Competitive Priorities

Carvel is among many ice cream retailers, such as Baskin Robbins and Haagen-Dazs. They must deal with environmental threats, such as lack of awareness, hesitation to try new products, and health problems like lactose intolerance. Carvel targets mainly middle class citizens for birthdays, parties, or any occasion. Carvel is trying to obtain an image of "making a good time more enjoyable" in the mind of the customer. The most critical operational aspects in gaining orders and retaining customers is quality. However, Carvel also puts a lot of focus into being flexible.

Most of the products are competitively priced with other local ice cream stores in the area. Their main competitor was Magic Fountain, but since Carvel is open year-round as opposed to just the summer season like Magic Fountain, they do very well with yearly sales. Because Carvel is all Kosher, all ingredients must be certified by a Rabi, where occasionally the Rabi stops in to make certain that everything is still operating under Kosher guidelines. In particular, KOF-K Kosher Supervision approves all ingredients that Carvel distributes to its franchises. Employees are required to inspect a waffle cone before they hand the ice cream to the customer, to make sure there are no breaks in the cone. Also, the employees must taste the soft serve ice cream to make certain that the mix has enough flavor. In addition, inspectors visit stores unannounced to ensure that safety and cleanliness is maintained. They check to make sure that the ice cream supplies in the walk-in refrigerator are no more than a week old. Carvel inspectors also make certain that fire extinguishers are up to date, that cleanliness and choking hazard signs are posted throughout the store, the hard ice cream cabinet is fresh, and the soft serve has the proper texture.

Even if quality is their main goal in the store, flexibility is also a very important aspect in the day-to-day operations. Many children come in with certain food allergies, such as peanuts or dairy. To ensure their safety, certain ingredients cannot be put into their ice cream or their ordered cakes. Another way Carvel ensures high quality is by rearranging the toppings. For instance, not all of the M&M's in the tray are used in a day. The older ones are moved to the top to ensure they don't expire.

To continue to keep quality high, each employee is trained to know how to do everything in the store. Since every product is made within the store, it is important that every employee is able to be versatile when it comes to doing different tasks in the store. Each employee is trained to make cakes and any other products, decorate cakes, make all ice cream flavors, as well as focus on customer service. 



Carvel How To: Create a Fudgie the Whale Ice Cream Cake

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