Summer is around the corner and the Chona family, ice-cream veterans, are turning on the heat. Recently, Ankit Chona and his family flew down from Mumbai to Ahmedabad for a ceremony to mark the expansion of their Hocco ice-cream plant at Bavla, on the outskirts of the city. In a few months, the facility will churn out three times more ice-cream than its current production of 40,000 litres per day.
The Chonas, who sold their Havmor ice-cream brand to South Korean Lotte Confectionery in 2017, re-entered the vacated space with Hocco in October 2023.
They now plan a second ice-cream factory in north India and expansion into the US and Canada markets.
“After selling Havmor, we moved to Mumbai in 2019. We started four Huber & Holly parlours, selling freshly churned premium ice-creams alongside food, including pizza. But, unfortunately, during Covid we had to shut down. We also launched Phab, a healthy snacking and protein supplement brand, in Mumbai in February 2020. However, we had to move back to Ahmedabad during Covid. It was only later that we decided to get back into the ice-cream business,” says Chona.
Hocco’s ice-cream plant at Bavla, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, churns out 40,000 litres per day
For five years, after the sale of Havmor, the Chona family focused on the Huber & Holly ice-cream brand, which was launched in 2016 and was not part of the deal with the South Korean entity.
But they did not expand Huber & Holly nor did they try to compete on pricing as they wanted to keep it in the premium segment.
New brand Hocco — short for House of Chonas Collaborative — was launched for the mass market to offer quality ice-creams at affordable prices. “In October 2023, we started off with a 20,000 litres per day ice-cream plant near Ahmedabad. By March 2024, we had to scale it up to 40,000 litres. Such was the demand. In the first year, the response was phenomenal in Gujarat and this encouraged us to expand into north India with a second manufacturing unit,” says Chona.
Cool legacy
Ice-cream manufacturing has long been an area of interest for the Chona family, which traces its roots to Karachi, now in Pakistan. Post-Partition, Satish Chona — grandfather of Ankit — migrated to Ahmedabad and opened a quick service restaurant on the iconic Relief Road. The basement had an ice-cream factory. It was under son Pradeep that the ice-cream business flourished.
“When my grandfather, a refugee from Pakistan, passed away in the 1990s, we just had two ice-cream machines and we used to sell in 30-odd locations in Ahmedabad. It was under my father that the brand prospered,” says Chona.
The Chona family, along with investors like Sauce VC and a few angels, put in ₹150 crore to set up Hocco, which has become the fourth largest ice-cream brand in Gujarat, after Amul, Vadilal and Havmor.
The family plans to scoop up another ₹100 crore to scale up. “The plant at Bavla can only be expanded up to two lakh litres per day. We are now scouting for land in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan to set up a second plant before the summer of 2026,” he elaborates, adding that the new unit will service NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan.
Double scoops
The ice-cream market in India, which is growing year-on-year at 15-18 per cent, is hotting up. Hocco targets a bigger helping of the market, including the growing rural demand, which Chona attributes to the rapid electrification of villages. The rise of quick commerce and strengthening of road infrastructure aided the spread of new brands like Hocco. Of the company’s projected ₹200 crore revenue this financial year, a lion’s share — about ₹160 crore — will come from Gujarat; newer markets like Rajasthan, Maharashtra and NCR will make up the rest.
For the planned entry of Hocco into the US and Canada markets, the company hopes to piggyback on its food and beverage (F&B) business. Hocco ice-creams are sold in the 100-odd Chona family-owned restaurant brands Hocco Eatery and 1944 The Hocco Kitchen. “We are expanding our F&B business into the US and Canada. We opened the first store in Virginia Beach in the US last year, and it broke even in the third month. We want to open at least 10 stores, mainly in cities with a big Indian diaspora like New York, New Jersey, Chicago and Toronto. They will operate on the ‘franchisee-owned, company-operated’ model, and will also sell Hocco ice-creams. We feel the potential in the US is 10 times that in India,” says an upbeat Chona. “While each store will entail ₹2-3 crore investment, we will depend completely on word of mouth to market our Hocco brand in the US,” he says.
Meanwhile, Huber & Holly ice-creams continue to be sold through 20-plus high-end parlours, including in Ahmedabad (four outlets), Pune (five), Hyderabad (four), Bengaluru (three) and Amritsar (one). And the restaurant business under the QSR Hocco Eatery and casual dining 1944 brands offers north Indian cuisine across Gujarat as well as ice-creams.
Healthy offerings
The Chona family’s healthy eating brand Phab is run by Gayatri, Chona’s wife. “The idea behind the brand was to make healthy eating fun. The concept has always been that if something is healthy, then it is not tasty? When Havmor was sold, I really wanted to do something in the health segment, so we launched the brand for a country that is protein-deficient, but also loves snacking and bonds over food,” says Gayatri, who holds a master’s degree in dietetics from the University of Sheffield, UK.
Phab also looks to expand by raising capital. “Our experience with Hocco taught us that a strategic partner brings fresh eyes to the business. One of our possible partners, who is looking to invest, owns multiple sports teams. We see a strategic partner there,” adds Gayatri. The Chona family’s cup of ambition runneth over.