Innovated ice cream shop offers durian flavour
The creative ice-cream brand IceDEA, established four years ago, is seeing sales take off after introducing a new product with the taste and appearance of a durian.
Prima Chakrabandhu Na Ayudhya, an ice-cream designer and owner of IceDEA Co, said “Thai Durian Ice Cream” was inspired after many elderly Thais and foreign travellers had asked for this flavour.
Prima said she had decided to respond to this demand not just with the flavour of durian, but by shaping the ice-cream product just like a real durian to attract consumers.
“After creating the durian flavour, sales at the shop have increased fivefold, compared with normal growth of about 10 per cent last year,” she said.
For a regular flavour, the price of a scoop of IceDEA ice cream starts at Bt59, but for the Thai Durian flavour, the price is Bt239.
Other flavours on the menu are Grass Brownie, Tonkatsu, Chinese Dumpling, and Steak. Prices vary from Bt159 to Bt179 per dish.
Prima is a graduate of the industrial department of the faculty of architecture at Chulalongkorn University.
Prima, 35, said that as the ice-cream market in Thailand was highly competitive, she wanted to differentiate her products from the mainstream. So she decided to combine ice cream with creative ideas – “IceDEA”.
The IceDEA ice-cream shop is currently located at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. In the near future, Prima plans to expnad her shop start an export business after a good response from the market, particularly from mainland Chinese and Hong Kong tourists.
However, before getting too ambitious she has to increase her production line, which now can produce 1,300 pieces of ice cream per day.
For the Thai Durian flavour, the company will use about a tonne of fresh durian each month.
Creativity can help differentiate a business from its competitors. IceDEA is applying to the Intellectual Property Department for a petty patent and for a copyright as an innovated art product.
