Sweet dreams: Her cravings led her to make and sell a low-calorie ice cream

Ms Vanessa Kua’s dream was to eat ice cream every day without the calories. That spurred the 26-year-old to come up with her business idea in 2022.

Ms Kua, 26, now juggles her home-based ice cream business with her full-time job as a marketing executive. Goodlato is a low-calorie ice cream which comes in 12 flavours, such as Ube (yam with a hint of vanilla), Ondeh Ondeh and Choco Chip MilkyWay.

Goodlato’s hand-made ice cream is higher in protein and lower in sugar than other brands, said Ms Kua – it does not contain additional sugar apart from naturally occurring sugars in ingredients and flavouring. It also uses whey protein isolate to bump up the protein level, to cater to gym-goers, she explained.

One pint or 473ml of Goodlato’s vanilla milk ice cream contains 280 kilocalories, compared with about 980 kilocalories on average for other ice cream brands in the market, she added.

The thought to establish her own start-up came to her “on my birthday in 2022, when I was sitting on a swing having ice cream: I really want an ice cream shop one day,” said Ms Kua, a business administration graduate from the National University of Singapore.

“I kept thinking about it even after I went home, so I bought my first small ice cream maker.”

After the spontaneous decision, Ms Kua conducted multiple trials before finally coming up with her first “edible” vanilla milk flavour prototype about two months later. She continued to experiment and sought feedback from her friends and family to improve her recipe.

Most of the feedback she got at first was good “for homemade ice cream”, she said.

Ms Kua said that every ingredient is calculated and weighed to ensure the macronutrient ratio is balanced and beneficial to those who are more health-conscious. 

“It’s something that the market needed at that point of time. People could benefit from my low-calorie, high-protein ice cream, especially those who love ice cream a lot – like me. So, I tried to make a product that people can enjoy every single day,” she said.

When Goodlato launched in 2022 as a click-and-mortar business, with a store at Clarke Quay, it was one of the first hand-made low-fat, low-sugar artisanal ice-cream cafes in Singapore, said Ms Kua. 

Ms Kua used her savings and her mum’s contribution to start the business, at a cost of less than $10,000. Goodlato broke even within the first three months. She kept the costs low by sourcing a fully furnished stall, spending only on necessities, and also got her hands dirty doing some minor work at her store, she said.

Although the business was well received and generated hype through social media and partnerships, Ms Kua faced multiple challenges including burnout, due to the long hours managing a business on her own.

She made Goodlato’s ice cream herself in a kitchen at the store. In addition, she had to manage finances, such as profit margins and rental costs, as well as the online marketing. She hired part-timers to help man the physical store, but they were mostly students who rotated regularly.

She said: “There was a time when I was experiencing losses and had to borrow one month’s rent of about $2,800 from my parents. I felt like a failure compared with my peers who could support themselves and their parents with their full-time jobs. My mum assured me that everybody’s journey was unique and that she was proud of me thus far.”

As much as Ms Kua wanted to continue to operate the business with a physical retail store, she ultimately decided to make it an online business – and a side one at that – in order to better manage the challenges of burnout and finances.

After 1½ years, she moved her business fully online, taking orders via Shopee, Lazada and its own website (

www.goodlato.com

). She also took a full-time marketing executive job at an audio-visual company in 2024.

These days, Ms Kua receives about three to four orders weekly and makes ice cream after work – sometimes till 1am – and on the weekends.

“I had a lot of doubts after closing my retail store, but my mum assured me that I made the right decision and did what was best for my brand,” said Ms Kua.

Today, Goodlato has many regulars, she said. The bright purple Ube flavour is its bestseller, accounting for up to 40 per cent of the orders.

Some of Goodlato’s other popular flavours are Midnight Chocolate, Cookies & Creme, and Caramel Butter Crumble.

A pint of Goodlato’s ice cream costs from $17, and from $4.80 for the ice-cream cups, depending on the flavour.

Ms Kua said that bringing her business to her home kitchen has rejuvenated the passion she had in the beginning.

Even with her full-time job, she has more time for marketing on social media and improving her branding – unlike previously, when she was easily exhausted from maintaining operations in a physical store for nine hours a day, even on weekends.

And she doesn’t have to worry about the rental and overhead costs.

Ms Kua plans to keep her business running and work on expanding Goodlato’s online presence – and more.

“One goal I’ve always had was to have my ice creams stocked up in supermarkets – but that’s a really long way to go,” she said.