I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
➔ Gato Gelados
João Gato came from Alentejo but contrary to the reputation of our southern Portuguese fellows, he can’t stay still. Just last week he got hired as the CEO of a very original HR consultancy firm, but he’ll talk to you about farming and agricultural endeavors, running a software house or enduring any of the pains of being a serial entrepreneur.
He’s also the father of three girls and we bet owning an ice cream store must have helped make him “super dad”.
The cat in the cream
We met João at Gato Gelados and we started by asking him what do cats have to do with ice cream? “Gato (cat, in English) is my name and I founded an ice cream brand because of my personal history. I’m a Diabetic type one, I don’t eat sugar on a daily basis in order to control my health. When I found out about my Diabetes, I realized there are lots of solutions in the market of sugar free yogurt, or cookies - but no ice cream.”
"I started wondering: Is it too hard to do? Does it taste bad? Is there no market for it? Why not?"
João soon started to create some recipes at home, just for himself. The first ones were bad, he says, but he then went to talk to people who know about ice cream and ended up with a good recipe to make great sugar free ice cream.
Beta tasting
João is no stranger to the startup way of doing things. He worked for 10 years in a software house, going through the different stages of taking a small business to 10 times its original size. “We constantly had to develop new products and evolve how we market ourselves, while growing abroad. I’m very used to the entrepreneurial environment”, he states.
It’s no wonder that, from product development to beta testing, he applied it all to his ice cream venture: “I tested the market with a facebook page, while producing at home and delivering in Lisbon. It was a side job but it started to grow, and that’s when I decided to open a place. Also, I was lucky enough to participate with Gato Gelados on the first edition of From Start to Table, the acceleration program for F&B startups, by Startup Lisboa. That was really important for someone who didn’t understand much about this business. It helped me think and rethink about how to position the brand and it was very helpful”.
Today, Gato Gelados has a very clear proposition: top of the line ice cream, sugar free, low on calories, made only with natural ingredients, no synthetic fragrances, Portuguese fruit and mostly local. All the fruit ice creams are dairy free but there are also occasional dairy free editions of flavors which usually are made with milk, such as chocolate, peanut or hazelnut. To the eight classic flavors on the menu, new flavors are added every season. For Spring 2023, there will be red berries and lavender with cookie chocolate.
Beato is History
For someone who used to live in Marvila and watched Beato go through a deep transformation, it’s only natural he would end up opening Gato’s shop and factory in Rua do Grilo. “I chose Beato because it has incredible history, with convents and factories, maçons and templars. Old history, recent history, army history — it’s a very unique place in town which needs to be found”, João tells us. The store opened in 2018 and is turning 5 next December.
As in many other businesses, the pandemic years forced Gato to reinvent themselves. “We moved a lot of the business online. Now I can deliver through express mail to any point in the country within 24 hours, straight to the customer.
"We don’t even need refrigerator trucks. We use dry ice and it keeps the ice cream perfect"
João knows very well how strategic the online channel is for his business growth: “in the USA, most of the ice cream businesses come from small locations with premium products and a good investment on the brand and online channels. And that’s how I want to grow”.
The current factory still has a lot of capacity to increase production, so he’s planning to launch in Spain later this year - a market 5 times bigger than Portugal where, according to him, “there are no differentiated offers like Gato Gelados, no healthy ice cream handcrafted with natural ingredients only. Of course Spain is challenging, they are very protective of their market and I have to think about the right name for the brand and how to position it. But for me, to deliver in Porto or Madrid costs the same”.
True Neighborinos
Ned Flanders would be proud of how Gato Gelado treats their neighbors around Beato, bonding over a scoop of craft beer flavored ice cream.
Wait, what?!
It was Father’s Day and João was asked by his family: what shall we do? “Let’s go to Dois Corvos, one of the local breweries and see if they want to work on something with us. The ice cream was so good that we decided to keep it for a few months. I have been approaching different neighbors to produce new products. We did another partnership with Oitava Colina, another local brewery. And maybe next year we’ll do one with Musa! We also approached Praça, and we’ve been supplying them and been on their website, and other selected restaurants are also on the partnership menu”.
In the past 6 months things have been changing very quickly in Beato, according to João, who talks about "a different vibe, with more movement and more things happening around". His desire is to contribute for that: "I'm now focused on turning this place into an ice cream studio, where people go to have different experiences with ice cream. Experiences such as lime with piripiri, black sesame, craft beer or lavender. We will always want to have at least one flavor that provokes people and makes them wonder “what’s happening here?" This is an exclusive experience to the store."
I guess we’ll need to go there and find out about that craft beer flavor…
