Step-by-Step Plan for $300 Ice Cream Business

1. Choose Your Ice Cream Type

  • Easiest: Flavored ice pops (frozen juice/milk mixtures).

  • Mid-level: Simple soft serve made with a manual or cheap electric ice cream maker.

  • Hardest for $300: Packaged, churned ice cream — needs a bigger freezer.

Total so far: $225–$250

4. Production Method (Example: Milk-based Popsicles)

  1. Mix base — milk, sugar, and flavoring in a large pot or bowl.

  2. Pour into molds and freeze for 4–6 hours.

  3. Unmold and store in cooler/freezer until sale time.

5. Selling Strategy

  • Location: Busy streets, school gates, market days, festivals.

  • Price: $0.10–$0.20 per unit (adjust to local market).

  • Daily Output Goal: 50–100 units.

  • Profit Margin: Usually 50%+ if made in bulk.

6. Scaling Up

Once you earn $50–$100 profit, reinvest in:

  • Larger freezer

  • More molds

  • More flavors

  • Possibly a powered soft serve machine

 Ice Cream Factory in Maiduguri, Northern Nigeria - staffed by refugee widows displaced by Boko Haram

HuMAN Ice Cream Factory produces 43 liters of ice-cream equivalent to 288 containers in a day, at cost of $15 and sell for $24. Profit of $9 in a day, and $270 in a month.  Flavors are vanilla, strawberry, and banana.

Ice Cream Factory is staffed by refugees from the Al-Amin IDP camp - widows who have been displaced from their homes by Boko Haram.

The four women refugees are:

  • Amina Mustafa, age 41, has 6 children

  • Sitiya Atiku, age 50, has 8 children

  • Rimannam Ali, age 35, has 3 children

  • Fanna Bulama, age 28, has 4 children

Ingredients are purchased in bulk to reduce cost of transport and going to market to buy them on daily basis.

Assignment

Submit a 1-page essay explaining what you believe are the easiest and the most difficult steps in doing this project. Also, explain who in your community might want this, and how is it useful to your community?