When Manny Ginsberg was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 1985, he turned over his tidy ice cream wholesaling business to his 26-year-old son. Today young Bruce is trying to turn the $60 billion global ice cream industry on its head.  Beaming and plump at age 51, Bruce Ginsberg is CEO of MooBella, based in Taunton, Mass., which makes vending-machine-size dispensers that churn out hard-packed ice cream from a room-temperature dairy mix in just 40 seconds. The surprisingly rich confection contains 220 calories per 4.25-ounce scoop--one-third the amount in Häagen-Dazs. Gushes Ginsberg: "MooBella's flavors just burst because it's made right there on the spot."  Taming the technology took a lot longer--20 years--and ate nearly $75 million in investment capital. This year Ginsberg rolled out his first 45 machines on college campuses and in zoos and museums across New England.  Carvel has been serving up soft-serve ice cream from machines for decades. In 1991 real estate developer Paul Kateman set out to build a machine that could whip up the hard stuff in myriad flavors on demand. Being able to make ice cream from anywhere, without having to ship or store it cold, could open up vast new markets.  Kateman teamed up with Product Genesis, an offshoot of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which had developed a cheaper way to make fake snow. Kateman's prototype--marketed under the name Turbo Dynamix--injected air into a liquid dairy mix and flash froze it. In 1995 General Mills ( GIS - news - people ) agreed to license the technology as part of its Columbo frozen yogurt division. "I thought I'd be better off partnering with a major company so we could get it to market more quickly," says Kateman.  But when Columbo's top exec left the company shortly thereafter, development languished. A year later Kateman took back the rights and looked for new investors. Saturn Asset Management, a Boston venture capital firm, answered the call in 2000. It tapped Ginsberg, then with 20 years in ice cream distribution, to head marketing and sales. "They needed someone to passionately believe in it," he says.  Ice cream is in Ginsberg's blood. His father built one of the first mobile trucks with a pass-through counter so that vendors along Massachusetts' North Shore could dole out desserts from their cool confines. Years later he launched International Ice Cream, wholesaler to supermarkets and military bases around New England. When Bruce got his driver's license, Dad gave him his own route. "Selling ice cream was my leisure time," says Ginsberg. "We made money and had fun."  It wasn't fun to learn in 1985 that the company was losing $1 million on $8.5 million in revenue. A year after taking the reins, Ginsberg cut loose 1,000 customers (a third of the ranks), including friends of his father. "It was scary to project lower sales for higher profits," he says. Two years later the company netted $1 million on $5 million in sales.  Ginsberg also convinced convenience stores to buy branded ice cream instead of the generic kind Manny sold. Ginsberg spent $25,000 on new freezers for customers who stocked Häagen-Dazs and Dove Bars. When their profit margins jumped fivefold, Ginsberg rolled out the strategy at 7-Eleven and other chains. By 1993 the company was generating $50 million in sales.
Bruce Ginsberg aims to do what General Mills couldn't: Sell real ice cream made from scratch on demand.