Exactly what ice-cream fans want
THERE’s no whiff of the trend for no sugar and low carb anywhere near the Magnum Pleasure Store in Rosebank, Johannesburg, where customers have been queuing for the chance to customise their own ice cream at the pop-up store.
Confirming the trend that shoppers will pay for small luxury items (even in tough times), 1 000 units were sold daily last weekend, and the store is selling about 500 ice creams a day during the week.
It opened last weekend and will close on Christmas Eve. It is more of a marketing exercise and sales gimmick to celebrate 25 years of the brand than part of a plan for a sustainable store.
The Magnum Pleasure Store has opened around the world since 2012. It’s been to New York, Amsterdam, Paris and Istanbul. Customers create their own toppings mixes for ice cream with a choice of a decadent chocolate dip, and nearly 20 toppings from mint crunch to chilli flakes to rose petals to honeycomb for R40 each.
Of the 18 toppings on offer in the Rosebank outlet, some of the most popular are silver balls, chocolate-coated popping candy and almond ginger biscotti. Some of the specialised toppings were formulated by Moema’s in Parktown North.
Ice cream as a category — which includes “impulse” ice cream (bought on the go), takehome ice cream, artisanal ice cream and frozen yoghurt — is more popular than ever in South Africa. And paying for premium luxury ice cream is not unique to Magnum. Luxury ice-cream brand Haagen Dazs sells one ice-cream scoop for R27 and two for R50.
Market intelligence company Datamonitor put compound annual growth rate of ice cream at 11.4% from 2008 to last year.
Research company Euromonitor forecast that the South African ice-cream market was expected to grow 27.7% from last year to 2017.
Unilever is spending about R500-million on an ice-cream factory in Midrand, which is expected to start production next year, to meet growing demand for its brands such as Magnum, Cornetto and Gino Ginelli.
Unilever SA chairman Peter Cowan said South Africans ate a litre of ice cream a year while Turks eat nearly 2.5 litres and New Zealanders 15 litres.
Magnum sells 1 billion ice creams a year worldwide, and is the biggest brand of Unilever ice creams.