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Three Leuven-based companies bring spin-off Australian Home Made Ice Cream to the next level

2 September 2020

The latest innovation in the world of ice cream comes from Leuven. Comate, Untaylored and Uncompressed partnered up with CUPPLE - a spin-off from the well-known brand Australian Homemade Ice Cream - and developed the smallest fresh ice cream parlor ever: the one on your kitchen counter. The project received over 100% of their target goal on Kickstarter in only one day, with orders from all around the world. The partnership shows the power of combining expertise and co-creation.

Comate
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Delphine, founder of CUPPLE, grew up with an ice cream artisan as a father. “It was like growing up in Charlie’s chocolate factory. My dad let me discover the taste of pure products, churned into fresh ice cream.” Over the years, Delphine’s father Frederik opened 46 artisanal ice cream parlors under the name of Australian Homemade Ice Cream, most of them in Belgium. But Delphine and Frederik believed there was an opportunity, a market they did not serve to yet: The people who wanted fresh churned ice cream from the comfort of their home.

Together with her father, Delphine has been working for years to bring their family heritage of ice cream craftmanship to the homes of people by creating the smallest fresh ice cream parlor ever: the one you can place on a kitchen counter. The entrepreneur in Delphine was awoken and together with her father, she decided to take the leap – CUPPLE was born.

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Founding a startup is always a leap of faith. A jump in the darkness. But the jump can be less scary and less uncertain when partnering up with experts. And that’s exactly what the founders of CUPPLE did. While Delphine and Frederik could continue to focus on their passion – creating the most delicious ice cream – different parties supported them in the journey from turning the idea into a marketable product with a solid business case and brand behind it.

Three Leuven-based companies turned out to be a good fit. While the engineers and designers from Comate focused on the technical challenges, the design and the development of the ice maker for CUPPLE, Uncompressed translated the vision, mission and values into a visual brand that would convince the end users of the quality of the company. Untaylored worked on laying the foundations of the business case behind CUPPLE during the earliest stages. Buffl, a company in Mechelen, validated the ideas with the target audience.

The high-tech quality and technical expertise of the engineers and designers from Comate, mixed with the creativity of Uncompressed, the workshops of Untaylored and the qualitative data and insights from Buffl, turned CUPPLE into a marketable product that is a good market-fit and that sells.

“It’s important to make the right choices for the product. We have extensive experience in the development of high-tech marketable products that fit the user needs. Our expertise, combined with the insights and knowledge of Untaylored, Buffl and Uncompressed, took the business of CUPPLE to a whole next level,” says Sander Van den dries, co-director of Comate.

“Through our business design techniques, we were able to translate the story of the classic ice cream parlor to a strategy built on high-tech innovation, strong marketing and the family heritage of Delphine and Frederik,” says Roald from Untaylored. “By working together closely with the experienced experts from Comate and the creatives from Uncompressed, we could align perfectly and support CUPPLE in building a strong business.”

https://www.leuvenmindgate.be/files/cupple-2.png

Each expertise brought something valuable to the project, and the co-creation made sure the start-up had the best chance to succeed in the market. “Leuven has the perfect eco-system to boost innovation. Thanks to a range of different companies with their own expertise and specialty, and organizations like Leuven MindGate to connect these parties, it’s easier to set up partnerships and collaborations,” says Sander Van den dries, co-director of Comate.

The smallest fresh ice cream parlor in the world

With the new piece of technology, American Homemade Ice Cream is able to share their family heritage with a whole new market and can expand their activities. After years of developing, fine-tuning and testing – yes, that includes tasting the ice cream – spin-off CUPPLE was ready for launch. The father-daughter duo launched their Kickstarter project on the 17th of August and received 100% of their target goal in only one day. With over a week to go, things are looking good for the startup. More information about CUPPLE can be found via their Kickstarter page.

More information about Comate can be found via their website.
More information about Untaylored can be found via their website.
More information about Uncompressed can be found via their facebook page.
More information about Buffl can be found via their website.

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