London Inc. May-June 2023 - 25

" For people who live in London, they might
remember it, they might not, " says Swann of
Coppa di Gelato's original café at Commissioners
and Wonderland roads.
Swann, the company CEO and son of founders
Jeff and Viviane Swann, says the café first opened
in early 2004 as a small food service business -
coffee, soups, paninis and, of course, gelato - and
was modelled on the neighbourhood cafés his
mother grew up with as a Lebanese immigrant
in Italy. " It was something the area didn't have, "
Swann says. " So, she decided to open one of those
here. "
In its own right, the café business was doing
just fine, at one point expanding to multiple locations
in London. But the restaurant business was
also wearing on the owners, who " got a little bit
tired of running around on a Sunday morning
looking for lettuce, " says Swann.
It was around this time, in the late 2000s, that
gelato was starting to gain traction in the North
American market, and Coppa was starting to get
requests for wholesale orders.
" We said to ourselves, 'You know what? Let's
drop the retail and open up the wholesale,' "
Swann recalls.
The story from there is one of consistent
growth and expansion. The family moved its production
to Komoka, and then later to Strathroy,
each time expanding its footprint to increase
production. By 2012, they were a licensed dairy
producer with a 4,000-square-foot production
facility. Five years after that, they moved to an
even bigger space on Swiftsure Court
in east London - a 15,000-square-foot
(and still-expanding) manufacturing
plant they call home today.
The key driver of growth has been
the grocery sector, Swann explains,
and a big part of that happened when
a certain farm-themed grocery chain
came to town and tapped Coppa to
says they are likely the " largest, or second largest,
buyer of Ontario-grown raspberries " outside
of the grocery chains themselves - all for their
raspberry gelato alone. (Buying local as much
as possible is something Swann says the family
won't waver from. " We want the money to stay
[local], no matter what we're doing, " he says.)
" MY PARENTS STILL WORK HERE EVERY
DAY, MY BROTHER HAS NOW JOINED
IN, AND WE, ALONG WITH 25 OTHER
AMAZING INDIVIDUALS, PUT SMILES IN
CUPS EVERY SINGLE DAY. " -Matt Swann
produce their private label gelato.
" That was our first little dip into saying, 'We can
use our facility to do other things,' " says Swann,
referring to augmenting their own line with a
move into private-label production.
Steadily, their reach expanded as relationships
with grocery partners grew. You can now get
Coppa as far north as Sudbury, in grocery stores
across the province and in select locations outside
of the province, too.
Indeed, Coppa has quietly become a major
player in ice cream production in Ontario. Swann
Whatever they're doing, it's created a lot of
momentum - and additional major retailers
and wholesalers have come knocking, looking to
stock Coppa di Gelato product. That's kicked off
yet another round of growth, with new equipment
and new tooling underway at the Swiftsure Court
plant.
" We had to gear up, " Swann says, " to service the
growth we've experienced in recent years and the
opportunities ahead of us. "
Swan says the latest expansion will increase
MAY / JUNE 2023 | londonincmagazine.ca | 25
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London Inc. May-June 2023

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