Scoop School: Using Just the Right Cups for Ice Cream and Stuff! 🍨

For starters, there's many different TYPES of cups out there in the cup supply industry; but don't get too overwhelmed. All cups have an equal level of pros and cons, so it would be best to choose the cups you feel would market your product the best.

Clear plastic cups are the most popular in the ice cream industry. Plastic cups allow your customers to see the vibrant colors and unique layering of your product. These cups are great for soft serve, frozen beverages like daiquiris, frozen yogurt, and more. It easily displays toppings, colorful purees, and product consistency through its transparent design. You can easily extract product from your used ice cream machine into these types of cups. Plastic cups have limitations based on their non-biodegradable design. For those companies looking to 'go green', this is probably not the product for you. Plastic cups also become trivial when it comes to logos and branding. Branding a plastic cup is a difficult (and more expensive) task that you would need to speak to your supplier about.

Paper cups offer a slight solution to that problem. Paper cups are not only biodegradable, but they also make branding a breeze. Printing onto paper cups is as easy as placing stickers on them. Paper cups offer inexpensive branding for not a lot of out of pocket costs. You can easily extract original product from your batch freezers into these types of cups. Paper cups don't, however, offer the same transparency. Paper cups aren't as sturdy or as visually appeasing to customers because they can not see the inside of the product through the cup. 

Foam "coffee" cups are similar to paper cups in the sense that they are easy for branding and loading large amounts of ice cream into. They have a particular design that keeps hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold. Scoop School doesn't suggest this type of cup however, because customers are not likely to store their ice cream in it for as long as it's thermal design would suggest. Making this option less cost-effective. 

Plastic Gelato cups are compact and visually appeasing to your customers. Some cup suppliers offer lettuce trim designs (see video) and other nice features that'll really up-sell the product. These are nice for those business owners looking to spend a little more on design. These higher-end plastic cups are usually dishwasher safe so you, or your customer, can get multiple uses out of them. 

Character cups are going to be the most expensive types of cups you get from your vendor. They can come in a variety of shapes, characters, and novelties. Some come in baseball cap shapes so your ice cream can sit in a helmet, and some are more intricate, like small figures made out of bowl with detachable spoons (see video). These cups will display your products in unique and original ways as well as up-selling the quality of your shop.

...