Barts Ice Cream Co.

Location: Greenfield, MA

Industry: Food and Beverage

Size: 25+ People

While sitting at a high-top table in a Boston WeWork, the man across from me said, “I still don't feel like we know who we are.”

Meet Tom, the new owner of Barts Ice Cream Company, a local business with a long history of making exceptional ice cream. Tom purchased Barts from its original owners because he believed it could and should reach more people.

He and his team had just gone through a tiring and fairly expensive branding process, but the project didn't feel complete. The company still struggled to make decisions and share its story.

I said that they needed a strategy. While the firm they'd worked with had put a lot of effort into packaging design, they had neglected to establish a strategy, document it, and then work with the leadership to extend it across the organization. 

Tom responded, “Can you help us create a strategy that will allow us to express who we are and make decisions based on that?”

the status and challenges

Tom asked us to develop a purpose-driven strategy for the company. As the new leader and CEO, he was determined to build a brand that delighted customers as well as a company that his team loved to work for. 

The project came with several challenges. First, the company had just invested in a rather lengthy branding process. Thus, the team arrived fatigued after having just spent several months working with another firm. 

It’s difficult to capture an organization’s core when its people aren’t running right alongside you. The process lags, and the results are superficial because they don’t have the energy to dig deep.

The company brought with it a long history. That meant we needed to help them find the points of commonality and authenticity between those new to the company and those who had been with them for 20 years.

the work

We started by reviewing everything the company had created as part of the branding process. It helped to give us context and a better understanding of how the latest initiative had been approached.

We then did a sit-down interview with the CEO. It lasted several hours and provided an in-depth, human perspective on the company — particularly his vision for it moving forward.

Since we build strategies that include the input of all stakeholders, we surveyed the entire team and talked to a few select customers. We also conducted a brief competitor analysis.

Then we drafted the Core strategy. We developed a purpose, mission, vision, and set of core values.

While there were many points of commonality, so much of the team’s focus had been polarized around their product, not the company as a whole. We helped them take logical steps back from the product to get something viable and scalable. 

The key concept centered on nostalgia and doing things in a handcrafted way because it produced better results. They haven’t changed how they make their ice cream since they were founded 75 years ago. They also believe in real ice cream, which to them means that one pint weighs one pound because it’s that creamy and dense. 

We narrowed in on the word ‘uncomplicate.’ It captured that feeling of days gone by, of summer as a child, and of simple joys without dating the company in a negative way. We combined it with the word ‘joy’ because it was the one emotion everyone at the company agreed on.

Their purpose is: “To uncomplicate life with the sincere joy of ice cream.” 

After a few facilitated sessions, we delivered the final version of the Core strategy to Tom and the team. We also provided guidance on how to use this strategy to make decisions more easily and with more intent. They received both with excitement:

“It’s so amazing to see how much goes into so few words, but this is exactly what we’ve been struggling to say. This is us,” shared Tom.

If you haven’t tried Barts, please do. It is the densest, creamiest pint of joy in your freezer.