By Steve Best
A well known brand in the South Island for over 34 years, Deep South Ice Cream has in recent years increased its sales areas to the North Island as well as exporting to Australia, China and Japan.
Recently rebranded with imagery and design ref lecting iconic South Island locations such as Mount Aspiring, Lake Wakatipu, Mount Aoraki, and Punakaiki, Deep South is no longer enjoyed solely by southerners and co-owner and director Mike Killick says the company is poised to enlarge its exports as well as its offerings of flavours.
Deep South is part of the OpEx Group which is co-owned between Mr Killick and Alex Hopkins, with the aim of preventing New Zealand manufacturing from going off-shore.
OpEx (an acronym for operational excellence) is made up of three distinctive arms – OpEx Management, OpEx Services and OpEx Manufacturing. With clients such as Fonterra, Goodman Fielder in Australia and Kraft Foods in both Australia and New Zealand, OpEx offers business centred asset management to maximise operational efficiency. The Group has 40 full-time staff – of which 28 are employed within Deep South.
Mr Killick says that he and Mr Hopkins decided they would like to purchase a manufacturing business themselves and Deep South Ice Cream was the ideal fit. “It was a good product – award winning – with a strong brand presence in the South Island and a lot of growth opportunities,” Mr Killick says.
OpEx bought the company from the Simon family two years ago and Brian Simon’s original recipes still being used within the company today. Mr Simon has been in the ice cream business since 1938 – and along with Deep South is cited as the originator of New Zealand’s classic Hokey Pokey flavour ice cream. Mr Killick says that in “addition to our traditional premium flavours we will be launching four new exciting flavours in new Deep South retail products”.
“When we took over we didn’t want to change the recipes,” Mr Killick says.
“It was already winning awards. We’ve been focused on improving the quality management systems within the business and manufacturing processes. We’re really fortunate to have a team of staff who are passionate about what we do and the great ice cream we make.”
Having invested in a rebrand of its products last year to reflect New Zealand’s clean green image, Deep South is building on its reputation as a traditional premium ice cream and can now be found in the supermarket freezers throughout New Zealand and as well in ice cream parlours within the South Island. 
“We’re with Progressive and Foodstuffs in the South Island and we have a national distribution with Progressive,” Mr Killick says. “Our sales during a national promotional week now give us real market credibility for our award winning ice cream.”
Manufactured at two processing sites – in Christchurch and Invercargill – and sold in volumes from 125ml up to 16 litres, Deep South has a range of over 60 flavours. Twelve of those are sold in supermarkets and the rest are sold in dairies and parlours across the country.
“This is a traditional, premium ice cream,” Mr Killick says. “We use 12 percent milk fat/cream so we are in the premium range. We also use less air in our in our ice cream. The cream content and the amount of air determines the price point and less air and more cream means more texture, more flavour, and more creaminess. People who taste our ice cream say to us, ‘this is how I remember ice cream when I was a kid.’”
Intense domestic competition coupled with unforeseen closures of supermarkets and ice cream outlets due to the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010/2011 emphasised both the importance of an overdue rebrand as well as more focus on export, Mr Killick says.
“Our main customer base was the Canterbury region. The earthquakes took out a number of supermarkets and half a dozen parlours, as well as impacting roads and logistics. This delayed our rebranding and the domestic market is competitive as it is, thus exports are very important to us.”
When OpEx took over the company in 2010 Deep South was exporting a 20 feet container of ice cream every eight-10 weeks. That figure now is one 20 feet container every two weeks and Mr Killick says a trip to China and market support from NZTE this month will hopefully see exports there increase two-fold.
“The overseas market is a great opportunity for us. There is potential for growth in China as the quality of our products are much higher and there is a demand there for New Zealand products,” Mr Killick says.
With export numbers on the rise and sales coverage across New Zealand increasing there is every sign that Deep South will live up to Mr Killick’s and Mr Hopkins’ expectation of taking the traditional iconic ice cream of the south global and “get us seen as the Mövenpick of New Zealand”.
