Wellington artisan ice cream company Wooden Spoon is having to shrink its business after failing to find suitable production premises. Photo: Midori Willoughby / Wooden Spoon
Wellington artisan ice cream business Wooden Spoon Freezery is the city's latest hospitality casualty.
The award-winning boutique ice creamery, which has been operating out of premises in Miramar, announced on Wednesday that it had been "suddenly and unexpectedly" been asked to leave its premises.
Co-founder Sharon Galeon told RNZ that the business' landlord didn't want to renew their lease.
Since it was "incredibly challenging" to find a suitable and MPI-compliant place to run a dairy manufacturing business at short notice and without a costly fit-out, she and co-founder Midori Willoughby had made the tough decision to dramatically cut production.
Wooden Spoon will stop producing the 500ml tubs and ice cream sandwiches currently sold nationwide, Galeon said. Instead, they are going to share a facility with another business and limit themselves to supplying 'scoop shops' at three Wellington New World supermarkets, as well as supplying custom flavours for trade and private functions.
Galeon said rising costs had also influenced their decision.
"The cost of everything to do with running this business has gone up so much. We've seen our costs rise 20-30 per cent for nearly everything from ingredients to transport to packaging and more."
Wooden Spoon Freezery started out in 2011 as a craft ice cream "membership service" that Galeon and Willoughby initially hand-delivered to customers around Wellington. A year later, they were supplying high-end food stores like Wellington's Moore Wilsons and Auckland's Farro Fresh. In 2019, their Blackcurrant Crunch ice cream was named Supreme Champion at the 2019 Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards.
Galeon said their decision to limit production was influenced more by the lack of suitable premises than economic issues, but said that as a "hospitality-adjacent" business they were not immune to the troubles being suffered by others in the industry, particularly in the capital.
"It's really sad, I really hope Wellington can come back from this. We've always been about supporting local, so it's really hard to watch.
"I wish the government would do more to help."
Last week, long-standing Wellington bakery Pandoro announced it was shutting its three city shops, along with restaurant Egmont St Eatery and florist Yvette Edwards. Last month, the owner of Wellington café Sweet Release told RNZ the business had suffered its worst sales day ever in a decade.
