Melbourne ice-cream maker Dairy Bell, who was set to close its two factories today, has been saved by gelato, ice cream and frozen desserts company Bon Appetit.
Dairy Bell will instead open a new store near its old East Malvern manufacturing plant, Fairfax media reports.
Bon Appetit Australia has paid an undisclosed sum for the Dairy Bell brands, recipes and five Melbourne shops.
Dairy Bell products will be manufactured by Bon Appetit in Reservoir, recipes unchanged, and sold to IGA and independent supermarkets, organic stores, cafes and restaurants.
Dairy Bell announced last month it would close, blaming supermarket ice cream wars and loss of margin as its reasons, in an announcement on its website from its directors and founders.
“Supermarket ice cream wars have cost the retailer profit and the manufacturer loss of margin and have reduced our capacity to recover costs for some 4 years now with our capital being eroded year by year,” the statement reads.
“We tried our own shops with a terrific customer response however, the weekend trade (our best time) made losses due to the high weekend cost of labour in the stores.
Bon Appetit managing director Lou Da Lozzo said the company had started discussions with the owners of Dairy Bell about a month ago and signed off on the deal last week.
A new store would be opened about a 10 minutes' walk from the old store, Da Lozzo said.