Warm reception for Frisko’s frozen favours

What’s the most delicious way to cool down on a hot summer day? Ice cream, of course! There is universal agreement when it comes to love of the frozen treat. As the saying goes, “We all scream for ice cream.” However, on the local ice cream scene, one brand is a scoop above the rest. Vincentians have tasted the difference and followed the Frisko snowman all the way to the Best of SVG 2017 award.

Frisko is a family-run business, started by Carl and Kathy DeNobriga in 1990. With only one or two assistants in the beginning, the company now employs 23 persons and is in need of a more spacious facility than the current James Street location, in order to keep up with local demand and to expand production for export markets.

“It was difficult at first, but we make a very good product and that’s what I know has helped us to grow,” says owner/manager Kathy DeNobriga. “With the growth we’ve had over the past years, it’s a challenge to make that space work with the volume and the output of the company.”

Frisko makes about 30 ice cream flavours. Vanilla, rum and raisin, cookies and cream, chocolate, and strawberry cheesecake are the best sellers. Their local fruit flavours seem to be a hit with visitors, as per regular requests from hotels. The company has used passion fruit, tamarind, coconut, soursop and avocado in their ice cream production. Nutmeg is one of the emerging favourites. But Frisko is not limited to ice cream. They also make sherbets, ice cream cakes, ice cream bars, popsicles and waffle cones.

At the retail outlet, Frost Bites, customers can enjoy milk shakes, sundaes, brownies and other tasty treats, even sandwiches. While they have always sold ice cream retail from the store, in the early years of Frisko the location did not attract many customers.

“When we first opened the business, this was not doing well. I guess being on a main street and it did not have as many businesses in the area. It’s picked up over the last couple years quite a bit,” DeNobriga said. Frost Bites opened in 2007.

Running the ice cream business has not always been sweet. Shortly after Frisko opened, the local market also opened up to foreign ice cream brands, but the family found a way to keep the company alive. “We were having problems paying our loans and so on; that’s when we got the idea of bringing in the trailer that we have near to the market. That kind of helped us to keep up with our bill payments. The trailer, I think, was the only place open in Kingstown for years and years on a Sunday and that actually helped us out a lot.”

At present, competition from imported brands has little impact on Frisko’s sales and the DeNobrigas credit this to the unquestionable quality of their product and the genuineness of their motto ‘taste the difference’.

Frisko recently added the tagline ‘follow the snowman’ to their advertising in order to make customers more aware of their brand. “We found our competitors were doing a label very similar to ours and we had a few customers complaining that they picked up the wrong one and the quality was not as good, so we decided to push the snowman, which has been our logo since we started, to differentiate from the competition,” DeNobriga explained.

It’s been a long journey from struggle to success, and the Frisko family feels rewarded and encouraged to be recognized by Best of SVG. “I think it’s a very good idea what Searchlight did to bring awareness to local produce. We would like to thank all the people who voted for us,” DeNobriga said.

Frisko can be reached at telephone number

457-1069.