The Barbados Ice Cream Company Ltd. (BICO) (BSE:BCO) is the leading Barbadian firm that makes frozen desserts. The company was started in December 1901, as the Barbados Ice Company Limited for making ice. It is now known as BICO.[1] BICO started making ice cream in 1949. It is located at the near the Harbour Port Office park in Bridgetown.
Barbados Ice Company (BICO) was formed as the result of a merger between two ice-making companies in 1901. The new company was engaged exclusively in ice manufacture until 1910, when it decided to extend its facilities. The expansion was made for a Cold Storage Department. In 1949, it expanded again and began manufacturing ice cream. Subsequently in 1967, it became a subcontractor for the Barbados Port Authority. In 1976, the Barbados Ice Company changed its name to BICO. Since then BICO has discontinued its production of ice. Presently, it is a public limited company owned by over three hundred and fifty (350) shareholders, earning the majority of its revenue from its ice cream sales.
In June 2007, the company announced that it completed renovations on freezer facilities, and the company expanded their previous 750,000 cubic feet (21,000 m3) of storage space to just under 1 million cubic feet (28,000 m3) of storage space. The new freezer space, gives the BICO company one of the largest, if not the largest, public cold storage facility in the Caribbean region.[2]
In August 2009, the BICO manufacturing plant was destroyed by a fire causing the company to outsource operations to two Canadian-based frozen diary manufacturers. Meanwhile on-going delays have caused the BICO leadership to continue pressing the company's insurers to disburse funds to undertake rebuilding the BICO factory.[3]
The products that are available are:
The company also exports to other Caribbean islands as well. It is also listed on the Barbados Stock Exchange.