Frost Popsicles, South Africa’s range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic frozen popsicles, grew from a stovetop experiment into a product stocked in dozens of major retailers and exported to multiple countries, largely by solving one unglamorous problem obsessively: cold chain logistics.
How did Frost Popsicles actually get its start?
Co-founders Natasha Fagri and Jon-Marc De Carvalho developed the original Frost Popsicles recipe on Fagri’s home stove, experimenting for 13 months before landing on a formula that worked. Getting it to market required bringing in a laboratory to stabilise the recipe, followed by another year of development on packaging alone, since the alcohol content demanded a specialised, recyclable tetrapak lining that didn’t exist off the shelf. The range has since grown to include collaborations with Haute Cabriere wine farm and Hope on Hopkins Distillery, alongside a non-alcoholic line developed in response to consumer demand.
What was the biggest operational challenge in scaling the business?
Cold chain, repeatedly. Fagri and De Carvalho describe third-party logistics providers delivering frozen stock to store receiving areas and simply leaving it there to melt, a failure serious enough that the founders eventually fired the external distributor and did deliveries themselves with boxes of dry ice, sometimes visiting the same store twice in a day. That experience led to purchasing their own freezer truck, and eventually taking merchandising in-house too after third-party merchandisers and faulty counter-top freezers repeatedly let the product down in-store.
What should a business get right domestically before attempting to export?
According to the founders, resolve your core operational weaknesses locally first, in their case cold chain, before taking them into an unfamiliar international market where problems are harder to catch and fix. “There were key operational challenges that we needed to overcome and refine locally first before we considered going international,” they say. Only once that discipline was proven domestically did they pursue distribution partnerships in markets including Botswana, Mauritius and Singapore.
How did going through South African retail listings prepare them for international retail?
Listing with major local retailers like Pick n Pay and Spar gave the founders direct experience of how large retailers evaluate and onboard new products, even though international retailers don’t necessarily follow the same process. That track record still mattered: being able to demonstrate they had already gone through a rigorous listing process with established retailers helped build credibility with international partners evaluating the brand for the first time, a discipline echoed in how SMEs build the internal discipline needed to scale.
How does Frost Popsicles decide which countries to expand into?
Two questions come first: are there already similar products established in that market, and if not, does it make more sense to establish a direct presence or find a distribution partner. In practice, the founders say they’re often approached first by an interested party in a given country, which then triggers their own viability screening process, rather than proactively targeting markets on a fixed roadmap.
Frequently asked questions
What made Frost Popsicles’ cold chain problem so difficult to solve?
Third-party logistics and merchandising providers repeatedly failed to maintain the frozen product’s temperature integrity, forcing the founders to bring transport and merchandising in-house despite the added cost.
Should a small business expand internationally before it’s fully stable locally?
Frost Popsicles’ founders argue against it: resolve core operational weaknesses in your home market first, since export introduces new variables that are far harder to manage if the underlying business isn’t already solid.
Is Frost Popsicles still available in South Africa?
Yes, the brand continues to operate and has since expanded its range further, including a spiked sparkling water line, and remains available through Frost Popsicles’ own online store and major retailers.
Originally published in May 2019. Updated September 2026.
