Ocean Springs shop expands with big contract, bold plan to take treats nationwide
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Quakes opened a Vancleave production facility and wholesale warehouse.
- Garbin expands Gulf Coast distribution and signs a US Foods contract.
- Plan: build national then international factories aiming for $3 billion revenue.
A new Quake’s Ice Creamery is open in Vancleave, but it’s not a place where neighbors can stop by for a dip of frozen custard.
This is a shiny new production facility and warehouse, where Marie Garbin is making ice cream and launching her latest dream that started 17 years ago in a garage painted in vivid Scooby Doo purple and neon green.
Her proven ambition and bold math are fueling this growth. This first factory and distribution center in Vancleave already is at $3 million max capacity to supply Quakes Ice Creamery in Ocean Springs, plus her existing customers. Her second factory is coming near Destin, Florida, to push expansion east.
Four years ago, she dreamed of selling her ice cream treats at 20 restaurants, gas stations and other locations across the Gulf Coast. She’s doubled that — “Literally every week we’re adding new accounts,” she said. Quakes now is available from New Orleans to Pensacola, and she just signed a contract to sell Quakes Frozen Treats through US Foods, the second-largest food service distributor in the U.S.
Now her plan is to build factories across the country and then internationally, generating $3 billion in annual revenue.
Ambitious, she agrees, but says, “You’ve got to have the goal to attain it.”
Is this dream possible?
Twice, Garbin auditioned for the television show Shark Tank, in hopes of winning over an investor to bet on her and her company. She passed the first round, but came to the realization that the success she craved wouldn’t come from a Shark, but from her own drive and determination.
Garbin was raised at the New Jersey shore, where custard is the popular treat on the oceanfront boardwalks. Not all ice cream has eggs, she said, but all custard does, resulting in a rich, creamy product.
She graduated from Rutgers University with a business degree and earned cars and success in the Mary Kay company.
She developed her recipe for frozen custard, and in April 2009 opened Quakes at 1922 Bienville Blvd. in Ocean Springs, where she sells scoops, shakes, floats and Quakes, a blend of favorite flavors of frozen custard and a layer of toppings.
“In Ocean Springs, business is up 10% over last year,” she said, and the ice cream season is just getting started.
Specialty scoops are sold individually packaged at the outlets. They come in flavors like death by chocolate, Mississippi mud pie, strawberry cheesecake and unicorn, with cotton candy custard, marshmallows, rainbow sprinkles.
These custard treats can be found at Biloxi Shuckers’ games, at Finishline Karting, The Blind Tiger and other restaurants, and in gas station freezers.
“Bay St. Louis and Pensacola are our hot spots,” she said, perhaps because these niche resort markets are similar to the Jersey shore, where frozen custard just fits.
Recipe for success
Every winter in the off season for selling ice cream, Garbin devoted time to getting her Universal Product Code for manufacturing, trademarking her name and logo, and updating the website and social media. “We’re ready for franchising when I’m ready to do it,” she said.
It took just a year to find undeveloped property in Vancleave with room to expand, build the factory and warehouse, and begin production. The South Mississippi Planning and Development District provided a loan based on the job creation and economic development the project generates, she said.
She outfitted the factory with a cooler two times bigger than the one she was using at the Ocean Springs store and freezer space more than three times the size. The new custard machine has three motors powered separately, allowing her to make three batches at once to quickly fill the freezers.
As she scales up, her bold math has her buying property at 100% write-off and using the profits from one factory to open another distribution center six hours away.
“Get 350 units and that’s $3 billion,” she said.
Refrigerated trucks can deliver beyond those six hours, as long as they keep running, she said.
“I’m so excited to have a dream unfolding,” she said, and plans to use her success to help others. Sales of Quakes souvenir shirts help support local charities, and every November, Quakes hosts an animal supply drive, collecting animal supplies for the Jackson County Animal Shelter. Garbin also envisions buying property tax-free for charity to support the Jackson County animal shelter and save the animals there.
“I really want to do so many good things,” she said.
