12 Tuesday, April 19, 1988 / University Daily Kansan Creativity, hard work vital for 'Superlative' ice cream By Michael Carolan "They breathe that clean air, live that wholesome life, come from the land from abundance and have traditional values," Gratzon said. Kansan staff writer Fred Gratzon, the brash, 42-year-old Great Midwestern Ice Cream entrepreneur, attributes the success of his world-famous ice cream to the cows in the Midwest. Gratzon, president of the famed Great Midwestern Ice Cream Co., was in Lawrence recently for the pre-grand opening of the Superlative Ice Cream and Deli, 1000 Massachusetts St., which serves his award-winning confections. collections. "They're better than those cows that live at the corner of the New Jersey turnip, where there's so much exhaust that they can't breathe. How can they produce quality milk?" Gratzon asked, referring to the cows that Gratzon claimed his competitors, Haagen Dazs, used to make their ice cream. The company is based in New Jersey. Jersey. Graton, who turned his company from a $5,000 small corner of a bakery into a $2.5 million ice cream business, said that he knew from the first batch of ice cream he made in the sleepy college town of Fairfield, Iowa, in 1979, that he had hit something big. "The first time I had made the ice cream, I knew it was the best I'd ever had," Grantzon said. "I knew I'd hit it. I had a sense of destiny that I had the premier ice cream of America." America. The gourmet cream, he claimed after pulling a list from his sports jacket, has more than 20 awards and mentions under its spoons. mentions under his spotlight. "We pay a great attention to detail," he said. "We are a bunch of artists. We give our ice cream a kind of artistic flair that no other company does." By the smooth, creamy taste of a dip of vanilla and the looks of the colorful, elaborate pin-t size containers that Gratzon distributes to more than 1,000 grocery stores and 40 restaurants, it would seem evident that Gratzon's employees are more than artists. His ice cream has gone from a storefront parlor in the middle of Iowa to the lips of President Reagan. It has been written about in magazines ranging from People to Fortune. "People magazine called me and asked how far I distributed," Gratzon said with a grin. "I told them that every once in a while, someone buys an ice cream cone and walks around the block with it." Even Gratzon's delivery trucks, painted with the same colorful, elegant and energetic fruits as the pint-sized containers, were named "Truck of the Month" last year by Sign of the Times magazine. The 10 different containers were designed by an artist for whom Gratzon searched the country and were just samples of the company's consistent creativity. samples of the company's creations. Gratton's creativity is often flavorful. It didn't take Gratton long to create ice cream flavors that matched the presidential candidates in the Iowa presidential caucuses earlier this year. He said that he watched them go like gold. For Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis' massachey chocolate, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole's top banana and Sen. Paul Simon's bow-tie brickle, presidential candidates, media and voters with a sweet tooth rushed to Iowa to get a taste of their favorite candidate and meet the wit and energy behind the ice cream. and meet the wit and energy of Dukakis promised to get Great Midwestern Ice Cream in a Boston supermarket chain." Gratzon boasted, referring to campaign promises he dubiously received from Dole and Dukakis after they won Gratzon's ice cream caucus. "And Dole, as he was getting into his car, said 'Thanks Fred, I owe you one.' Now I call that a campaign promise." The self-made ice cream giant said with a laugh that he used whips and cattle prods to raise the productivity of his employees (they already churn out about 200 gallons a day). He modestly claimed that he didn't know what he was doing "It's very rare, in my opinion, to get rich quick," Gratzon said. Gratzon said. "It takes perseverance. There are a lot of hurdles and obstacles that have to be dealt with. That's where you have to be the most creative. You can't just fold your cards after the first obstacle because there's going to be a million more of them." million more of them. At Superlative Ice Cream and Deli, where Gratzon recently licked his favorite flavor, vanilla, and talked about ice cream, owner Jeanie Thompson said the Great Midwestern Ice Cream president knew how to run an ice parlor, not to mention how to make the ice. Fred Gratzon cream. cream. "I went to test the ice cream in a store in Iowa City (Gratzon's second franchised store). People were standing out at 6:30 in the morning," said Thompson, who opened for business about four months ago. "I had never seen anything like it. I thought 'It's got to go in Lawrence.' If it goes in Iowa City, it's got to go in Lawrence." "I wasn't making any money and had to think of a way of making a living," Gratton said. "I had no business skills, no marketable skills. When I was coming up with the idea that there was no good, commercial ice cream in Iowa." Gratzon came to Fairfield, Iowa, in 1979 to teach Transcendental Meditation. But teaching meditation in Fairfield, Iowa, is as common as milk in ice cream. Fairfield is known to some as the meditating capital of the world. Maharishi International University, named for the founder of Transcendental Meditation, is there. Gratzon said that he tried to visit all the ice cream stores that marketed his product and that he offered a training program for employees who sold his ice cream. Gratzon, who has taught meditation for 20 years, attributed part of his material success to the spiritual energy that emanated from practicing Transcendental Meditation. "There were times when we were stugging," said Gratzon, who said that more than half of his employees meditated. "I was overwhelmed by the negative intensity of not having money, having trouble meeting payrolls and bouncing checks. The whole thing. "And under great stress, to be able to meditate and just neutralize all that, to enter the next day with a fresh mind, a renewed energy and a new creativity, was very valuable." Gratzon said that meditation also helped him with the productivity of his factory workers and the growth of his intelligence, intuition and sensitivity. "I make better choices," he said. "I'm faster on my feet and have less stress. The other part of that is, I feel I've gotten luckier." Gratzon, who graduated from Rutgers University with a bachelor's degree in fine arts, has held a succession of jobs, from Salvation Army truck driver to short-order cook. "I'm one of the rare people in the United States that has been fired from a civil service job, if you can believe that." Gratzo said Nine years later, Grazaton said that hard work and luck were not the only ingredients of his special recipe. Two months later, after talking to a lot of people about ice cream and borrowing $7,000, Gratzon launched his career in gourmet ice cream. "A man once told me to find some little corner in life and become the world's expert," he said. "I picked ice cream. I'm the world's expert. I try to get it in people's mouths. If you need abortion or birth control services, we can help. 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