After spending time on the East Coast, where nearly every street had an Italian ice shop, Mary Lemmer, 21, opened Iorio Ice in Lansing.
She launched Iorio Ice, which is located in the Lansing City Market, when she was in high school. Since then, the company has grown by 30 percent.
“Most of the growth occurred in the third year, when we shifted some locations and events,” she says. “We started getting brand recognition and people knew what we had and liked our product.”
Aside from the Lansing City Market retail space, Lemmer and her family provide Iorio Ice for catering events.
“We really plan to launch full scale in December and want to have products that are not conditional in the winter,” she says.
Lemmer will graduate from the University of Michigan in 2010.
“I plan on staying in Michigan,” she says. “I have no intention to leave and want to be involved in my family business and am working on some start-up companies now.”
Source: Mary Lemmer, Iorio Ice
Ivy Hughes is the managing editor of Capital Gains and can be reached here.
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