Vadilal Icecreams, innovating flavours and ice-cream-making technologies for more than 100 years

Existing from before the country became independent, Vadilal Icecreams have come a long way in pleasing the taste buds of the consumers with their flavours. Here's a story of the brand and how did it become successful!

Much before the technological inventions in making ice creams, there used to be a time when a hand-cranked kothi, or wooden drum, was used to churn ingredients such as milk, salt and ice into ice creams. And, it was done by non-other than Vadilal Icecreams in the initial 1900s. What is more interesting is that the brand even used to deliver the ice-creams to home in thermos boxes!

Vadilal, which is now the second-largest ice cream brand, after Amul, was started in 1907 as a soda fountain outlet in Ahmedabad by Vadilal Gandhi. Later on, he went on to offer handmade ice creams. In 1926, Ranchod Lal, son of Vadilal Gandhi expanded the operations by opening a small retail shop and importing machines for making ice creams.

At this time, the brand was only limited to Ahmedabad but had started to gain popularity among the people. As a result, four Vadilal ice-cream outlets were opened in the city. Their Cassata ice cream introduced in the 1950s received much love from the people and in the 1970s, the brand expanded to ten outlets in Ahmedabad.

What possibly could have worked best for the brand, as history says, was their positioning as "vegetarian ice creams". In the 1980s, the ice cream moved beyond Gujarat and the brand got registered as a public company in 1990. 

Presently, the brand deals with more than 150 flavours of ice creams that come in 250 different packs and forms. However, Vadilal has also tapped into other segments like real estate, chemicals and forex. But as the majority of their revenue comes from the ice creams, the company has opened plants at Pundhra (Gandhinagar district, Gujarat) and Bareilly (UP). They also have a plant at Dharampur (Valsad, Gujarat) which serves the processed foods section.

You must know that Vadilal is also the first in the country to have set up the fastest cone-making machine in 2011 and bringing in high-tech extrusion technology for manufacturing premium ice creams. Another amazing fact about the brand is that it is the only ice-cream company to be present in three categories — premium, regular and frozen dessert!

The brand has continued to impress the consumers with various engaging techniques which include their innovative ice cream outlets such as Vadilal Scoop Shops, Vadilal Hangouts, Kiosks and Happinezz Parlours. They had also initiated ‘Vadilal on Wheels’ in 2011 to serve ice-creams to the people celebrating festivals and now has about 250 vehicles for this which is also said to be the largest number of refrigerated vehicles in the country.

Vadilal Icecreams is the highest awarded ice-cream brand which has won more than 27 awards over the last four years at the ‘Great Indian Ice Cream Contest’ organised by the Indian Dairy Association. It had also won the Limca Book of Records for producing the largest ice-cream sundae.

On the other hand, what we all love the most about the brand is how it comes with various local flavours like kaju drakhsh, kesar pista, kaju anjir, rajbhog and more!

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