Last spring, I met Curt Jones at St. Louis University’s
Pitch and Catch Competition. Several decades ago Curt founded Dippin’ Dots and
built the company up to a multi-million dollar business. However, due to a
series of unfortunate events involving the 2008 recession and a lengthy and
expensive patent lawsuit, he ended up selling the company. Now, he still owns a
number of Dippin’ Dots franchises and is currently working on a new frozen
coffee company involving similar scientific methods. When I met him in the
spring, he expressed interest in potentially doing contract manufacturing work
for The Waffle Cookie. Over the past half a year, we have kept in close contact
through biweekly calls and frequent emails.
On Wednesday, he picked me up from the airport in St. Louis
and we drove three hours south to Mounds, Illinois where we toured a contract
manufacturing facility where we could produce waffle cookies. After seeing the
facility, we drove an hour to Carbondale to meet with a group of graduate
students in the business school at Southern IL University who are helping on
the marketing side of things with Curt’s coffee business. After this meeting,
we drove another two and half hours back up to St. Louis where he dropped me
off at my hotel. In the car, I learned all about the successes and hardships
that Dippin’ Dots faced over the years. Curt had a unique approach when
building up the company. He chose to specifically implement the Dippin’ Dots
kiosks into theme parks and zoos because he wanted to create a Dippin’ Dots
experience that the customer would find memorable. He also talked about his
appearance on Oprah’s show! Overall, I learned a lot just from spending so much
time with such a successful food entrepreneur and food innovator.
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