Dippin’ Dots looks for next flash-frozen hit: Coffee dots

PADUCAH, Ky. — The guy who reinvented ice cream is desperately trying to reinvent his company — before it melts.

More than two decades ago, microbiologist Curt Jones devised a way to flash-freeze ice cream into colorful pellets about the size of BB’s. Now in a tough economy, the outside-the-box company he founded, Dippin’ Dots, is searching for a new concoction to take it beyond the quirky-but-costly ice cream’s seasonal popularity in amusement parks and stadiums.

“We changed the way folks eat ice cream,” Jones, 49, half-boasts. “Now, we’ve got to change our business model.”

Summer is the season when Dippin’ Dots rise to the top of every kid’s must-eat list. The company does 60% of its business in summer. But in this coming summer-of-the-recession, all bets are off for a sweet treat that at $5, $6 or even $7 a pop can cost cash-strapped parents as much as they’re used to plopping down for a burger.

The dots, cryogenically frozen with liquid nitrogen at 320 degrees below zero, are so tongue-tinglingly cold and flavor-packed that it’s hard for most kids to resist. The question is: Do Dippin’ Dots have legs?

“You’ve probably made up your mind that you’re going into poverty when you step inside an amusement park,” jokes Howard Waxman, publisher of Ice Cream Reporter, a trade magazine. “But something this pricey is an especially tough sell at retail outside the amusement park.”

Which is precisely where Jones hopes to go with the brand this summer via upcoming rollouts of Dots ‘n Cream ice cream blends and ice cream cakes. Yet that may be the least of Jones’ challenges.

Dippin’ Dots is several million dollars in debt after years of lawsuits and countersuits. Jones says although his company has millions of dollars in assets, the bank can foreclose on it at any time. Rivals have successfully sued Jones for filing an invalid patent. After stepping aside and letting someone else run the company for several years, founder Jones recently returned as president in a recession.

It hasn’t been easy. With sales tanking, he found himself laying off nearly a quarter of the company’s payroll — including the president and operations chief. And desperate for cash, he came within a whisker of selling the company.

So why is Jones still smiling?

Because Jones — whose company has regularly ranked high atop Inc. magazine’s list of fastest-growing privately held companies and Entrepreneur magazine’s fastest-growing franchises — has got another big idea.

This one, Jones hopes, will finally take Dippin’ Dots outside the arena of seasonal treats. He’s about to take a similar colder-than-cold instant-freezing process that makes Dippin’ Dots so delectable and redirect that technology to fresh brewed coffee. That’s right, coffee dots. Add hot water and presto, “fresh-brewed” coffee without brewing.

Just as he dubbed Dippin’ Dots the “ice cream of the future” two decades ago, he says the new coffee dots will adopt the slogan “coffee of the future.”

It’s still early, but he’s thinking about naming the new coffee dots Smokin’ Joe. He will roll it out next month in Las Vegas when the specialty coffee world gathers for its trade show, Coffee Fest. His once-kid-targeted dots will get a very adult twist.

“I hesitate to tell you about this,” admits the microbiologist, entrepreneur and go-to idea guy. “I’m afraid someone will steal it.”

He’s got good reason. After spending more than $10 million the past decade in court battles, the company was stripped of what may be its most important franchise: the Dippin’ Dots patent. After a rival’s lawsuit, a court ruled in 2003 that Dippin’ Dots did not supply all the required information for its original patent. So now, anyone and his brother — with access to liquid nitrogen — can make ‘em using the process that Jones devised.

Paramedics bring Big Macs to stranded AeroMexico passengers

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An AeroMexico flight to Seattle that was diverted by fog turned into an ordeal for passengers who spent four hours cooped up on the tarmac at Portland — relieved only by paramedics who bought them a round of Big Macs.

The flight was diverted from Sea-Tac Airport on Tuesday night, and passengers weren’t allowed off the plane in Portland, officials said, because no customs agents were available to process the passengers.

Eventually, the plane went back to Mexico, and then it returned to the United States to complete the flight to Seattle.

During the stay in Portland, said passenger Karin Kuntz, “We just felt like we were hostages, that we as passengers had no rights.”

Several passengers got so angry that airport police boarded the plane and gave everyone an ultimatum, she said: “They gave the passengers the choice to stay on the plane or be arrested.”

When Flight 670 arrived at Portland about 7:40 p.m. Tuesday, passengers already had been aboard about six hours.

Airport spokeswoman Kama Simonds said paramedics who boarded to assist two ailing passengers — one with a heart problem — found a cabinful of hungry people.

“There was no food left,” she said.

The paramedics went to a local McDonald’s and bought enough Big Mac meals for everyone onboard.

“We understand it was very frustrating for the passengers, but we also needed to stay within rules and regulations,” Simonds said.

Kuntz said she was worried about pilot fatigue and safety after the six-hour flight stretched for many more hours.

“Can he fly back? Is he logged in? How many hours does he have? No one seemed to be concerned about putting us back on that plane for all that time and that poor tired pilot,” she said.

Kuntz and her husband finally arrived at Sea-Tac Wednesday night. One of their bags had been lost.

AeroMexico, which does not serve Portland, said it regretted the “unfortunate set of circumstances.”

Five-Year-Old Chef Gets His Own Show

Julian Kreusser began cooking at age three. Now, at age five, he has his own television show called Big Kitchen with Food on Portland cable access television.