Local companies team up to create entirely solar-powered ice cream shop

A new ice cream pop-up at Crestwood Community Hall is providing a sweet, chilly treat with some positive environmental impact. Miriam Valdes-Carletti reports.

Locally made ice cream just got a whole lot greener thanks to two Edmonton companies that have found a way to pair the sweet treat with clean energy practices.

Bestie is the new seasonal ice cream shop that will operate outside of Crestwood Community Hall this summer.

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Its parent shop is Kind Ice Cream – the women-led company born and raised in Edmonton.

Kind Ice Cream originated in 2019 out of Ritchie from founders and owners Paula Shyba, Candace Morris and Nicole Bhar.

Shyba said that when conceptualizing the new shop, kindness to the environment was at the top of their mind.

“We started exploring and considering if it was possible to even do solar [power] on a container like this,” she said.

That’s when they reached out to Grengine, a clean energy company based in Edmonton that specializes in renewable-powered systems like battery energy storage systems (BESS).

Grengine designed the shop’s system, which runs entirely off grid using solar panels and a battery system.

Connie Stacey, CEO and founder of Grengine, said she was thrilled with being approached for an eco-friendly ice cream shop. She said it was the first time the company had done a commercial shop.

“It was really quite a fun project to do, to be honest. It just had a different, lighter feel,” Stacey said.

Shyba told CTV News that the entire shop cost Kind Ice Cream in the range of $100,000.

“But it feels well worth it,” Shyba said. She noted that the shop did receive the Edmonton Edge Fund grant, which will help pay for another container shop in the likes of Bestie.

Stacey said that they’re still figuring out the exact number of solar panels needed for this particular container – currently, there are seven – but there’s a backup generator in the event that any renewable sources fail.

So while there is propane as a backup, Shyba said the goal is to be solar-powered for the entire summer, barring a large amount of bad weather.

“It is a system that will be able to keep our ice cream cold, knock on wood, so we feel pretty safe with our ice cream in there,” she said.

Stacey said that Grengine is looking to collect more data about the panels over the summer to perfect the system.

“Melted ice cream is a whole lot of screaming kids,” she said. “So this is definitely serious stuff.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti