Today we’d like to introduce you to Diane Jacobs.
Diane, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I have been involved in the creation of food, primarily desserts, since a very early age. I am also an artist. I moved to Los Angeles in 1983, to work at a custom Cake bakery in West Hollywood.
Five years later, in 1988, I opened The Cakeworks, a cake design studio in the Hancock Park area of LA. The focus was on creating beautiful and delicious works of art—in cake form. We specialized in portraits, sculptures, paintings, all executed with cake, frosting, chocolate, etc.
For twelve years, The Cakeworks provided cakes for celebrity weddings, birthdays, film premieres, film shoots, television sets, wrap parties. We were voted ‘BEST OF LA”, and were featured in Los Angeles Magazine, Bon Appetit, W, Ins Style, Gourmet, as well as a number of hardcover books. I was a guest on the Rosie O’Donnell Show in New York, Home and Family on ABC, and some segments on (the then fledgling) HGTV.
The journey to Divine Dips began in early 2000 when I discovered I was lactose intolerant and gluten sensitive. I spent a number of years experimenting with veganizing a number of desserts I’d created decades earlier. With the invigorating challenge of using alternative ingredients, I began work on vegan gluten free sweet treats.
I would buy dairy-free ice cream to accompany the desserts, and that’s when it became painfully apparent: There were no ‘great’ vegan ice creams commercially available. I was looking for the “Haagen Daz” equivalent (my personal fave in the dairy days), and there wasn’t one.
I started working backward from what I knew about ice cream—texture, fat /liquid balance, and experimenting with a new range of ingredients. I had a table top Cuisinart ice cream freezer, and I tried all of my inspirations. I hit on a formula that produced the best replica of dairy I’d had. I used a blend of ingredients—coconut almond and cashews—to create a somewhat neutral base to build flavor on. I was very pleased with the result but had no real ambition for it, other than to share with my family and friends.
I shipped some pints in dry ice to my sister Denise in Miami, Florida. She called me, almost frantic, insisting that I market this, that “the world is waiting for this product!!!”
I had this weird feeling that she was right, and I began researching how one actually brings a product to market. I spoke to people who I thought would be interested in it (the former CEO of Ben & Jerry’s, Jostein Solheim) and quickly found out— people were not ready for what I had in 2010. Solheim (a family acquaintance) dismissed the concept, claiming vegan is so “niche” and small. I reached out to other vegan businesses, Veggie Grill, etc., but no one could see the possibilities that seemed so obvious to me.
So, my mother, Deloria, took out a home equity loan to get it jump-started. I trademarked a name, looked for a company to make it for me. No company in California would talk to me (Humbolt Creamery told me unless I was doing 500K units, they weren’t interested, and hung up on me. True story)
I found a company in Colorado, Boulder Ice Cream, that advertised working with small start-ups. I visited them, and I hoped it would be the start. When we actually got to the production of Divine Dips, it was an unmitigated disaster.
My process is proprietary, and they really weren’t set up to accurately reproduce what I had. We lost thousands of dollars in ingredients destroyed by them. It was such a comedy of errors, and with that, I realized I’d have to set up the protocols and make it myself until I could find a team to make it.
I got a used gelato machine on Craig’s List and began producing Divine Dips at a facility in Garden Grove, Ca.
I hired one sales rep, and we offered pints and restaurant containers. Rachel was a go-getter, and we got orders right away, but the cost of making the product and overhead was so far beyond what could be earned, that I was always behind. My mother supported me for three years until her life savings ran out. During that time, we kept the hope that a “deep pocket investor” would see/taste it and come on board.
As an artist, just pumping out pints and delivering cases to local markets was not fulfilling in the least. People loved the product and assumed a company was behind it, not one person making it, and wanted discounts, more variety, etc.
Since my background was retail, I kept feeling like I needed a retail outlet for Divine Dips. I kept seeing food trucks pop up everywhere, and I thought a vegan ice cream truck would be a great way to get the product to people and increase brand visibility.
The only problem was, I was going broke. And I was sort of stuck because I couldn’t stop making the product, but making it was draining me dry.
I was about to declare bankruptcy in 2013, when Judy Williams, a neighbor from Ohio, offered to put up funds to get a truck and get the ice cream seen. She generously bailed me out, and I got the Divine Dips truck built to spec. We launched it in 2014 at World Fest, (now LA VegFest) in Woodley Park.
