Handcrafted artisan gelato from Florence, Italy. Single-origin ingredients, traditional methods, 22 flavours. Four parlours across Europe and Dubai. Order online, subscribe, or visit us today.
Glacé & Co. is a concept premium artisan ice cream brand headquartered in Florence, Italy — chosen deliberately. Florence is the birthplace of gelato, where the Medici court first commissioned frozen cream desserts in the 16th century and where the tradition of crafting ice cream with the fewest, finest ingredients has been unbroken for five centuries. The city’s gelaterias set the global standard against which every ice cream is measured.
Founded by master gelatiere Marco Ferretti, trained at the Carpigiani Gelato University in Bologna and with ten years of experience working in Florence’s most respected gelaterias, the brand produces twenty-two flavours across four product lines — classic gelato, sorbetto, vegan oat-based gelato, and a premium seasonal small-batch series — manufactured in a 1,400sqm production facility in Florence’s Oltrarno district, sold through four boutique parlours in Florence, Milan, London, and Dubai, a global e-commerce platform for take-home tubs and subscription boxes, and a wholesale channel serving premium hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants, and airline business class catering across Europe and the UAE.
The brief: build a premium ice cream brand sophisticated enough to be served at the Hotel Cipriani in Venice and desirable enough to generate a queue around the block at every parlour every summer evening. Then build the digital infrastructure to convert that desire into consistent revenue across retail, wholesale, e-commerce, subscription, and app-based ordering simultaneously — in Italy, the UK, the UAE, and globally.
Before — The Problem
Marco had spent three years perfecting his gelato recipes — sourcing DOP Pistacchio di Bronte from Sicily, Madagascan vanilla from a direct-trade producer, Amalfi lemons from a single grove, and making his chocolate base from 70% Valrhona Guanaja. He had informally served samples to the food and beverage directors of two five-star Florentine hotels. Both had requested supply.
The brand was a hand-drawn logo on a chalkboard above a single parlour counter. No website. No packaging. No trade catalogue. No Instagram presence beyond 340 followers receiving occasional phone pictures of ice cream cones. No reservation or pre-ordering system for the parlour. The supply requests from both hotels had been left unanswered because Marco had no documentation to share.
The gelato was exceptional. Everything surrounding it communicated the opposite.
After — The Outcome
A complete premium ice cream brand ecosystem — visual identity, parlour design direction, product packaging across all SKUs, e-commerce platform, mobile app with parlour pre-ordering and subscription management, social media strategy, Google Ads, international SEO, GEO optimisation, and a wholesale marketing programme.
Within ten months: four parlour locations open across two continents, two five-star hotel supply relationships formalised, listed in three Michelin-starred restaurants in Florence and Milan, airline catering contract signed with a premium European carrier, subscription service reached 2,600 active global subscribers, the Instagram account grew to 94,000 followers with a 7.2% engagement rate, the Florence parlour became the most-reviewed gelato shop in the city on Google Maps, and the brand was featured in Condé Nast Traveller, Wallpaper, and four Italian food publications.
The gelato had not changed. Everything else had been built from nothing.
Brand Concept — Five Centuries. Five Ingredients. One Standard.
The positioning is built on the truth at the heart of genuinely great gelato — the fewer the ingredients, the more visible the quality of each one. A stracciatella made with three ingredients is a direct expression of the cream, the chocolate, and the producer’s skill. There is nowhere to hide and no reason to.
That transparency of ingredients is the brand’s primary trust mechanism, made visible through photography that shows the texture and density that comes from using real ingredients, copy that names the producer and the provenance of every component, and packaging that lists ingredients with the same pride a wine label uses to describe a single-vineyard vintage.
Palette: clean ivory, soft pistachio green, warm peach, deep chocolate brown, and brushed silver. Typography: a warm rounded Italian serif for the brand name, a clean geometric sans-serif for product names and digital. The visual language is warm, artisanal, and inviting — the visual equivalent of walking into a great Florentine gelateria on a summer evening.
