Thursday, March 11, 2021

C3 Partners With Unilever For Virtual Ice Cream Venture

Los Angeles-based C3 (Creating Culinary Communities), the virtual kitchen startup founded by Sam Nazarian, says it has inked a partnership with consumer goods giant Unilever, and a new "virtual store" called The Ice Cream Shop. According to C3, it is now hosting The Ice Cream Shop from 17 locations across Los Angeles, Orange County, Oakland and Chicago. The virtual kitchen will offer up Unilver's top-selling ice cream and frozen novelty brands to consumers on-demand. Financial details of the deal were not announced. C3 says it is now offering up menus for Umami Burger, Krispy Rice and Sam's Crispy Chicken across its network. C3 is part of the "virtual" or "ghost" kitchen industry, where virtual restaurants--which do not exist in a physical location--are made available on food delivery apps, with dishes prepared out of other local restaurants, local food preparation centers, and special food facilities without storefronts but which have full restaurant prep areas. C3 said it is working on new fulfillment locations for The Ice Cream Shop in Berkeley, Minneapolis, Iowa City, Tempe, Richmond, Ann Arbor and Providence with plans for New York and San Francisco later in 2021. Sam Nazarian previously founded SBE Entertainment, which had big holdings in the hotel and restaurant space.