Ashley David Chapman

The Drew Marshall Show

Back in 1973, David and Penny Chapman bought a small creamery in Markdale Ontario. The Chapman family began with four employees and two trucks and moved into the cramped and primitive rooms above an old creamery in town. In 2001, Chapman\'s opened a distribution center in New Brunswick to better serve its customers in Atlantic Canada. Although Chapman\'s Ice Cream has grown substantially, it is still firmly rooted in the community and deeply loyal to its employees. The distribution centre in Ontario covers about 140,000 square feet and can house over 6 million units of product, which gets delivered right across Canada on over 50 trucks. At 10 am on September 4th, 2009, someone noticed smoke coming out of one of the buildings. By mid-afternoon, the fire was almost under control when the Municipality of Grey Highlands undersized water tower ran dry. At 5 pm the Chapman family withdrew to their family home outside of Markdale, after witnessing 36 years of hard work go up in smoke, but within an hour of getting home, the family made the quick decision to rebuild their business. Worried about the local economy, and their 350 employees who make up the extended Chapman family, the Chapman\'s refused to go down without a fight! Shortly after this, the entire management team gathered around David and Penny\'s dining room table and started planning the rebuild. Within 7 weeks from the fire, Chapman’s produced their first 2Litre brick of ice cream! In the ensuing months, the community and Chapman\'s worked tirelessly to build their new manufacturing facility, appropriately named Phoenix. Within a year and a half from the fire, they had rebuilt bigger and better than ever! Today, Chapman\'s is Canada\'s largest independent ice cream company.