Graeter’s Ice Cream CEO Inducted Into Hall of Fame

Published in the December 2021 issue of Gourmet News.

Richard Graeter of Graeter’s Ice Cream

By A.J. Flick

For generations of Midwesterners, Graeter’s ice cream is a comfort food – uncommonly creamy, with wholesome ingredients and no grain of sugar spared. It’s Americana in a cone.

From Louis Charles Graeter’s ice cream carts in 1870 to the second generation’s small-batch ice cream parlors and bakeries that survived the Great Depression to the third generation’s retail expansion to local and regional grocery stores to today’s operations – now Graeter’s is available nationwide in stores and online and recognized as an industry leader in innovation.

The latter achievements came under the leadership of the fourth generation, headed by Richard Graeter, president and CEO of the family business. His achievements haven’t gone unnoticed.

This year, the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association and the American Frozen Food Institute inducted Graeter and Ray Tarnowski, retired president of Philadelphia Warehousing & Cold Storage, into the 2021 Frozen Food Hall of Fame.

The honor took Graeter by surprise.

“I’m a guy that hates birthdays,” he admitted. “It makes me feel uncomfortable, but it’s quite an honor.”
It wasn’t an honor he sought, nor one he keeps for himself.

“I was not even sure there was an NFRA Hall of Fame,” he said. “I was surprised and certainly honored. I’m not really sure how they came up with nominating me.

“It’s certainly nice to be recognized, but frankly, I’m a little uncomfortable being honored like this. We’re a fourth – soon to be fifth – generation family business. There’s no way I’d be here if not for the prior three generations.”

There were multiple nominations to induct him, according to Jeff Rumachik, president and CEO of the NFRA, which no doubt will also surprise Graeter.

“Members of the Hall of Fame are honored for the contributions they have made and the leadership they have provided to the frozen food industry,” Rumachik said.

“They are an elite group of strong supporters and advocates to the industry who have often dedicated entire careers to industry advancement,” he said. “These pioneers have been mentors and moved the industry forward for the benefit of everyone involved in the industry.”

You can imagine Graeter’s face as he reads that he’s being called a pioneer. Imagine when he sees why he was inducted:

“Since becoming CEO in 2007, Richard Graeter built an $80 million brand which has established an unprecedented footprint in the frozen industry,” Rumachik said. “He is an innovative leader that has helped to elevate the entire ice cream category through his devotion to the high quality production of frozen treats.

“Richard is a pioneer in super premium, small batch craft ice cream using the French Pot process. Graeter’s is the last small batch ice cream maker still dedicated to this time-honored process, making their ice cream 2½ gallons at a time and hand packing each carton.

“Richard has dedicated his career to creating strong retail partnerships, expanding local scoop shops and generating a brand presence that has been featured on Bloomberg, the Today Show, People Magazine, Bobby Flay and more.”
Graeter knows what an impact the ice cream has had on others.

“In Cincinnati, it becomes part of your being,” he said. “It’s inseparable from who you are as an individual. You know Graeter’s is something that makes people smile and their eyes light up. It’s exciting growing up like that and impossible to envision a future separate from it. I knew it was always what I wanted to do.”

Not that working in a family business is always as smooth as, well, ice cream. Whenever there was a squabble, Graeter’s father would say, “Get over it and get back to work.”

“I don’t want to say being in a family business is easy. But with my cousins, my father, my uncle, my brother, it’s a business. The ice cream comes first, not the business.

“It’s not about margins and profits anymore,” Graeter said. “It’s really about this wonderful brand my family has had for over four generations. It means something in Cincinnati. It means something for all the birthdays that have been celebrated with it. A dear family friend passed away and he wanted Graeter’s served at the celebration of his life.
“I view our family as custodians of Graeter’s,” he said. “It’s larger than the family.

“Because we chose to be good custodians of it, we chose to honor the process our grandparents started. In 2010, we modernized production so we could crank out more product, but it’s still the same ice cream.”
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Adding flavors that past generations would never imagine – Chunky Chunky Hippo, Brown Butter Bourbon Pecan, Caramel Macchiato and more – is one thing, but changing the recipe is unthinkable, Graeter said.

“No generation has done that and, God willing, none will,” he said.

What every Graeter generation has struggled with is keeping up with demand.

“Right now, we’re selling as much ice cream as we can sell,” Graeter said.

But each generation also chose to do its best to grow the brand.

“It’s a choice my grandmother made at 19 when she took over after her husband died,” he said. “A few years later, in 1926, it continued with modern refrigeration technology. My cousins and I didn’t do anything different. We followed their footsteps.”

Graeter’s complies with all of the necessary steps for food safety while still churning out its ice cream in 2½ gallons in batches of 40.

“When I was a kid, we only had four,” Graeter noted.

“Our brand, our company acknowledged that certainly, the most important thing I did was welcome non-family members into our team. In my father’s generation, all of the managers were Graeters. To bring in non-family members, that’s a really big part of being able to leap from a little local ice cream shop to a national brand in nine cities, five states and 6,000 grocery stores.”

Thanks to what Graeter jokes is “dumb luck,” the brand landed in Kroger-owned stores nationwide due to its store location a mile from the grocery giant’s Indianapolis headquarters.

“It’s a little luck and a lot of hard work,” Graeter conceded.

As a 21st century Graeter CEO, he knows that innovation is key to survival. To a point.

“How do we scale up without losing our soul?” he said. “How do we distribute a food product under state commerce and stringent federal regulations that used to be a backroom kind of process?

“As a kid, my daddy, grandpa, aunts, uncles, cousins and I peeled peaches on the marble-top table in my grandpa’s kitchen. The kids peeling the peaches, throwing the pits in a bucket and that afternoon, it would be ice cream. You can’t do things like that today. There are things like pasteurization, all the things a modern food manufacturer has to do.”

There’s a reason Graeter’s is the only ice cream mass produced under modern conditions the old-fashioned way.
“Nobody’s crazy enough to make ice cream that way,” Graeter said, laughing. “It’s way high on labor. Every one is packed by hand. Our ice cream comes out too thick to go through automatic filling equipment. That kind of craziness is a true dedication to a small batch world.

“I call it the latest in 19th century technology wrapped around a 21st century operation.”

Now, Graeter is approaching another milestone each generation before faced.

“The one great task I have left,” he said, “is that my cousins and I pass this off to the fifth generation, which now includes both Graeter’s family members as well as team members who might not have the last name Graeter, but have helped us achieve success of the brand for another generation of customers.

“It’s a job that only comes once in a generation and it’s a big job,” he said.

Graeter’s children, Kate, 18, and Will, 20, intend to follow in their paternal generation’s footsteps as do their cousins, Graeter said.

Due to COVID concerns, the NFRA Hall of Fame ceremony was postponed until the 2022 NFRA Convention, Oct. 15-18 in Orlando, Florida. Graeter will accept on behalf of his extended family.

“Whoever nominated me, on behalf of my family and team, I’m honored to be a part,” he said.

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