Is ColdSnap’s Frozen Treat-Making Machine a Game-Changer?
ColdSnap’s pod-based frozen confection dispenser allows businesses to avoid both the burden of cleaning and the costly “cold chain”.
2 November 2024
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The ColdSnap machine dispenses premium 14% milkfat ice cream from a can-sized pod in under two minutes. Photo credit: ColdSnap / Tim Gallagher
The ice cream industry is on the verge of a major shake-up—just as Keurig and Nespresso transformed coffee, ColdSnap promises to soon make your favourite frozen treats available at the push of a button.
A pod-style ice cream maker which requires no cleaning or sanitising, a ColdSnap machine produces frozen confections—from premium ice cream to frozen lattes—in under two minutes from room temperature, shelf-stable pods.
Ice cream is churned and frozen inside the pods, before being dispensed through the pod’s bottom without touching the dispenser at all, circumventing the need for cleaning.
Photo credit: ColdSnap
The genesis of this user-friendly single-serve ice-cream machine in fact stemmed from founder Matt Fonte’s daughters, Sierra and Fiona. After they outgrew their nightly bedtime stories, they started keeping “invention journals,” and what topped that list came to fruition in October 2018 when ColdSnap was founded.
“On-demand freezing from a shelf-stable format has long been an elusive goal in the frozen confections industry, but ColdSnap is making it happen, with big benefits in convenience, sustainability, and taste.” Matt Fonte, President of ColdSnap, told the Silicon Review. “ColdSnap’s on-demand rapid freezing results in an uncommonly decadent and creamy product that people often describe as the way ice cream should be eaten.”
ColdSnap president Matthew Fonte with his daughters, who came up with the original concept of an on-demand user-friendly ice-cream machine. Photo credit: ColdSnap
No Cleaning, No Problems
One of ColdSnap’s main focuses in designing their product was to ensure no cleaning would be required. Anyone who has ever owned or operated an ice cream machine, or perhaps craved an odd-hour sundae, would know what an arduous and painstakingly time-consuming task cleaning and sanitising it can be. An unclean ice cream machine can lead to operational breakdowns and, more alarmingly, the accumulation of bacteria and moulds that pose health risks.
ColdSnap’s revolutionary design ensures the product mix is contained within the pods during freezing, mixing and dispensing, ensuring it will never come into contact with the machine itself. Once a pod is inserted into the machine, the mix is churned within the pod as it freezes for two minutes, before being dispensed from the pod straight into your serving bowl. For businesses, no mandatory cleaning translates to cost savings in the form of fewer man-hours consumed and machine downtime.
A Green Ice-cream?
Circumventing the dreaded “cold chain” is another huge win ColdSnap delivers for businesses. The “cold chain” is a temperature-controlled supply chain featuring refrigerated production, storage and distribution facilities. In addition to a plethora of potential problems that come along with a cold chain, it makes a dent on the wrong side of the business ledger while also negatively impacting the environment—to the tune of approximately 1% of global carbon emissions.
As ColdSnap pods are room temperature shelf-stable for up to six months, it allows businesses to offer fresh frozen confections to their customers while avoiding the previously inevitable cold supply chain. Once again, this means more cost savings for businesses while also decreasing its carbon footprint, one guilt-free ice-cream bowl at a time.
ColdSnap offers a variety of frozen treats alongside ice-creams, such as protein shakes, frozen cocktails and frozen lattes. Photo credit: ColdSnap
Research, Development and the Future
Apart from the premium 14% milkfat ice cream in flavours such as chocolate, vanilla, coffee and even salted caramel that ColdSnap offers, they have taken their product a step further by investing in the research and development required to enable other frozen treats to be dispensed from their signature pods. Each type of frozen treat currently available requires dedicated research to discover intricacies such as ideal freezing temperatures and balance of ingredients to achieve the smallest possible ice crystal size of the end product. Today, ColdSnap has its name on 101 patents with another 87 pending and offers a mouth-watering selection of frozen favourites in addition to premium ice cream such as boozy soft serves, frozen protein shakes, frozen cocktails and even a non-dairy frozen dessert.
Despite currently being available only in the USA, all signs point to it being merely a matter of time before the ColdSnap machine becomes a common sight in households, cafes and office pantries around the world where a frozen delight is but a push of a button away.
Photo credit: ColdSnap
Author: Julianna Hedger
Julianna is a seasoned content specialist who started her writing career in unscripted television production and broadcast news at FOX Sports Asia and the Associated Press. She has since added various writing skills to her repertoire, such as long-form articles, SEO-driven blogs and social media copywriting. She is driven by her personal passions in content creation, food and sports media.
