One of the machines Edmundo Kronfle used to make his Penguin ice creams is still working in Unilever’s Antarctica factory. The multinational company – which bought the brand in 1996 – gathered the founder with his memories and colleagues who worked with him and new ones to celebrate 70 years of Pingüin.

“Wherever there are inhabitants, there must be a Penguin,” Kronfle used to say when he was in charge, and that’s what they called him to tell him: “Here I am in Tulcán and there’s a cart with your ice creams.” “. On Wednesdays, he opened his factory – in Chile and Letamendi – to schools, to children in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades, so they can eat as much ice cream as they want. “So I lied the name Penguin in the mentality of the kids.” His phrase was “when they say ice cream, ask for a penguin, that’s how I equated the word ice cream with penguin”.

Special cacao, which grows only in Ecuador, Brazil and the Ivory Coast, gives the name and color to the new Magnum Rubí

At the age of 95, he returned to the factory -which is now on the other side of town-, reunited with the factory he started decades ago, toured the working machines and saw Politos pass by, Sanduches that are now exported to Venezuela, Magnums that are sent to Brazil and he took one with the packaging written in Portuguese, and left a special request: that they make Magnums filled with chocolate ice cream. And that is that Ecuador is a very chocolate country and the ice creams that consumers prefer the most are those with a chocolate coating, those that have some composition with chocolate.

Penguin ice cream is made at Unilever’s Antarctic factory, which is on the way to Daula. Photo: Jose Beltran

His legacy and his dream of Penguin reaching every corner of Ecuador “we have fulfilled it by far” by installing thousands of freezers across the country and adding other brands such as Magnum and Cornetto. With “this combination of presence and a wider portfolio, the history of these 70 years is strengthened”, says Orlando Colombo, manager of Helados Pingüino.

He points out that one of the strengths of Pingüin in Ecuador is that it has different products and prices, from Polito which costs $0.25, Magnum which costs $1.40, Casero for $0.75, Choco impasto from $0.60. “The variety of products we have at different price options means our consumers can access their favorite products.”

76.5 tons of Magnum ice cream were exported from Ecuador to Brazil for the first time

In terms of expansion, being part of a multinational company opened up opportunities for them to market Ecuadorian ice cream to other countries. Their exports of Magnum to Brazil and Sanduche to Venezuela allowed them to continue to grow production using national raw materials and personnel.

Among this staff is Ángel Pinto, who arrived at Pingüino in 1984 and has been working for 39 years, during which time he has gone through all the areas where cups and ice creams were made. He decided to study as a food technologist there, and he has the best memory boom Tricolor ice cream. Sara Iturralde has been working for the brand for 28 years with Kronfle and then with Unilever. Both met the founder again and together with the factory staff congratulated Penguin on 70 years on Thursday 30 March.

Ángel Pinto (i) worked with Edmund Kronfle at Pingüin and continued with Unilever, working for the brand for 39 years. Photo: Maria Teresa Martinez

Don Edmundo – as he is called – was “amazed” during a tour of the factory. “I almost feel like an owner,” he laughed. On the contrary, he said that he is proud that the brand he loves with all his soul is in the hands of Unilever who knows how to do it. Kronfle had three companies, a textile company and a textile company, which “because of fate, sometimes it doesn’t depend on one, we lost. I stayed with Penguin who saved us”. And his advice to businessmen, entrepreneurs and young people is simple: work, work and work. “I am 95 years old and I will continue to work for the next 15 years”.