Hadco ships ice cream to Antigua

Just about six months after launching its house brand ice cream, Creamery Novelties, the Hadco Group has loaded up its first 20-foot refrigerated container chock full of its frozen creations, bound for Antigua. The shipment is expected to arrive next week–just in time for Christmas.

Hadco Group CEO John Hadad told Newsday, “We did have a goal for one (export container) by the end of the year. We’re quite excited, because it happened faster than we expected.”

The company has been talking with distributors in other Caricom countries, he added, and will soon export to them, hopefully, within the first quarter of next year. It's also looking at extra-regional markets, but that plan is more long-term because of regulatory and language barriers that need to be worked out.

“We tend to approach things seriously, pursuing and talking and if it doesn’t work out will look to something else, but we are hoping,” he said.

Hadco has been in the export business for a while. Though primarily known as a distributor, it’s through that line of work that it established its network. The company is the long-time distributor of ice-cream brands Häagen-Dazs and Breyers, exporting up the islands for the last 15 years.

This first shipment of Creamery Novelties is different, though.

“This ice cream is ours. Nothing was acquired from purchasing. We born this baby from scratch,” Hadad said.