Out of a Deep Freeze

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Out of a Deep Freeze
Big Swirl’s Robert Herscu with his self-serve frozen yogurt truck at company headquarters in Culver City.

With so many food trucks roaming L.A.’s streets these days, you’d think it’d be easy enough to start one up.

But Robert Herscu can tell you how it takes a lot more than eye-catching graphics, a popular dish and a tankful of gas to hit the road.

In fact, the Century City entrepreneur went through so much trouble trying to launch a self-serve frozen yogurt truck that he had second thoughts about the endeavor.

Herscu spent nine months figuring out how to install five self-serve yogurt machines on the exterior of his truck and then going back and forth with Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Health for an operating permit.

“If I would have known what it took to do this, I would have questioned if I was going to do it,” said Herscu, who owns a small frozen yogurt chain called Big Swirl. “But we had a concept, so I persisted and we ended up getting through. But it was a lot of work.”

The Big Swirl truck, painted in the same sea-foam green that highlights his chain of stores in Hesperia; El Centro; and Yuma, Ariz., finally opened for business in June. Now, Herscu’s challenge is competing with the glut of brick-and-mortar frozen yogurt shops across the county. It’s a $6.1 billion industry nationwide, but large competitors such as Pinkberry and Yogurtland are opening stores at a rapid clip.

Herscu recognizes that the competition among frozen yogurt establishments is fierce, but he believes the Big Swirl truck offers L.A. yogurt lovers something different: an updated version of the classic ice-cream truck.

“I saw a niche in the market because the evolution of the ice-cream truck has never really changed over the last 40 or 50 years,” Herscu said. “So I thought not only can you change the market for this, but you can make it healthy. And that’s why ours is natural products together with nondairy-based yogurt.”

One industry analyst believes Herscu’s biggest challenges likely lie ahead of him. Josh Hiller, co-founder of L.A. food truck consulting firm RoadStoves, said it may be difficult for Herscu to sell Angelenos on a product they can buy from one of many frozen yogurt shops in town.

“With a food truck, you have a product that people can’t find anywhere else,” Hiller said. “The odds are definitely stacked against them.”

Risky business

An Australian native who moved to the United States in the early 1990s, Herscu has taken a circuitous route to his current business. He first worked as an investment banker in New York and then briefly returned to Australia to help run his family’s development company. He moved back to the United States and started a company in 1992 that operated candy and soda vending machines in malls.

His HQ Entertainment eventually branched out to kiddy rides, photo stands, double-decker carousels and other businesses in malls’ common areas. He’s since sold all but one, and entered the soft-serve frozen yogurt business.

He opened his first Big Swirl retail outlet in the San Bernardino County community of Hesperia in March of last year. It tries to distinguish itself by offering a wide variety of flavors – 17– as well as 34 topping selections, including kid stuff like cotton candy and sour yummy worms.

Herscu also opened Italian restaurant Toscanova last year in the Westfield Century City mall, with well-known restaurateur and chef Agostino Sciandri. The restaurant was a hit and it also paid off in launching the truck business.

When Herscu started planning the Big Swirl truck, he teamed up with one of Toscanova’s chefs, a former ice-cream maker in Italy, to create the truck’s soft-serve frozen yogurt, several in Italian classics such as Nutella and limoncello – another element he hopes will distinguish him from the pack.

Meanwhile, Herscu contracted with some engineers to build the Big Swirl truck. The team had to figure out how to remove part of one side of the truck and install five soft-serve machines and a generator powerful enough to run a small plane. The cost ultimately hit $150,000.

“It was very difficult, even the engineers were baffled to get it correct,” he said. “But we ended up doing it.”

RoadStoves’ Hiller said he has had numerous clients ask him about building a self-serve frozen yogurt truck. Once people learn how much it costs, they nix the idea.

“We’ve had many people come to us who want to do it, but you have to custom-build the truck,” Hiller said. “And when we start talking about the numbers to do that, the idea fades.”

Getting the truck built was only half the battle, though. Herscu still had to get permits to operate from the county health department, no easy task. The department had never evaluated a truck allowing people to serve themselves from machines.

“The health department had to see what issues there would be with doing it self-serve,” Herscu said. “That was their biggest concern.”

Eventually, he received permits on a nondairy frozen yogurt as opposed to the dairy-based yogurt served in his stores, given how dairy products are more susceptible to contamination. The department also required that toppings be stored in sealed containers. Big Swirl dispenses them through a case that drops the product onto the yogurt without the use of spoons.

The truck offers 10 different flavors and sells two different size cups at a flat price of $3 and $5. Customers can add as many toppings as they like without extra charges.

Since Big Swirl launched, Herscu has been focused on marketing the truck through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. He’s also been building business by renting out the truck for corporate events.

Scott Laurie, president of Seal Beach homebuilder Olson Co., rented Big Swirl for a grand-opening event for one of the company’s new housing developments in Montebello.

Laurie said the truck helped draw a crowd of more than 450. Usually, he said about 100 people attend such affairs.

“People were just swarming around the truck,” he said. “It’s a fun and different experience than what’s being offered today.”

Big Swirl Frozen Yogurt Inc.

FOUNDED: 2009

HEADQUARTERS: Culver City

CORE BUSINESS: Nondairy frozen yogurt outlets and food truck.

EMPLOYEES: 22, plus three for the truck.

GOAL: Open more trucks in different states.

THE NUMBERS: Projected truck revenue of $450,000 for this year.

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