Missoula’s Big Dipper secures major ice cream contract with Yellowstone, Glacier parks

There was a time in mid-1990s when Charlie Beaton had his doubts. He’d put money on his credit card and borrowed cash from his parents, hoping to get his little-known business making ice cream off the ground.

The University of Montana graduate had already tried selling insurance, and his new venture churning out a frozen dairy product didn’t come with a back-up plan.

"I felt like I’d failed selling insurance," Beaten told a business group at a recent Blackstone LaunchPad presentation at UM. "Ice cream was all I knew. It was a scary time."

Fast forward 21 years and Beaton, founder of Big Dipper Ice Cream http://www.bigdippericecream.com/ , has turned a job he loved doing in college at Goldsmith’s in downtown Missoula into a franchise business on the verge of something big.

By Martin Kidston/MISSOULA CURRENT

Full Story: http://www.missoulacurrent.com/business/2016/04/big-dipper-secures-major-ice-cream-contract-yellowstone-glacier-parks/