Chicago Based Father-Daughter Duo Get Their Black Owned Frozen Yogurt Line in Walgreens
Photo from Lorenzo’s Frozen Pudding
Father-daughter founders of Lorenzo’s Frozen Pudding, Lorenzo and Genesis Bencivenga, recently took their business to the next level with the help of Walgreens’ Top Shelf program.
The Bencivengas started Lorenzo’s Frozen Pudding in 2011, with their first product being a traditional Southern-style banana pudding. From there, they added 12 additional flavors and sold them out of their car in the South Side of Chicago.
Genesis named the company after her father to pay her respects to his entrepreneurial drive. “My father has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. He’s done things to try to create something better than what we had,” Genesis told Walgreens Newsroom.
By 2013, the father-daughter duo had moved their company out of their home and into a shared kitchen. That same year, their pudding hit the shelves at local grocery stores in Chicago. Their business grew by word-of-mouth, leading them to downsize the number of products sold to meet customer demand. Eventually, Lorenzo and Genesis decided to focus on selling their three best-selling flavored puddings: banana, strawberry, and pineapple.
Even with the cutback on flavors, the consumer demand for their popular frozen yogurt line was still off the charts and exceeded what their infrastructure could handle. They decided to pause Lorenzo’s Frozen Pudding momentarily while Lorenzo eased into retirement, leaving Genesis responsible for maintaining their business.
On her third attempt to restart the business, Genesis sought outside help to revitalize Lorenzo’s Frozen Pudding. In 2020, she reached out to The Women’s Business Development Center (WBDC), encouraging her to enroll in their Top Shelf: High Volume Retail Insights program. It’s an intensive eight-week program designed for business owners like Genesis to learn how to build high-performing businesses that can create generational wealth.
The program is sponsored by Walgreens, which is what led to Lorenzo’s Frozen Pudding getting the opportunity to be sold during a six-store pilot after Genesis graduated from the Top Shelf program in 2020. After seeing success at the pilot stores, Walgreens decided to spread the distribution of the pudding to over 70 stores across the country!
Genesis and Lorenzo’s story proves that with the available resources, Black entrepreneurs can thrive and provide generational wealth to their families and surrounding communities.