Today we’d like to introduce you to Kate Hanke.
Hi Kate, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi! Thanks for the invitation to chat about our story. I am the owner of Borealis Creamery. We are a small-batch, hand-crafted, artisanal ice cream and sorbet maker scooping out of a food trailer/truck. I left my IT career to run the truck full time and am joined by my husband Steve, and son Fletcher on both the production and sales side of the business. While we have some challenges, it’s been fun to live my dream with them. We’d been making ice cream for family and friends for years, and everyone kept saying it was the best ice cream they’d ever had. We toyed with the idea for a while but it never seemed the “right” time. There wasn’t a hand-crafted ice cream shop in our local area, and a few things happened in the same time frame that made it seem like it was finally the right time. We opened during Fishing Opener weekend Mid-May and have been trying to keep up with demand since.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s been a smooth road regarding opening and the community’s response. We have the best customers! Our biggest challenge has been how heat affects the trailer’s ability to produce and scoop ice cream. It’s been a constant battle since we opened, but we’ve been creative and persistent in resolving quickly.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We are a small-batch, hand-crafted ice cream and sorbet food truck/trailer in Northern Minnesota. What sets us apart is that we make all the ice cream and most of the mix-ins for our ice cream from scratch. A lot of love goes into every scoop! Some examples are the dark chocolate hot fudge in Tin Roof Sundae, the caramel in Salted Caramel, the marshmallow whip in S’mores and Rocky Road, the cookies in Snickerdoodle and cookie dough in Cookie Dough, the cake in Celebration Cake, and the puree and jam in Twisted Strawberry.
What’s next?
Currently, we are making plans for what to do after the fall when having the truck out multiple days a week is no longer feasible.
At this time, our plan is to transition from scooping to Pints Only sales but need to work out the details such as the ‘how’ for ordering/pre-reserving, the ‘when’ for the change to pints will happen – it could be October, could be November – mostly the timing depends on the weather and sales when we do have the truck out, and also the ‘where’ for pick-up and pay which would preferably be an indoor location.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.borealiscreamery.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/borealiscreamery/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/borealiscreamery
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BorealisCreamry
- Other: https://g.page/r/CVx7bxT79VbsEAE
