The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian sorbet and ice cream brand yesterday said it is seeking outside investment to help finance its production plant after “exhausting” its resources in surviving COVID-19.

Melissa Darville, co-founder of Shiver Premium Ice cream, told Tribune Business she plans to “steadily increase the company’s footprint” over the next few months heading into summer 2021.

“We are rearranging some of our freezers at more of the gas stations to try and get more access to people. We are also working on new flavours and trying to increase our product line,” she said.

“Right now we’re looking for help because we exhausted all of our resources trying to stay alive and open. So I’m putting things in place and looking to have a round of funding in order to actually get our plant up and running.”

Shiver previously received a $160,000 mixture of grant, equity and loan funding via the Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) in May 2019. The financing was to jumpstart Shiver’s increased production as well as enabling it to hire extra staff.

Ms Darville said she does not plan to go back to the SBDC in Shiver’s latest funding round, but instead wants to “give other people a turn”. She added that it was time for Shiver to “be able to swim” without SBDC support, saying: “We have already proven that it’s a product that people like, so now it’s just a matter of production and we have to keep the production up to the demand. That’s the problem we’re facing now.”

Shiver’s products are currently sold through 40 small convenience stores, along with the Super Value supermarket chain. However, she revealed: “They didn’t want to carry our small 4 ounce cups that we were focusing on because of pilferage. So we pulled back from that until we could get multi-pack packaging, and probably come back at them with that.

“Then, with the pints, we came off the shelves when we were doing our upgrade because we had to close down our walk-in freezer and build a new one. So in that timeframe we were off the shelves for a while and, since we came back online, they didn’t take us back because they have some other brands out now.”

Ms Darville said Shiver is surviving through personal referrals, and persons who have heard about the brand and want to carry it in their stores. During the next three years, she said she wants to get the company’s plant fully operational.

The initial version had not factored in what was required to keep it up and running, along with the resources for the bulk raw material that is required.

“We don’t have it now because our revenue dropped. Whereas with the revenue we were making we would have had enough money to run the plant, we don’t have it now. But I reached out to a few people who want to invest in the company, so we’re sorting that out right now,” added Ms Darville.

“We have also partnered with another Bahamian entrepreneur and we launched a juice yesterday called Island Tingaling.” Ms Darville said she is assisting with the drink’s packaging and marketing, and added: “He had a local product, but we just had to work on the packaging. So I helped him do his labelling and barcodes, and it’s been just about a month working with them and they are already on the shelf.

“So that’s the kind of thing we are trying to do; help other people who already have a good natural product. They just need a little help with getting the packaging done correctly, and help with barcoding and labelling for them to have that appearance. We are going to partner with more people like that to try to build our brand distribution.

“We’re trying to go with all-natural Bahamian brands. So that’s what we’re doing right now.” Ms Darville said she has also started a distribution channel to help other brands.