Scoop School located in the STL Partnership Chesterfield Business Center shares story of success
Steve Christensen hosting a Scoop School class
Scoop School is providing a unique way of learning through making delicious ice cream flavors.
Scoop School is a unique frozen dessert education and training facility that conducts courses to help current and potential ice cream retailers learn more about opening and growing their own ice cream or frozen dessert business.
The business has been located at the STL Partnership Chesterfield Business Center since 2015. “We moved to Chesterfield because it was convenient to our home and the facility gave us a very professional face to a new enterprise,” said Steve Christensen, owner of Scoops School. “I also love the fact that there is a collaborative business feeling here. We have a wide variety of business types in the building, and I love hearing about the other tenants success and challenges. ”
Black raspberry cheesecake flavored ice cream made at Scoop School
Steve Christensen has a vast background in the ice cream making business. He opened a small chain of frozen custard stores in Australia before being invited to the United States by the manufacturer of the equipment he was using.
“We thought we would spend a couple of years having an adventure in the U.S. and 16 years later the adventure continues.”
Christensen started working full time for an ice cream equipment manufacturing company in training and education and helping entrepreneurs open their own ice cream businesses. “I soon found that these prospective business owners wanted to hire me as a consultant in my own personal time to help them become successful,” said Christensen. “In 2015, I left my day job to pursue helping people open and grow their own ice cream and frozen dessert businesses full time, hence, Scoop School was born.”
Steve Christensen, Owner of Scoop School preparing for a live virtual learning course
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Scoop School also had to adjust their business model. The company has invested in equipment and infrastructure to live stream full 3-day courses around the world for those unable or unwilling to travel.
“We received a very positive response and now hold this class monthly and we will also put these streaming sessions in the mix of our future training schedule,” said Steve.
“We also started a weekly live stream ice cream making session for subscribers to a new “Scoop School Community” which has also come about as a result of the pandemic. The subscription model is a new source of business for us but something that our customers really love.”
Christensen has helped open more than 750 ice cream and frozen dessert retail locations and has worked with such chains as Costco, Whole Foods, Sandals Resorts, Rita’s Water Ice, Hollywood Casinos and many more on training and/or developing their frozen dessert programs. He also has provided personal consulting services teaching the concept of starting an ice cream business.
Scoop School graduates
Steve is also excited about future plans for his business. “We wish to continue growing our consulting business to include more keynote addresses and workshop style sessions to those outside the frozen dessert realm and more mainstream food service and other business markets,” said Steve.
“We also have a few physical products that we market and sell. One is a specialty Dutch pancake grill and the other is a liquid flavoring line to flavor and color freshly made waffle cones and bakery products. These products need some more sales attention and distribution which we will be working on in the near future.”
Recently Scoop School was also highlighted in the St. Louis Post Dispatch also. View the article here.
To learn more about Scoop School visit their website here.
