Marco Sweets & Spices Cofounders On Pushing The Boundaries Of Ice Cream

For those who have an adventurous palate (and perhaps wanderlust), Luke Christianson and Avery Henderson have created a new ice cream brand with globally-inspired flavors: Marco Sweets & Spices.

Christianson, who has worked in the food and beverage sector as a mergers & acquisitions analyst and an equity analyst, first started to get the idea for Marco when he moved to New York City to pursue his MBA at Columbia Business School two years ago.

The city’s culinary scene made an immediate impression on Christianson. “I was hit in the face with the fact that you can get food from basically anywhere across the world within a five-block space of my apartment,” he says.

But Christianson also recognized that interest in ingredients and flavors from different countries was not unique to New York, given the“widely publicized foodie revolution” and the “emphasis on certain cultural and culinary expressions” across the U.S, he says.

According to Christianson, the research he has done shows that over 50% of Americans now consider themselves “foodies.” 93% of these foodies want to experience more international food, and 90% of them are also “willing to pay more for international and different types of ingredients,” he says.

He didn’t see excitement for something new and different translate into the ice cream aisle though. “I realized that the major brands are still only offering the same six to ten or so flavor profiles they have,” Christianson says.

As a way to fill that need, he enlisted the help of his brother Willy, a professional chef, to create some flavors worthy of a foodie’s tastes. After seven months of recipe development, Christianson took those flavors to a manufacturer last summer and had a small order of pints made. He then began testing his ice cream flavors with some grocery stores that following fall.

The positive feedback Christianson got from both consumers and retailers pushed him to move forward with Marco, but in order to do that, he knew he needed more people on board.

He reached out to Henderson—someone he has known since their childhood in Minnesota. Henderson is a marketing and design veteran with experience in branding for food and beverage companies.

Spencer Joynt, partner and creative director at Alright Studio, also joined the Marco team to undertake all of the art direction and graphic design for the ice cream brand.

To bring Marco’s flavors past the testing stage, Christianson recognized that the business required “someone with more expertise to give us an idea of how to bring those prototypes to scale.”

Fortunately, he ended up connecting with Julian Plyter because they happened to use the same manufacturer for their products. Plyter is the pastry chef and founder of Melt Bakery in New York City and an alum of three-Michelin-starred restaurant Le Bernardin.

Together, these partners have transformed Marco into what it is today. The ice cream comes in five flavors: Ginger Dreamsicle, Spicy PB Caramel, Vanilla Chai, Thai Coco-Lime and Aztec Chocolate.

Each of them packs a punch with spices sourced from Brooklyn Spice Company. Spicy PB Caramel, Thai Coco-Lime and Aztec Chocolate notably bring a lot of heat to the palate because of the use of chiles.

But why the name “Marco”? To explain that, Christianson draws on his travels, and in particular, a trip to Tokyo where he ended up chatting with a Japanese gentleman over many shots of shochu at a sushi bar. Thanks to his new friend, Christianson learned exactly where the best ramen spots were. 

That feeling of “someone opening a door and showing you something or a place you wouldn’t have otherwise known where to look” is what Marco’s ice cream is meant to evoke, Christianson says.

Marco captures this interaction by presenting itself as an “eponymous tour guide to different flavor experiences,” Henderson says. The brand is meant to be like a friendly local insider giving out recommendations to newcomers who might be unfamiliar with its unique flavor profiles.

“We’re pushing the perceptions of what can be an ice cream flavor,” Henderson says. “When you’re pushing more interesting, more exotic flavors, you need to also be able to make sure that those flavors are approachable.”

The cofounders were originally planning on launching Marco at specialty grocers in New York City and the Northeast this summer, but the brand has had to make a big pivot—at least temporarily.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, grocery stores and retailers needed to reprioritize what they had on the shelves and weren’t taking in new brands at the time, Henderson says.

Instead of waiting, they decided to go ahead and introduce Marco to a wider consumer base and generate interest from the media and the rest of the CPG industry by turning it into a direct-to-consumer ice cream brand. Their e-commerce website debuted in mid-July.

For online orders, the ice cream comes in sets of four, priced at $50, or five, priced at $55. Shipping is currently available in 35 states in the eastern half of the U.S.

Marco has partnered with One Acre Fund, a Kenya-based nonprofit organization that offers asset-based financing and agriculture training services to smallholder farmers around the world as an effort to reduce hunger and poverty. 1% of every Marco sale will be donated to this charity.

Since debuting last month, the cofounders have seen a strong response to their ice cream. Many appreciate tasting unique flavors they can’t get anywhere else and are pleasantly surprised by the spiciness.

Christianson admits there are a few customers who feel that Marco’s flavors are a “little too out there,” but the cofounders actually expect to get that kind of feedback.

“We’re trying to push the boundaries of ice cream,” Christianson says. “It’s certainly not going to be a universally beloved product, but most people will certainly love it.”

And the brand has been making waves within the industry. According to Henderson, people within the design community and the food and beverage industry have been paying special attention to Marco and how it’s “differentiating itself from the rest of the ice cream category” through its branding and the story it tells.

Even though the cofounders have already met their fundraising goals, due to continued interest, they are still engaging with potential investors.

They’re also starting to approach grocery stores again, now that Covid-19 has become more controlled in New York and in certain parts of the U.S. The goal is to launch Marco in local specialty stores and then eventually expand to have a more national presence in retail chains.

But the direct-to-consumer channel is here to stay for the foreseeable future. The cofounders plan on widening the shipping radius to include the rest of the U.S. They also hope to have three to five core flavors that are available year-round with rotating seasonal and holiday flavors. 

New flavors are in the works to potentially debut this fall, but in the meantime, Marco will offer 10% off all online orders placed from September 4 to 7 with the code MARCOLDW as a Labor Day Weekend farewell to the summer. And they intend to add vegan flavors to Marco’s roster sometime in the long term.