The next big bet in ice cream

Mochi — a pillowy, Japanese rice dough — has been around for centuries. But now it’s one of the fastest-selling items in your grocery’s freezer aisle.

The popularity of the bite-sized treats is due in part to The Mochi Ice Cream Co. The company was founded three years ago after the private equity firm Century Park Capital Partners bought Mikawaya, a 105-year-old Los Angeles-based Japanese confectioner.

M
 ikawaya is credited with inventing ice-cream filled mochi in the 1990s. The treats were sold in ethnic groceries, but Century Park saw an opportunity to expand. The company’s new brand, My/Mo, is now in 12,000 U.S. and Canadian grocery stores. Some even have My/Mo-branded freezers in the deli department, where shoppers can grab individual mochi. M
 y/Mo’s Chief Marketing Officer, Russell Barnett — who was also the salesman behind Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Popchips — talks about what’s next for My/Mo.

Why did you think the time was right for mochi ice cream?

What we set about doing was making mochi ice cream accessible to the masses by doing a couple of things. One: Keep the weird, man. And then, it’s getting rid of the things that are hindrances. I didn’t grow up with the red bean paste. But I did grow up with vanilla, chocolate, strawberry. So we adjusted the flavor profiles. And then lastly, we gave it a name people could pronounce. Think about what Chobani did with Greek yogurt. M
 ochi ice cream is in exactly the right space. It’s hand-held, naturally portion-controlled. Three bites, 110 calories and you’re out. When I take three bites of something, all of a sudden, I’m a snack. And you’ve got Millennials, who snack more than any other generation. It was really just taking and triangulating all of the ideas that are happening in the world right now.

How will you keep sales growing?

We’re doing all this on still very low awareness of mochi ice cream. So there’s a lot of runway there. The other piece is we really believed it was important to not just create a single product, but really create a snack platform. We came out with My/Mo mochi ice cream. We also knew that there’s a tremendous amount of movement toward meatless, so it was also important to come out with a non-dairy and vegan line. And then a few months ago we launched our My/Mo ice cream with mochi bits. So that’s how we continue this. We’re an antsy bunch.

You’ve had a varied career. What’s the common thread between selling mochi, Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Popchips?

All of them had a real vision, all of them had an exceptional management team and all of them had the belief that they were really truly creating more than just a product, and truly understood the responsibility of creating a new category. It’s really about taking all your cues not from what you believe to be the right answer, but really spending time with consumers.