The Brooklyn Creamery specialises in better-for-you frozen desserts, a rapidly growing category in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions.
According to the firm’s founder Shivaan Ghai, there is particularly strong interest in markets that with hot weather.
“Our main markets are India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), both have very hot weather which makes consumers very keen on refreshing frozen desserts,” he told us.
“But this weather also means a lot more additional challenges for the manufacturer as we really need to ensure the integrity of the cold chain so good-quality desserts will reach the consumers.”
In addition, India is one of the world’s largest countries that also has some of the worst traffic jams in the world; whereas the UAE is in an arid desert climate, both of which create even more difficulties for frozen food delivery.
“These challenges have also meant great opportunities for us, and we decided from the very beginning to focus on cold-chain operations and deliveries to fill in the gaps here,” he said.
“One of the most important aspects was to design the products and packaging to fit the hot desert climate, such as building insulation into the delivery bags and using cool gel packs for all deliveries; and limiting the travel time to ensure desserts reach consumers in good condition.”
This has meant setting up a robust infrastructure with touchpoints located within strategic distances of one another.
“We limit delivery zones according to the time that we estimate the product to be out on the road, as we are able to ensure that each package can stay in good condition for about 30 minutes of travel time,” he added.
“This is more feasible than limiting by distance because the conditions in each market are so different: In India, five kilometres of travel can take up to 40 minutes due to traffic, but in Dubai five kilometres would be less than 10 minutes long.”
Markets with guilt-free potential
The firm already partners with most of the major e-commerce platforms in its stronghold markets, such as Deliveroo and Talabat in the UAE, and Swiggy and Zomato in India.
As it continues to grow its footprint, e-commerce will still be the preferred route of expansion in its new target markets.
“We are continuing to double down on the Indian market as there is still a lot of potential here, but as our customer base increases in size and scale, we know the logistical challenges are also going to increase,” Ghai added.
“The same is going to happen for Middle East markets like Qatar and Bahrain, and we are also eyeing Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as there is a large, growing demand for better-for-you, guilt-free ice creams in these markets.”
In South East Asia, The Brooklyn Creamery has its eye on Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia as key targets but is still evaluating its entry strategy.
“There is a lot of strong potential here, especially as there are a lot of health-conscious consumers who still crave desserts – the barrier we need to consider is affordability, as we want mass adoption but this will not happen if prices are set too high,” he said.
“So the strategy we think will work is to be premium but also affordable in order to promote inclusivity, and we are still working on how to make this work in these markets.”
Flavour preferences
Given its coverage of both the Middle East and APAC, the firm also has deep insights into the flavour trends and preferences of both regions when it comes to frozen desserts.
“The basic flavours always do well such as chocolate, fruits and nuts, as long as these are sweet flavours and not too muted – but there are also some clear differences,” he said.
“UAE consumers tend to seek out more international flavours such as cookies and cream or salted peanut butter; whereas Indian consumers like localised flavours like khulfi (a traditional Indian dairy dessert).”
