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I recently sat down with Ben Van Leeuwen, founder and CEO of Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, one of the most recognized artisanal ice cream brands in the country. What started with a $60,000 investment, a used 1988 Chevy van purchased off eBay, and a co-manufacturer in Queens, New York City, has grown into over 100 corporate-owned scoop shops across 15 states, a thriving CPG presence in major grocery chains, and an international franchise expansion into South Korea.

Ben’s story doesn’t start in a boardroom. It starts on the streets of Greenwich, Connecticut, where a summer job driving an ice cream truck turned into a near-decade obsession with what great ice cream could actually be. After traveling through Europe and Southeast Asia on money he’d saved from working the truck, Ben came back with a simple thesis: take the best ingredients in the world: pistachios from Bronte, Sicily; hazelnuts from Piedmont; strawberries ripened on the vine in Oregon, and build something worth going out of your way for.

Their first day selling in SoHo, they moved 800 units. Within months, they were in 30 Whole Foods locations across the northeast. Today, Van Leeuwen is one of the rare food brands that has scaled without compromising the product.

What I found most compelling about Ben is that he’s an entrepreneur who thinks deeply about the unsexy parts of building a business, from inventory management, chargeback recovery, cost controls that protect margin without touching the guest experience. He’s also someone who leads with conviction, and it shows in every layer of the company he’s built.

• How Ben turned a $60,000 initial investment, pulled together from 15 friends, family members, and a college professor, into one of America’s most beloved food brands.

   

• Why the best businesses are built on products with no shortcuts, and how Van Leeuwen has maintained its standard for 18% butterfat, no gums, and world-sourced flavoring ingredients across 100+ locations.

   

• The early lesson that changed their trajectory: not all foot traffic is created equal. Canal Street said no. SoHo said yes…800 times on day one.

   

• How a Whole Foods buyer walked up to their truck on day one, and what it actually took to scale that relationship into a real CPG business.

   

• Why Ben believes the learning doesn’t start until you start, and why first-time entrepreneurs who wait for perfect conditions almost always wait too long.

   

• The operational discipline behind scaling to 104 stores: just-in-time inventory, cost controls that never touch the guest experience, and how to fight back against chargeback losses in the CPG channel.
  
  

• Why Ben chose South Korea as his first international franchise market, and what it signals about where premium food brands are finding their next audience.

   

• What the launch of Van Leeuwen’s froyo line, with over 1,000 customers in six hours at a single Brooklyn location, says about the brand’s ability to evolve without diluting what makes it great.

Ben built this over twenty years, one scoop at a time. No shortcuts. No compromises. Just a relentless commitment to making something people will drive across town for.

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