Chapter 6 Marketing Basics

Max and Mina’s Homemade Ice Cream and Ices

Source: Used with permission from Max and Mina’s Ice Cream.

Growing up in the 1970s, Bruce and Mark Becker loved ice cream. Their Grandpa Max used to create all different kinds of ice cream for Grandma Mina and the boys to try. Grandpa was an organic chemist and loved to create some interesting flavors. Years later, after Grandpa Max passed away, Bruce was cleaning out his grandpa’s house and discovered his secret book of recipes.

And so it began.

In the 1980s, Bruce started on his journey and traveled throughout Europe and the United States doing gourmet ice cream research. With all the new information gathered and the treasure trove of Grandpa Max’s secret recipes, Bruce and Mark opened Max and Mina’s Ice Cream in 1997 in a shopping center next to Shimon’s Pizza Falafel Dairy Restaurant in Flushing, Queens, New York. They test marketed their recipes directly to the public. The public loved it—and so did the local restaurants and party planners.

Max and Mina’s Ice Cream revolutionized America’s favorite dessert with daring ingredients and bold innovation. Their unique ability to intrigue and challenge old notions of mundane flavors draws unbelievable attention at home in New York and around the globe. The most distant customer of note was from Australia, someone who insisted on going to Max and Mina’s right off the plane at Kennedy Airport.

The Beckers make their ice cream products with at least 16 percent butterfat, putting them into the gourmet category. All their ice creams are kosher, but some products adhere to even stricter dairy guidelines. The shop itself features an array of posters, a display of Wacky Packages bubblegum stickers, candy wrappers, a Jerry Garcia etching, and old-fashioned signs.

A visit to Max and Mina’s will be an unusual ice cream experience (see Note 6.2 "Video Clip 6.1"). If you dare to take the plunge, why not try unforgettable flavors like beer, lox, babka, corn-on-the-cob, ketchup, garlic, or merlot—just to mention a few? There are also many of the more traditional flavors that you know and love. There is a rotating menu of one thousand flavors, but only about forty ice cream flavors and eight to ten sorbets are available at any one time. Bruce and Mark constantly encourage their patrons to be vocal in brainstorming new flavors, especially flavors that compliment events. Turkey ice cream, anyone? Have an idea? Stop by and give Max and Mina’s a try.“About Us,” Max and Mina’s Ice Cream, accessed December 2, 2011, www.maxandminasicecream.com/about.html; Miriam Hill, “1000 Flavors and a Little Romance,” Philadelphia Inquirer, accessed December 2, 2011, www.maxandminasicecream.com/images/articles/4.jpg; John Hyland, “Lox in a Cone: Sliced Thin It’s Not,” New York Times, August 16, 2000, accessed December 2, 2011, www.maxandminasicecream.com/images/articles/1.jpg.