Rockhopper sees opportunity in ice

“Do you consider yourself ‘ice obsessed?’,” Dan Guenther asked the crowd gathered to watch the 2024 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest Pitch Competition.

This question sparked lively discussions at the 2024 Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Conference long after the competition finalists left the stage.

If you’ve never thought about ice before, it might surprise you that more than half of all Americans consume around 400 pounds of ice a year. And, those people have a strong preference about the shape of the ice they consume. Traditionalists crave ice in its cubed form, others have a passion for pebble-shaped ice, and some swear shaved ice is superior. 

Guenther and his cofounder Josh Cartellone launched Rockhopper Ice Collective in 2023 to address the needs of the 51% of Americans who identify themselves as ‘ice obsessed.’

The partners are working on an ice machine for commercial use that allows drink sellers to provide a variety of different kinds of ice from a single piece of equipment. Rockhopper is betting that consumers will love it and restaurateurs will sell more beverages because of it.

The novel concept that left the audience discussing ice for the remainder of the conference wowed the judges of the Business Plan Contest. The company won the Business Services category of the contest and took home the coveted Bright New Idea Award at the event.

Rockhopper hopes to reach the marketplace by the close of 2025 but has a great deal of work to do to reach that goal.

The company has successfully completed several prototypes and has brought in some engineering talent to continue to develop the product. The next hurdle for the bootstrapped company is to secure enough capital to ensure to complete the critical next steps in product development.

“We’re trying to line up where the capital and partnership money is going to come from. We’ve been talking to existing restaurant distributors because we think there’s a lot of benefits to partnering with them, whether it’s an investment on one side or even just things like (letting us) put our product on their web page so we could confirm how many customers a sign up to be on a waitlist because they’re interested. So, we’re looking at opportunities to partner with somebody that already has a customer base and can provide the reach for us, which would be challenging otherwise,” he said.

Rockhopper’s profit model is a unique one for the restaurant industry, but one Guenther believes restaurateurs will embrace. The company plans to offer the proprietary ice machine to commercial users free of charge, and then implement a per-use charge.

“It’s full service,” Guenther said.  “They get the equipment, but ice machines come with a lot of cost outside the cost of the capital equipment. By regulation they have to be cleaned twice a year, and they are very expensive to repair. We provide all of that as a package.”

“We want to invest with you (the user) and share the upside because we believe that we’re going to add a lot of upsides to your business,” he continued. “We want to price it based on every drink you sell in a tiered rate of drink pricing. You’re always going to benefit as a business more than we are when you sell the drink. We can continue to innovate for you and keep your machines up and running, then upgrade them over time with some of the new features we want to bring.”

“There are few opportunities in life where you stumble upon something that in retrospect looks logical and inevitable, but you just never thought about it. We think Rockhopper is that opportunity,” he said. “The number one thing we’re focused on is finding the partners that are going to help us be successful and build a great business out of the Midwest.”

To learn more about this emerging business, connect with Rockhopper Ice Collective here.