About Vida Longa Soft Serve Ice Cream
The Spheris family have been in the ice cream business for 3 generations. Grandfather Andrew started his first factory in 1948. Sons, Harry and Costa began working in the hand production factory from the age of 12, with memories of manually placing sticks into ice cream lollies.
In 1983 the brothers took over the business and grew it into one of the largest national ice cream producers with factories around South Africa. Their passion for ice cream lead to such innovations as the first stick-less ice cream chocolate bar; supplying soft serve to the largest retail franchise in South Africa; and the launch of Cadbury’s Flake 99 amongst others.
After 60 years of supplying the market, the family realised that perishability and cold chain management were the industry’s biggest challenges. And so Dairy Innovation was founded, with the specific vision of solving these problems through innovation and quality. This led to the creation of Vida Longa, distilling 60 years of ice cream experience into 9 months of shelf life.
Grandson Andrew joined the business with a keen passion for foreign markets, and has helped make Dairy Innovation an international player, and Vida Longa a globally exported product.