Gearing Up For Organic Ice Cream

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Bicycle-delivered ice cream is a cool idea, but Edward Belden does something even cooler at his downtown L.A. ice-cream store, Peddler’s Creamery.

The six employees not only pedal bikes to deliver ice cream – but to make it. Bicycle-churned ice cream, an idea combining two of Belden’s longtime interests, opened on Main Street earlier this year.

The store sells ice cream made from organic ingredients and churned with a bicycle and a tricycle powered by human muscles. The store also has a fleet of bikes for delivery. Peddler’s offers a total of 35 flavors, nine on any given day. Belden said it takes 15 to 20 minutes of pedaling at about 100 rotations a minute to make a batch of about three gallons.

Customers can sign up to pedal for 20 minutes and make a batch themselves. In exchange, they get a free scoop, which is normally $3.50.

Belden’s other job is Southern California program associate for National Forest Foundation, a non-profit in Missoula, Mont., that specializes in forest and grassland restoration. The creamery project started after he went to the University of Wisconsin in 2010 to take a class in making ice-cream.

The store debuted in April, with three friends as co-owners, plus about $4,300 in financing from a Kickstarter campaign and a bank loan.

Ron Santibanez, chief executive of Profit Line Consulting Inc., an L.A. restaurant consulting firm, said the concept is interesting, but the $3.50 scoop price might be a challenge as it’s on the expensive side.

“They probably hit on something that is going to grow a lot of attention,” Santibanez said. “They are doing something totally outside the box.”

– Kay Chinn

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