Creamery grows and helps produce
Ice cream distribution has proven a good business for the Gillette family whose Gillette Creamery, the largest ice cream distributor in eastern New York, must now move into a facility more than twice the size of its current headquarters.
In a pro-agriculture twist, produce grown on Hudson Valley farms could benefit hugely from the space being left behind.
Company president JB Gillette sounded almost rueful as he recounted reasons why the company’s previous expansion a mere five years ago turned out not to be large enough, although he conceded, “It’s a good problem to have.”
Gillette Creamery started as Tri-County Ice Cream in Ellenville in 1985 with 4 employees and two trucks. Since then the company has grown to more than 70 employees and 26 trucks, with 3,000 accounts in 19 counties and a secondary depot in Albany. t distributes popular brands including Haagen Dazs, Edy’s and Good Humor to such outlets as 7-11 and Cumberland Farms stores, Walmart, Stop and Shop, Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid and Blockbuster.
Gillette, who worked with his father to start the company he owns with three brothers, said that many popular name brands that were independent companies seven years ago have been consumed by bigger players, so that Unilever now owns Breyer’s, Ben and Jerry’s, Klondike and Good Humor, while Nestle owns, among other brands, Haagen Dazs and Edy’s.
These ice cream superpowers engage massive distribution efforts, and Gillette noted that in recent years, ice cream has become staples at stores from corner delis and drug stores to big box stores. Walmart, for example, can require delivery seven days a week.
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