While the most gratifying part of our work is hearing from customers every day who enjoy our stores and gelato, every once in a while exciting outside accolades come in as well. Here’s our announcement about the Empact100 award, which will bring Josh and Bruno to the White House at the end of the month. Seems like we’ll have to pack our trusty black staff t-shirts away for a day and put on our suits!

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The Gelato Fiasco has been named to the 2012 Empact100 list by Empact, an organization that focuses on making entrepreneurship a career option for everyone around the world. The award recognizes the Top 100 Companies Started by Young Entrepeneurs. Founders Joshua Davis, 30, and Bruno Tropeano, 29, will be among those recognized on September 28 at a ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C.

The list was finalized by the 2012 Empact Academy. Members of the academy are among the United States’ leading entrepreneurs, and include:
– Aaron Batalion, Founder & CTO, Living Social
– Gene Landrum, Founder, Chuck E. Cheese
– Jeff Hoffman, Founding Team Member, Priceline.com
– Jeff Sandefer, Founder, Action Foundation & Sandefer Offshore
– Mike Delazzer, Founder, Redbox
– Linda Rottenberg, Co-Founder and CEO, Endeavor
– Chuck Templeton, Founder, Open Table

The Gelato Fiasco currently employs 36 people across its retail and wholesale businesses. We make our gelato from scratch using house recipes, milk from Maine farms, and natural cane sugar.

The Empact100 list is comprised of the top 100 companies in the Empact Showcase, a compilation of the United States’ leading entrepreneurs who are age 30 and under, and whose annual revenues are more than $100,000. In 2012, the companies on the Empact Showcase contributed more than 8,000 jobs to the economy, and controlled $1 billion in revenue.

— Post by Bobby Guerette