Local to national distribution
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By David A Kolman
Since 1932, Little Jimmy's Italian Ice has been a favorite treat throughout the New Jersey area. Over time, the product became popular throughout New York and Pennsylvania. Most recently, the Elizabeth, New Jersey-based family-owned and operated business began offerings its products nationwide. It sells Italian Ices in some 35 states, and that has brought about a significant challenge: finding reliable frozen freight carriers to deliver weekly less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments throughout the United States.
Little Jimmy's Italian Ice has evolved from a manufacturer and seller of Italian Ice into an organization that is the Italian Ice concession business. It wholesales Italian Ices and offers entrepreneur packages that provide everything needed for someone to get started in the Italian Ice concession business — from Italian Ice to pushcarts and trucks to merchandising materials.
“Everything we ship is LTL,” says the company's Dennis Moore. “About five years ago, we started shipping out of New Jersey and across the United States. One of our major challenges has been finding reliable frozen freight carriers to cover the many different areas of the country.”
He notes that his company doesn't have problems shipping its pushcarts. “We ship all of them with one national LTL logistics company that does a great job for us.
“It's the complete opposite situation with LTL frozen carriers. The ones we use are very reliable, but they aren't national in scope and don't go to many areas of the country where our ices are shipped.
“Other LTL frozen carriers we have used that claim to be national haven't been, nor were they reliable or cost-effective.”
For example, last year Little Jimmy's Italian Ice used a frozen freight carrier that was hauling ice from its plant to a cold storage facility in Edison, New Jersey. The carrier waited until it received a full truckload of products — not just the ices — before making deliveries. “We didn't know about this until we started to hear from our customers about melted products and late deliveries,” Moore says.
A bigger problem is that “we've had a lot of companies that claim to specialize in transporting frozen products, yet they refuse to handle ours. I don't understand that.
“A frozen product needs to stay frozen. Our Italian Ice needs to be at 0° F and can defrost up to 7° F. How difficult is that? And our ice isn't even perishable, as it contains no dairy products.”
“You can tell if our product melts because the syrup leaks out,” says Anthony Moore, Dennis' brother. “With other frozen products, such as a box of hamburger or chicken patties, it's hard to detect if something has been defrosted and refrozen because the product is inside the box.”
Hand-made recipe
Little Jimmy's Italian Ice is made from a 75-year-old secret recipe, known only to two of the four Moore brothers: Jeffery and one other who wants to remain anonymous. The brothers, along with their father Harry, own and operate the company.
Jeffery, who is the company's icemaker, says “our Italian Ice is hand made from a mixture of ice, water, sugar, natural and artificial flavorings, and a stabilizer, all mixed together in a large tank.
