The other week while offering samples of gelato to customers at Sunset Foods in Libertyville, at least three shoppers came up to Dillon Hollingsworth with questions.
“They asked where toothpaste or soybeans were,” he said. “They just thought I was some teenager who worked there.”
While he is a teenager – he’s 13 years old and an eighth grader at Deer Path Middle School – he doesn’t work for Sunset Foods. Instead he supplies the grocer with his gelato.
He is the founder and owner of Dillon Hollingsworth Gelato Company. His three flavors of gelato are currently sold at Poeta’s Food Market in Highwood, Caputo Cheese Market in Lake Forest and the five groceries operated by Sunset Foods.
His father Barry Hollingsworth has handled some of the “boring stuff” such as incorporating the company and arranging insurance, but it was Dillon who pitched his gelato to potential sellers.
“Myself and all our grocery directors were at one of our biweekly meetings,” said Jim Cortesi, director of purchasing at Sunset Foods. “It’s kind of like Shark Tank. There are 10 to 15 vendors at a meeting.”
Though Sunset Foods sells about 60,000 products in each of its five stores, Cortesi said this is the first time anyone as young as Hollingsworth has presented a product.
“He’s my first 13-year-old,” Cortesi said. “(All the grocery directors) said they wanted it. He’s local, his name is on the product, its all natural and it is a fair price. And the gelato is good.”
Dillon Hollingsworth Gelato Company evolved from a family trip to Italy in 2013.
“I liked ice cream but I’d never really had gelato before,” Hollingsworth said. “My first night there, in Rome, we went to a place. It’s creamy, it’s rich. It’s really good there. There are these old family recipes that have been slowly refined to create the best gelato over the years.”
Gelato, he explained, is different from ice cream.
“It’s churned a lot slower,” he said. “Ice cream is almost whipped, which created a lot of air bubbles, which makes it less dense. (Gelato) uses different milk with more milk fat, which adds to the rich creamy taste. It fills you up quicker.”
When he returned from Italy, he sampled American brands of gelato. Unimpressed, he used his Christmas and birthday money to buy a small gelato maker for about $100. In January 2014, he began experimenting with recipes in his parent’s kitchen in Lake Forest. After six or seven months he was happy with his vanilla, mint chip and double chocolate recipes.
By early 2015, Hollingsworth decided his hobby could grow into a business. He created a website, designed packaging using colors preferred by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian and, with effort, found a dairy that would produce the gelato using his recipes.
Though his parents drove him to grocers, it was Hollingsworth who met with grocery owners or representatives to pitch his product.
“When I met with Sunset Foods, they had a whole board meeting with 13 members,” he said. “This was the first time I had ever spoken to a board of people. I stood in front with me talking for 15 minutes. The hardest part was you have to wait for a phone call. Also you’re worried – what if I did something wrong, what if they don’t like the product.”
Sunset Foods did say yes and about a month ago began selling Dillon Hollingsworth Gelato.
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Hollingsworth is currently developing new recipes – he anticipates sea-salt caramel will be out soon – and is seeking new stores and stopping by current sellers on weekends to offer samples.
“If things keep on going, I think in 2017 we’ll hit a profit by the end of the year,” he said.
Hollingsworth is scheduled to offer samples of his gelato at the Sunset Foods in Lake Forest, 825 S. Waukegan Road, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Nov. 20.
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