Do We Have a Scoop for You

When Wallace Stevens wrote, “The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream,” he could have had John Courtis ’07 in mind.

By 5:30 a.m. each weekday, Courtis (above) arrives at a vegan-approved kitchen unit in a former meatpacking warehouse in Chicago, now a hub for closed-loop, zerowaste independent food companies. As head of operations for Sacred Serve, he directs his team as they make around 1,000 tubs of the flavor of the day. Sacred Serve gelato is no ordinary ice cream, and not technically ice cream at all. It’s organic, vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free and fair-trade.

“Everyone can enjoy it,” Courtis says. “You can give it to kids after dinner and you won’t be peeling them off the ceiling.”

Emperor Courtis chooses the flavor of the day to respond to customer demand. There’s recently been a run on the festive Saffron Chai Spice. In between creating the product, he sorts out distribution and logistics issues, which he learned to love in his previous position as a project manager for a retail design company.

“I was honing my craft and learning everything about operations and production in business,” says Courtis. “Eventually I was working very long days, and I was ready for a move into an area where the outcome was a little more in my control. When Sacred Serve needed to take someone on to look after operations, I was ready to make the leap.”

With an economics degree plus an education certificate from St. Norbert, Courtis initially taught middle-school history, geography and American studies in Green Bay.

“I loved being in the classroom. There were wonderful moments every day, but it was challenging. On reflection, I probably wasn’t mature enough and the workload was immense. By the age of 24, I wanted to take some time to decide what was right for me.”

After a series of front-of-house roles in Green Bay restaurants came what Courtis calls “my big life switcheroo”: a move to Chicago with a U-Haul and no guaranteed job. “Again, I made the leap and it worked out. I had a job within two weeks, and I found my niche, which is solving problems.”

Even in the best regulated gelato empire a machine can break down, or there can be a potential supply-chain issue with saffron from Afghanistan: “We do work with rare ingredients, but we’ve got a consistent network and robust systems, so I’m pretty confident.”

Coconut classics
The base Sacred Serve gelato recipe contains fair-trade young coconut meat (half the calories and fat of coconut milk) imported frozen from Thailand, plus unrefined coconut oil, coconut sugar and sunflower lecithin. Flavor adds include chaga mushrooms, maca root, raw cacao and matcha green tea. “Don’t ask me my favorite flavor,” says Courtis. “It’s like choosing a favorite child. ... OK, I love the Matcha Mint Chip.”

No lids
And it's all wrapped up in a carton without a lid. “We worked with a partner for three years to remove the plastic from our packaging, and in 2021 we officially debuted the world’s first 100 percent plastic-free, compost-able, biodegradable and recyclable ice-cream carton,” says Courtis.

Sacred Serve is in Whole Foods in the Midwest plus a range of independent shops throughout the U.S., or at sacredserve.com.

March 17, 2022