Sikou has a long history, with its share of setbacks and successes. In short, the life of a company is rarely very different from that of the people behind it.
The story begins in 2009. Sikou was then a small organic restaurant with a display of homemade ice cream, crafted by artisan Bruno Lai. In 2011, the small restaurant went bankrupt. Bruno had to sell his house to honour his debts, but he did not give up. He rolled up his sleeves and set out to find someone to take over his ice cream workshop.
A small group of private investors was assembled. They were won over by the quality, but above all by the philosophy behind it. In 2012, the workshop was purchased from the bankruptcy trustee, along with the shop name (Sikou). They brought Bruno on board and relaunched the workshop, distributing exclusively in 500ml tubs.
The workshop that had supplied the Saint-Gilles shop was quickly moved from Anderlecht to Etterbeek. The new distribution began in February 2013, in understated packaging, far from the flashy designs usually found on shelves. No aggressive marketing, no bullshit, just informative communication and a frank, direct tone. The Sikou brand says what it does, but also — and perhaps more importantly — what it does not do. Beyond that, the consumer is left to judge for themselves, without sales pitches or superlatives. You will never read or hear us use terms like “real coffee beans”, “unique know-how”, “exceptional taste”, “master ice cream maker”, “sublime flavours”, and so on. We respect our customers, without taking them for fools who can be duped with superlatives.
The initial bet was to make quality ice cream, in the artisan sense, accessible to as many people as possible, in a market we considered disappointing. Organic certification went without saying, as it had been part of Sikou's DNA from the very beginning and was a logical consequence of our approach, rather than a goal to be achieved. This gave rise to our slogan, which slipped out almost by accident during an interview: “Sikou is ice cream made of food” — and we were not sure whether to laugh or cry about it. Read our ingredients and compare them to what is on the market. You will very quickly understand who does what.
The recipes have not changed, and the production itself has been a real challenge in order to preserve Bruno's working methods: raw milk and raw cream, prices not negotiated with farmers, flavours prepared in the workshop kitchen, raw and noble ingredients, with no or minimal processing outside our workshops. In short, the goal was to produce ice creams and sorbets done properly, in the tradition of a good artisan.
Today, Sikou is present in all specialised organic shops in Belgium, in several dozen neighbourhood grocery stores, and in France as well.
Of course, the company will encounter more obstacles along the way, but today we have turned an idea into a certainty: the food industry is in crisis, and we, as consumers, are aware of it. Quality products have a future in the face of agri-food mega-industries and the practices of hidden or suspect ingredients.
We hope that consumers will break the habit of mediocre food and of a food budget reduced to the bare minimum, as if everything for sale in shops should be approached with the same credulity and without the slightest discernment.
The sorry reality is that our differentiating factor is simply making ice cream properly, without food chemistry and with ingredients that are as close as possible to what nature produces: cream is cream, not butter and water or all manner of fat substitutes; cane sugar is cane sugar, not sweeteners; vanilla is vanilla, not flavourings, and so on.