Former News Anchor discovers Sherbetter life and business
Read more: Ice, Cream, Sherbet, Gaga, Jim, King, Television, Blog
DEWITT -- If you visited the Dewitt Wegmans this afternoon between 3:00 and 5:00 there's a good chance you left the story with something extra in your shopping bag. On your way out the door a young lady with a bright smile likely handed you the most colorfully packaged, optimistically labeled pint of creamy dessert you've seen in some time. Standing out from the swirling label was a brand that is becoming more recognizable and more memorable every year: GaGa.
GaGa, as in going gaga over SherBetter which is a cross between ice cream and sherbet. The story behind GaGa's is just as compelling as the flavor described as a euphoric blend of creamy and tangy. You see the founder and CEO of Gaga's is a former television news anchor named Jim King. Jim worked in Utica, Binghamton, Rochester, Minneapolis, Boston and Providence before the people running the station decided they didn't need a quality anchor and journalist anymore.
Instead of jumping back into the same old game of searching for the next television news job he began to consider other options. He had contacts, skills and curiosity on his side. He also had a recipe for a tasty lemon sherbet from his grandmother nicknamed GaGa. Jim realized if he kept asking enough people with expertise how to start a business he could somehow pull it off.
A little television work on the side helped keep him afloat during the first few years, but once he found a way to put his product in freezers in grocery chains like Whole Foods, Shaw's and Wegmans GaGa's was really on its way. In fact GaGa's lemon Sherbetter outsells most flavors of Ben and Jerry's and Haagen Dazs in Whole Food stores across the northeast. That's pretty heady company.
Jim and I became good friends during our lean years working in Binghamton. We had a great group of young talented people striving to get ahead. We also had great times together away from work often following one of many rounds of golf. Twenty years later Jim and I walked the aisles of Wegmans as one of his local representatives for stocking GaGa's showed us where it sits on freezer shelves. We talked about the value of visibility, the struggle for proper placement on the shelves and the importance of recognizable packaging and branding. It had me looking at Wegmans in a way I hadn't looked before.
Jim brought his 16 year old daughter Olivia with him to help give away 1,000 free pints of GaGa's. A couple other cousins from Utica came to lend a hand. Olivia told me she likes her father in the GaGa's business instead of television news because he's home at more regular hours now. Jim's parents will help him dish out the goods in Rochester and Buffalo over the weekend. His wife Michelle does the public relations. Several family members’ faces are featured in smiling states of euphoria on the packaging. GaGa's is a family business.
So if you were one of the lucky ones who got that free pint this afternoon you now know more of the story behind the creamy and tangy flavor. You too may have gone gaga over GaGa's. On its current track it won't be long before GaGa is a household name in your house and not just in the Kings.
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