The truck allowed me to expand the flavor offerings and create more. I immediately thought of CoolHaus Ice cream and how the truck would bring the investment we needed.
I contacted Eat See Hear, and other outdoor truck movie events, and… they wouldn’t let me come. They said they had “relationships with Cool Haus” and wouldn’t let another ice cream truck in. I had this brand new truck, and I couldn’t find events to go to.
I became so frustrated, I created a truck night of my own. With the help of Fresco Community Market in Highland Park, we started a truck night on Thursdays. It started to take off, and I had a place to come sell weekly. And the truck became a fixture at a number of the Vegan Festivals that began to pop up. Street Fair, Long Beach, Vegan Faire, Eat Drink Vegan, et. al.
But, again, I was still doing it all alone, and no matter how hard I worked, there was a ceiling of how much I could produce. But no one seemed to get that. People had suggestions. (boy, did they have suggestions!). Do this event, get into Whole Foods (Whole Foods contacted me back in 2012, actually), take the truck out every day. On and on it went. I kept saying the same thing: I need a team for that, and I need investment dollars to form that team.
In 2016, I began selling to an Ice Cream shop in Pasadena, Bengees. They opened next to Real Food Daily, around the corner from Veggie Grill on Lake avenue. They needed a vegan option, and I provided Divine Dips.
It took off so quickly, the owner was ordering from me twice a week. I still was working alone, and it was a grind. The owner proposed opening a Divine Dips shop with me as a partner.
This is what I’d been picturing forever. A high-end, vegan ice cream scoop shop, where I could actually produce the ice creme, and my desserts could also be featured.
We spent months trying to come to an agreement but had a falling out at the end. So, no more Bengees, and no shop.
At the end of 2016, at the end of my rope, a friend I’d known for years offered to put up a set amount to get a shop open. It was about 60% of what was needed it, but I needed to get a place of my own to make the product, and I felt we needed the visibility of a store to advance the product.
We began constructing the DTLA store. I had to raise another 35% of the funds, which was excruciating. The construction ran over schedule by THREE MONTHS. We had to pay rent during that time, and overall, it was a nightmare.
We opened in April 2018, with no money in the bank. No one to do promotion, some friends volunteering to work for the first few weeks. I was hoping the contacts I had made with the truck over the preceding five years would bring our core base to the store, but they didn’t come.
We were doing about 1/3 the business necessary to sustain the shop, and it was terrifying. The location was challenging as well, as right across the street skid row begins. I joked that we were on the corner of gentrification and no man’s land.
Again, the customers who found us loved us, but we were in dire straits. I had to borrow money from customers to stay afloat. I personally went into foreclosure (and filed for bankruptcy), because there wasn’t enough to pay me, so I could take care of my own expenses.
Things were at the breaking point when a customer/supporter launched a GoFund Me. Another customer saw it and tweeted about it, and the tweet went viral. All of a sudden, I got all this attention, all at once. Including Voyage LA. I just found out we are in Yelp’s top 100 ice cream shops in the US. We’re ranked 33. I’ve been working the store alone since August 2018. It’s kind of unbelievable, to be honest.
The word is getting out now. Finally. But, we spent a year behind the eight ball, two months of publicity and social media can’t fix that. But things are looking up.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Divine Dips Vegan Ice Creme – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Divine Dips specializes in Vegan/Gluten Free Ice cream (creme) and select desserts. We are known for some of the best vegan ice creams in the country. The comment I get most is how rich and creamy the flavors are. Many don’t believe there’s no dairy involved. I also have cookies and brownies, my own recipes, that are used for our ice creme sandwiches, and brownie sundaes.
We are 100% vegan, plant-based. I think there are very few places that offer an exclusively vegan and gluten free selection, as opposed to regular ice cream shops with a few vegan choices. So, I’m proud to have a somewhat unique and exclusive offering in the ice cream world.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I’m hoping to get investment dollars to get the wholesale line back into markets, to open multiple locations, and to ultimately get Divine Dips nationally recognized as a premium brand.
Contact Info:
- Address: Divine Dips Vegan Ice Creme
601 S. Los Angeles Street
CORNER OF 6TH AND LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles, CA 90014 - Phone: 213-265-7785
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: divinedipsdtla
- Facebook: Divine Dips Ice Creme
- Twitter: divinedipsla
- Yelp: https://yelp.to/qTKq/vQcp4YDgEP
Image Credit:
S. Ameena Coates, Melissa E. Watkins, Ashley Maria, Kevin J. Coffey
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