Struggling cult-favorite ice cream chain Ample Hills has been sold to manufacturing company Schmitt Industries for $1 million, public records show. The company, which reportedly did $10 million in sales in 2019, declared bankruptcy in March due to pre-pandemic financial missteps. Investment site Seeking Alpha first reported the news.
Big names like Unilever and Focus Brands — which is the parent company of chains like Cinnabon and Auntie Anne’s — had expressed an interest in purchasing Ample Hills, but Schmitt Industries was reportedly the only one that submitted a qualifying bid to take over the ice cream company.
Schmitt has also assumed control of seven of the ten permanent locations of Ample Hills in the city, though public records don’t show which ones exactly. The final sale is pending approvals from the company’s board and a subsequent bankruptcy court hearing scheduled for June 30. Ample Hills recorded $6.9 million in total losses in 2019, according to a previous Wall Street Journal report.
The manufacturing company creates products and technology for a wide-range of industries including cars, planes, and steel manufacturing, though this appears to be the company’s first venture into food. Eater has reached out for more information. Schmitt’s CEO is hedge fund manager Michael Zapata, who has a record of turning around distressed companies, according to investment site Seeking Alpha.
Ample Hills was started by couple Brian Smith and Jackie Cuscuna from a pushcart in 2010, and quickly became known for its inventive flavors like like Fluffernutter Fudge and “I Contain Breakfast Foods!” that regularly sold out. The ice cream brand expanded exponentially in subsequent years with more than a dozen locations in NYC, two in Florida, and a short-lived outpost in Los Angeles.
The opening of a planned ice cream factory and museum in Red Hook proved especially detrimental to the business, and the company laid off all of its employees before filing for bankruptcy protection in March.