ICE CREAM STORE OF THE YEAR AWARD - THE PASSION AWARD

Ice Cream University proudly announces the winner of its 7th annual ICE CREAM STORE OF THE YEAR AWARD known as THE PASSION AWARD. The 2010 winner is Sloan Kamenstein of Sloan’s, West Palm Beach, Florida, voted the very best ice cream store by the ICE CREAM UNIVERSITY team of Bill Lambert, Malcolm Stogo, Carole Gordon, and Robert Ellinger.

The purpose of the award is to honor the very best. Sloan’s four stores certainly demonstrates this in his passion for both creating the best in ice cream and frozen desserts as well as the most creative looking ice cream stores assembled in the last 15 years located in West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, and Palm Beach Gardens. His store at City Center in West Palm Beach has created an exciting atmosphere that is simply unbelievable-- like no other ice cream store we have ever seen!

Criteria include a demonstrated passion for:

• Creating an exciting environment
• Making the very best frozen dessert product
• Sharing your enthusiasm with your employees and customers
• Not giving up in the face of adversity

The 2010 PASSION AWARD winner, Sloan’s, will receive the following:

• A free scholarship to any ICE CREAM UNIVERSITY SEMINAR in 2010
• An invitation to be a guest instructor at one of our seminars during 2010
• Sloan’s own page on www.icecreamuniversity.org web page describing his winning ice cream concept
• A plaque and certificate designating Sloan’s as the 2010 winner

This award has been evolving over the years as we have watched our students come to us with a passion to enter the incredible ice cream business, but with limited ideas on how to move forward. The common denominator for everyone is PASSION. And many of you have succeeded beyond our wildest imagination.

Why we selected Sloan’s is best described in Sloan Kamenstein’s own words.

Describe what your passion is for making your store great:

• “I have always had a strong passion to have the most fabulous store ever, anywhere. So, I set out to create Sloan’s. My criterion was to have the best ice cream and the best store design, with the greatest selection of merchandise, candy and any other exciting new products. I wanted people to walk in and say ‘WOW’! And to the end result, I feel that I have created this phenomenon. I wanted SLOAN’S to not only be a place to get wonderful ice cream, but a place that would provide an “experience.” This was my passion.”

Describe what your passion is for sharing your enthusiasm with your employees and customers:

• “It is very important to me that my employees are as enthusiastic about my products as I am. I want them to communicate to the customers how fabulous the ice cream tastes and what goes into making it as great as possible; i.e. making apple pies for our MOM’S APPLE PIE ICE CREAM and baking cookies to be chopped up for our COOKIE MONSTER ICE CREAM. It is also very important to me that my employees have a smile on their faces and enjoy working in this happy environment. I have many people who have been with me for many years and some that have been here since the first day 11 years ago.”

Describe how you used your passion by not giving up in the face of adversity: