We were lucky to catch up with Dustin Boninsegna recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dustin , appreciate you joining us today. So, what do you think about family businesses? Would you want your children or other family members to one day join your business?

I’ve worked in my families business for the past 8 years and at first I was apprehensive about my position and constantly trying to hide the fact that I was related to the owners of the business. I felt I had to fight the notion of nepotism since day one and prove my worth as an individual in the business rather then just a relation to the business. This played as a defining factor in the person I wanted to be seen as, not just a person who lucked out but a person who worked hard and deserved my role & job title.

Now I am not only proud and outgoing to be a part of my families business, I am truly honored to have been given the opportunity to grow and develop myself independently through my families business to the point of developing my own concept and Ice Cream brand through it.

Dustin , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was an earth and life science teacher before moving into the culinary field. As I transitioned out of teaching children science, I found a new passion for teaching in a different medium. As I like to say, compared to teaching children science, teaching adults how to cook is almost the same forte, especially when the bar drinks are flowing.

As I developed my skills in the culinary field, I found my greatest passion is that of Ice Cream. I found that frozen custards is a great representation of the scientific method when it comes to the most minimal of detail changing the overall taste, texture, & quality of the custards.

I’ve been producing small batch ice cream focused on local sourced and influenced ingredients, curating creative and some times daring flavor combinations such as duck fat caramel & black garlic ice creams.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I started making ice cream many years ago while I was still a science teacher. I would do experiments with my classroom to produce instant ice cream using dry ice and liquid nitrogen. As I ventured into the culinary field I took this experiment and adapted it to our hands on experiences with our guests before starting to tackle unique flavor combinations and extravagant blends.

I bought my first commercial grade churn in 2023 and started producing ice cream exclusively for The Kitchen while I developed my Dusty Touch brand which I finally established at the end of the 2023 year.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

My key strategy to developing my clientele is to provide unique and high quality custards and to next hold anything too close to the chest. Any time I can get a taste test someones way, I feel it is crucial to not only try before they buy, but to hopefully get clients trying something new and open minds to new & unique flavors.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @thedustytouch

Image Credits
All Personal Credits(Dustin Boninsegna