When Ellen Sledge began Penny Lick Ice Cream Co. in 2013, she was returning to the workforce after a break to raise her three children. A pastry chef by training, she ran catering events at Princeton University before putting her career on hold. But she was initially uncertain about how she would reanimate her professional life.
“When I spent years home with my kids, I always wanted my own business, but I really wasn”™t completely certain what I wanted to do,” she recalled. “I decided to make a short list of the things I like to make most. I narrowed it down to two choices: ice cream and candy. I couldn”™t decide on one or the other and ”” I”™m not joking ”” I flipped a quarter and I landed on tails. So, I have an ice cream business.”
Penny Lick Ice Cream started at the farmers market in Hastings-on-Hudson, with Sledge creating her product in a local commissary kitchen.
“I bought a single pushcart and I made ice cream in pints and in small push-pop containers,” she said. “I didn”™t know how well it would go and I didn”™t have a lot of money to spend, so I tried it out as a farmers market business for the first year and it went pretty well.”
Sledge returned the next year with more pushcarts and a small staff of teenage employees who were spread out across multiple farmers markets in Connecticut. She quickly elevated her focus to catering for birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, weddings while saving up to open a store. In 2015, Penny Lick Ice Cream established a retail presence at 580 Warburton Ave. in Hastings-on-Hudson.
While the market is not lacking in ice cream brands, Sledge stressed her products stand out by being allergen-free ”” peanuts, tree nuts and sesame are absent from her ingredients list and she is in the process of phasing out the use of eggs. As a smaller business, she said, Penny Lick Ice Cream can ensure allergy-sparking ingredients do not accidentally get into the mix.
“Usually, large ice cream manufacturers are making several brands in one manufacturing facility, and there is no clear guarantee of no cross contamination, no matter how good your good manufacturing practices are,” she said. “As a dedicated peanut and sesame-free product, that means that none of the ingredients have been exposed. Even with the sprinkles in our shop, we have to be careful that they don”™t come from a plant that also bags mixed nuts. And that”™s a lot of extra work, but we think it”™s a really good payoff.”
Sledge”™s roots in the farmers market environment also made her conscious of using the cleanest ingredients.
“When I started my product, it felt wholly inappropriate to use corn sweeteners and food dyes,” she said. “That first season really shaped how I”™ve made my ice cream ever since.”
Sledge”™s company focuses on a range of 24 flavors, with some rotating in and out to meet seasonal product availability. Creating a new flavor can run the time gamut from abracadabra to epic trial-and-error.
“More often than not, a recipe will go wrong again and again and again,” she said. “You will have a great idea in your head of how it”™s going to turn out and how it”™s going to freeze and how it”™s going to taste and it never quite works right. Dark Chocolate Coconut is always in our top five in our sales numbers every day ”” it”™s a vegan ice cream and it took me about 40 tries to get it to freeze properly. And then sometimes things just work magically: When I made our mocha macchiato, it worked great the first time.”
Penny Lick Ice Cream serves up its wares in cups, cones and shakes. But not every offering has been welcomed.
“We don”™t do egg creams,” Sledge said. “We did for a little while but nobody wanted them. It made me sad, so I just pulled it from the menu. We do root beer floats, but that is also not a huge seller.”
Sledge opened a wholesale factory in Port Chester to accommodate the demand for her ice cream, but the COVID-19 pandemic”™s impact on her business was, in her words “a bit disastrous,” with cancellations in her catering work and the loss of approximately 30% of her annual retail revenue. Things are starting to pick up, with smaller drive-by parties eager to include her ice cream in the menu.
“Unlike most ice cream shops, we are a 12-month-a-year operation, in part because we are still doing winter events,” she said. “We also used the shop to do children”™s birthday parties, but I can”™t imagine those returning until 2021.”
Sledge admitted she would consider opening additional stores in Westchester after the pandemic is history, but at the moment she is focused on the one-day-at-a-time strategy.
“We”™re not as healthy as we would be in the normal summer due to COVID,” she acknowledged. “But we”™re okay enough. We are still going to be open this winter. I”™m not certain quite what this winter will look like, but my game plan is to still stay a 12-month-a-year business.”
