Who in Montreal has not heard of Le Glacier Bilboquet’s legendary ice cream? Since 1983, Le Bilboquet has been serving up scoop upon scoop of innovatively-flavoured ice creams and sorbets. This week, Her Campus McGill sat down with owner Pierre Morin to chat about ice cream and the joys and challenges of owning your own business.
Reba Wilson for HC McGill: What are the most popular flavours at Le Bilboquet?
Pierre Morin: After 30 years, our most popular ice cream flavour is still vanilla – ours is called Divine Vanilla. Other very popular flavours are: Maple Taffy in the Spring, and Choco-chic (56% chocolate) and Brou-ha! Ha! (made from our Divine Vanilla ice cream with brownie bits and melted caramel made by us too and, finally, praline almonds. Also extremely popular are mango and raspberry sorbet. (Editors’ Note: the photo above is of Morin holding a Bilbopop (a sorbet or ice cream stick dipped in dark chocolate) with raspberry sorbet inside… yum!)
RW: What are your favourite flavours?
PM: I have a few – Cacaophonie (made from our Choco-chic ice cream which is 56% dark chocolate, with white chocolate chunks and cajou nuts), Choco-choc (70% dark chocolate) and Blood Orange from Italy for sorbet.
RW: You chose to purchase the brand after being a longtime customer. Had you ever intended to get into the field? What did you do before that?
PM: I was put in touch with the ex-owners totally by chance and when I met them in 2003 they had no intentions of selling their company. I took nine months of regular lunch meetings to convince the ex-owners that I was the right person to continue their business. Before that I was a marketing VP in a retail chain (fashion) for 12 years. It was not my intention to get into this field. I wanted to buy a small business. After every meeting with the ex-owners my desire to go into that field grew stronger and stronger. Today I am the happiest person on earth. I have my small business of manufacture and retail, selling pleasure and fun; a great team of young employees; and the world at our feet for future expansion! What more can I ask for? In my spare time I regularly give presentations to students on entrepreneurship… owning your own small business is so much fun. It can be stressful too, but mainly fun!
RW: In your opinion, what is the most interesting thing about ice cream?
PM: The most interesting thing is that you are selling pleasure, fun – you’re selling and getting smiles. Not many businesses have the chance to do that. Also, it is not the head that decides to buy ice cream or sorbet; it is the stomach!
RW: If you were a flavour of ice cream, what flavour would you be and why?
PM: Moka-Fouilli (moka ice cream which is a mix of real coffee and 56% chocolate with pieces of crunchy salted caramel) because I love chocolate and a good coffee in the morning makes my day. The two mixed together is a real pleasure of life. Also chocolate and coffee are like an energy bar or drink and play the same role for me. I am a bit of an hyper-active person and Moka-Fouilli is probably the secret.
RW: What is the strangest flavour you have ever encountered?
PM: We try to make and test new flavours regularly. Last year we tried Bacon/Maple Syrup ice cream… very unique and special taste. The girls hated it and the guys loved it. It was the first time we encountered such a division in taste. We are still wondering if we are going to put it on the market or not!
(Editors’ Note: The lead photo of this article is the original Le Bilboquet storefront at 1311 Bernard West in Outremont)