From the humble beginnings of Carmen's Best to its success in paving the way for artisan ice cream, Paco Magsaysay tells all in this exclusive interview with The Business Manual.

Read the Full Story, Only on The Business Manual: Carmen’s Best Founder Paco Magsaysay on Crafting Ice Cream and a Winning Strategy

While founded on passion and a love for food, the origin of leading artisan ice cream brand Carmen's Best was more of a happy accident. "The story of Carmen’s Best started in 2007 when my father, Jun Magsaysay, together with his friends, acquired land in Bay, Laguna," begins Founder Francisco "Paco" Magsaysay.

"The initial plan in putting up a dairy farm was to participate in the Department of Education’s Milk Feeding program to school kids and offer 100% fresh cow’s milk," he continues. "At first, we had trouble selling the fresh milk, as it only had a 7 to 10-day shelf life. So my dad said, 'Paco, can you help me sell the milk or do something with it?'"

Thus given the responsibility to find a way to use the excess milk from his farm, Magsaysay set out to work. Numerous attempts were made, but eventually, he had his eureka moment. "It was only about a year after that I realized the potential of creating the product that I truly love," Paco explains. "I remember how during all my travels growing up, there was one thing that I always have to try—ice cream."

And so, Carmen's Best was born. But like most businesses, starting from the ground up came with its share of growing pains. For one thing, many big ice cream players were in the market, and artisan ice cream was a fairly new game at that time. But Paco had a strategy in mind, and that was to focus on its brand ethos: serving premium quality products.

This business model has served him well, given that Carmen's Best has quickly become the top-of-mind choice of ice cream connoisseurs who seek artisan ice cream. What's more, artisan ice cream in itself has grown in popularity, with many following in his footsteps.

"[My daughter] Carmen was born in 1997 [and] she’s the name of the brand, Carmen’s Best," he adds. "The fact that it is Carmen's name I will never shortchange the quality of the ice cream. I will not cut back on ingredients to save or to earn even a bit of money because that means I am not being true to Carmen."