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.