“We will double [the number] within the full year and have Walmart selling our ice cream cakes coast to coast,’’ said Harsha Agadi, who served as Friendly’s chief executive until resigning last week and currently sits on the board of directors. “It’s a huge opportunity.’’
The supermarket business is the fastest growing part of Friendly’s Ice Cream LLC, now accounting for 25 percent of sales, and could be key to a turnaround following the company’s emergence from bankruptcy last month. As executives try to make over the chain’s remaining restaurants, Friendly’s also is aiming to lessen its dependence on take-out cones and sit-down meals. Over the next several years, it hopes to double retail sales to $200 million with new partners and products, such as ice cream pizza, Reese’s Peanut Butter Ice Cream cake, and Keebler Grasshopper Fudge Mint cookie sundae cups.
Retail analysts say expanding through grocery stores and mass merchants is a way to build awareness for the Friendly’s brand without incurring the major expenses needed to open and operate new restaurants. The company is taking advantage of excess capacity at its Wilbraham plant to churn out more ice cream cakes, cartons, logs, and single-cup servings to be delivered nationwide.
It’s a smart, if not overdue, strategy given Americans’ fondness for frozen desserts at home, say analysts. Ice cream servings at restaurants fell 1 percent in 2011, while in-home ice cream consumption increased by about 6 percent, according to the most recent figures available from NPD Group, a New York market research firm.
“The restaurant industry has been a very difficult environment for the last three years,’’ said Harry Balzer, NPD’s chief food and beverage industry analyst. “Distribution to supermarkets will get you in front of most American households in a way that would never be possible with restaurants.’’
