Crowdfunding – Ice Cream For All – Northern Bloc
You may have heard that some big Northern Bloc news was dropping soon. In the world of ice cream, this is the biggest scoop there is…
We’ve decided to raise money to take us to the next level by selling a scoop of our company – to you.
This is a huge, pivotal moment for us, incredibly exciting and also an opportunity for you our community.
We know that many of you will have a million questions and that there will be people out there who’ve never heard of us or maybe know of us but don’t know the full story.
How do we give everyone a taste of what we’re about and explain everything there is to know about this investment opportunity, without overloading people with facts and brass tax?
How about we answer a few big questions about the Crowdcube investment and then, if you’re still hungry for a brief history of Northern Bloc ice cream, you can read on and get to know us properly?
Sweet, let’s do it.
We’ll kick things off with some of the big questions about why we’re doing this.
Why have you decided to Crowdfund as opposed to other types of investment?
We want to be a part of a movement that has all-natural, exciting food at its core. We’ve always had such an amazing response from people who love our ice cream – but who also want to know what’s in the food they eat, that the best ingredients are used and also that they’re supporting people who are passionate about doing just that. We’re not just asking for cash to grow the business, we want to encourage people to engage with our brand and help us push the business forward.
Why now?
There are a number of reasons but mainly the timing seems pretty spot on. We’ve been growing year on year and particularly in the last 12 months, we’ve seen some big changes. We’ve gone from just two distributors to twenty-six with the potential for 75,000+ customers and have tripled our sales from the previous year (from approx 500,000 scoops to 1.3million). In the first quarter of this financial year, we’ve more than doubled our turnover from the same period last year.
We’ve spent our time focused on perfecting our flavours and worked hard on our kid’s range and vegan range. When we released our vegan range 75,000 scoops were sold in the first six weeks! Looking at the figures it seems the perfect time to build on this momentum and take the next step.
What is the money going to be used for?
There are a number of things we want to invest in. We want to invest more into Manolo. He’s our ice cream maestro, head of R&D and pioneer of natural, additive-free and dairy-free food. We want to allow him to have the tools to stay at the forefront of quality all-natural ice cream – pushing boundaries and experimenting with exciting methods, ingredients and flavours.
We’re also seeking to increase our levels of production, to get more ice cream throughout the UK, and to keep up with growing demand abroad.
Whilst doing all of this, we want to do our utmost to invest in environmentally friendly practices, to ensure we aren’t wasting any water and to move away from plastic, using the most sustainable practices available.
Will there be perks for investors?
We’re keen to focus on the main perk of owning part of a passionate, rapidly growing and well-meaning company. Also, we are pretty ruddy confident you’ll make some extra cash. As the number crunchers will have noticed above, we’ve experienced excellent growth of late and are in a position to capitalise on increased demand.
Oh sorry, you mean as well as being a sound investment and joining our community of ice cream fiends? Well… There’ll be limited edition merchandise for every investor, exclusive tasting sessions, ice cream parties and opportunities for everyone to influence the development of new flavours.
We can’t wait for you to get involved!
If you’ve got a spare couple of minutes or need something to read on the train here’s a quick recap of the Northern Bloc story and an insight into who we are.
A Very Brief History of Northern Bloc:
We started out in 2014 when Dirk and Josh decided to buy a vintage ice cream van and sell top-notch ice cream from it. The first real gig was shifting scoops at Trinity Kitchen in Leeds, grass-roots pop-up style. It was a wild ride of making ice cream overnight, Josh driving his Golf to fetch ingredients and rubbing shoulders every evening with the coolest pop-ups about.
Then Manolo burst onto the scene. After spotting us in the van at Trinity he dropped off his CV. A lecturer at ice cream universities, winner of the World Championships in 2006, fourth-generation Italian ice cream maker… the man has credentials.
Manolo came on board and took our ice cream to new heights. With Manolo’s expertise and some funding from the Leeds Enterprise Board, the next chapter of Northern Bloc was away.
Since then we’ve grown and studied the craft of ice cream making every day. Supplying restaurants, cafes and supermarkets across the UK. Our kid’s range of all-natural, additive-free ice cream went down a treat and our vegan range has absolutely exploded.
Our Values
Since we started out, the aim was always to produce an ice cream that stands out. To get rid of all the additives you see in most ice cream out there. To use the best ingredients and to let the flavours shine.
Now we’re at the forefront of the industry and Manolo is so ahead of the curve; creating textures and flavours better than anything else out there.
“I wanted to change the rules, stop making ice cream with additives and go back to the origins by making ice cream naturally.”
– Manolo.
Recently we’ve seen a trend in extremely low-calorie ice cream that’s marketed as a healthy alternative. Half the calories – so you can eat twice as much. We don’t like this. Not one bit.
We think everyone should have access to food that is natural, of the best quality and tastes amazing. Equally, in terms of marketing, we believe in encouraging people to eat healthy amounts of good, honest food – not gorging on rubbish that’s nutritionally void.
If you agree, you can get involved!
Head to our Crowdcube page to get the full low-down and to join our community!