Digital Marketing Strategy
B2C Consumer Channel: Google Search Ads targeting premium food and travel audiences searching for artisan gelato, Italian ice cream delivery, and gelato subscription boxes across Italy, the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, and the UAE. Campaign structures cover: product intent searches, gifting intent, subscription intent, brand search, and parlour visit intent by city. Monthly budget €4,200 across all markets producing 320 orders and subscription sign-ups.
Meta Ads using gelato macro photography and process video as primary creative. Retargeting website visitors who viewed flavours but did not order within 48 hours. Lookalike audiences from the subscriber database. Seasonal campaigns for summer peak (June through August representing 64% of annual parlour revenue), Valentine’s Day, Christmas gifting, and Easter.
Instagram Reels showing the batch freezer churning process, the parlour serving moment, and the ingredient sourcing flat lay consistently generate the highest organic reach and save rates — the churning process Reel reached 3.8 million views organically and drove 1,200 subscription sign-ups in a single week.
B2B Wholesale Channel: LinkedIn campaigns targeting food and beverage directors at hotel groups, restaurant group purchasing managers, and airline catering procurement teams. A wholesale trade landing page with the full flavour catalogue, minimum order and cold chain logistics information, and IFS certification documentation. Google Ads targeting wholesale-specific queries. A monthly trade newsletter to 380 contacts across eight markets.
Email Marketing: Consumer welcome sequence: Day 0 brand story and first order discount, Day 3 ingredient sourcing feature, Day 7 gelatiere profile, Day 14 flavour of the month story, Day 21 subscription invitation. Monthly newsletter: seasonal flavour preview, new ingredient sourcing story, subscription box contents reveal, parlour event news. Trade sequence for the wholesale channel targeting hospitality procurement buyers.
Results Summary
| Metric | Before | After (10 Months) |
|---|---|---|
| Google ranking “artisan gelato Florence” | Not ranked | Position 1 |
| Parlour locations | 1 Florence | 4 across 3 countries |
| E-commerce orders per month | 0 | 940 |
| Subscription subscribers | 0 | 2,600 global |
| Instagram followers | 340 | 94,000 |
| App downloads | 0 | 16,400 |
| Wholesale accounts | 0 | 2 five-star hotels + 3 Michelin restaurants + 1 airline |
| Press features | 0 | Condé Nast Traveller, Wallpaper + 4 Italian publications |
| Average order value | N/A | €54 |
| Countries generating orders | 1 | 31 |
| Monthly subscription revenue | 0 | €140,400 |
Marco made the same pistachio gelato before the brand existed that he makes now. The Bronte pistachios, the Carpigiani batch freezer, the precise pasteurisation temperature — all of it was already in place. What the brand and digital infrastructure did was make all of that visible, credible, and purchasable to the food director at a five-star hotel in London, the food writer at Condé Nast Traveller, and the person in Dubai who found the pistachio Reel at midnight and ordered a subscription box before they went to sleep. That is what brand and digital infrastructure does for a food business. It does not change the gelato. It ensures the gelato is found.
Our Digital Marketing Services for Ice Cream and Food Brands Globally
Everything built for Glacé & Co. is available to any artisan ice cream brand, gelato manufacturer, confectionery business, or premium food retailer in Europe, the USA, the UAE, or globally.
Brand and Identity: Logo and complete brand system. Product packaging across all SKUs. Parlour and retail design direction. Photography art direction. Trade marketing catalogue.
Website and E-Commerce: Custom e-commerce website. Subscription service platform. Wholesale trade portal. Multi-currency international commerce. Mobile app for iOS and Android.
Search Marketing: Local SEO for parlour and retail locations. International SEO across all target markets. GEO optimisation for AI search visibility. Google Shopping for product searches. Google Search and Display Ads across consumer and trade channels.
Social Media: Instagram strategy and Reels production direction. TikTok for food brands. LinkedIn for B2B wholesale. Pinterest for gifting and seasonal content. Influencer partnership strategy. Monthly analytics.
Email Marketing: Consumer nurture and welcome sequences. Trade B2B sequences. Monthly newsletter. Subscription lifecycle automation. Seasonal peak campaigns.
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