculous.”
“Alexis chose an actress to help to her build her company. I was a Broadway actress at 11. I hit my 30s and got bored of it.”
“I like to think my ice cream palette is refined over years and years.”
“It’s one thing to say you’re organic, but to actually achieve organic certification is another.”
“We’re a small business but we’ve gone that actual extra mile.”
“Alexis had moved to Brooklyn where there was no great place to get ice cream.”
“Brooklyn is a great place to start a business. What you have is these neighborhoods who went without certain amenities for certain amounts of time.”
“We were embraced from the moment we opened in Brooklyn. We owe so much of our success to Brooklyn.”
“We were fortunate to know someone who made ice cream to help us. We had a concept and idea and a palate to hone the flavors. We needed someone to help.
“You start sourcing as close to where you are as possible.”
“As you grow you have to seek more volume. “
“We’re 100% GMO free. No toxins, no additives.”
“Neither Alexis or I had kids at the time. I hung out at a coffee shop on the West Coast that had a kids play area and thought ‘this is awesome.’”
“The slow food movement and locally sourced food helps expand the triple bottom line and is more important to more people.”
“ We love hearing how many people tried our ice cream on Jet Blue. We had a regular customer who was making decisions for them and threw our hat in the ring.”
“We do a special butter pecan flavor. We never know how it’s going to hit but it’s been doing great.”
“You can order our ice cream from FoodyDirect.com. They ship it in as Earth-friendly packaging as possible.”
“Opening a location in Rwanda put a strain on scaling our business in Brooklyn. But we scaled both very quickly.”
“Triple bottom line businesses weren’t as common as they are now. What we were doing that felt different is we were a tiny business. We just opened.”
“We founded a totally separate entity, a 501(3)(c). We were too small a business to donate money from the shop so we did it through the non-profit.”
“The business and non-profit are 2 but the heart is 1.”
“We were the subjects of the documentary ‘Sweet Dreams.’”
“We were told by every ex-Pat that we wouldn’t have enough customers, it wouldn’t work. We did what we wanted and it worked!”
“Finding a perfect business partner is like finding a spouse. We got really lucky.”
“It’s a big learning curve to be a mother and an entrepreneur at the same time.”
Join ‘Dot Complicated with Randi Zuckerberg’ next week when she sits down with MIT engineer, Janet Lieberman, and sex therapist, Alexandra Fine, to discuss their company Dame Products. Wednesday at 12pm ET/ 9am PT on Sirius XM Business Channel 111.
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