Wharton grad's 'Microbatch' left out in the cold

Jeremy Kraus' dreams of sweet success in the ice cream business have all melted away. The 1998 Wharton graduate's company, Jeremy's MicroBatch Ice Creams, Inc., closed its doors last Tuesday after three tumultuous years that included a Super Bowl appearance, several personnel shakeups and an eight-month stint on the stock market. While Kraus and other MicroBatch officials could not be reached for comment this weekend, a recorded message at the company's main telephone number provided a brief -- and somewhat cryptic -- explanation of the sudden closure. "We have ceased all operations effective Tuesday, October 3," the message said. "An outside team has been retained to assess and liquidate the company's remaining assets." MicroBatch spokeswoman Michelle Peranteau also declined to give details about the closure. "All I can tell you is that we received the order from the board to cease operations and all employees were terminated," she told The Philadelphia Inquirer last week. The gourmet ice cream company -- which Kraus started while majoring in entrepreneurial management during his junior year at Penn -- gained national exposure in 1999 when it won free airtime during the Super Bowl -- a game whose television coverage is widely regarded as the world's most high-profile advertising vehicle. MicroBatch earned the spot among the Super Bowl's advertising elite by winning a contest for small businesses sponsored by Mail Boxes Etc. in late 1998. The 30-second spot -- worth $1.6 million in airtime -- featured Kraus himself extolling the virtues of MicroBatch's super-premium ice cream. A year later, the company made a lukewarm initial public offering on the Nasdaq SmallCap Market. Despite minor success in its first few days of trading, MicroBatch stock quickly dropped below its IPO price of $6 and began a steady nosedive until trading was halted last Tuesday at $1.08. The company's failure came as a disappointment to Ian MacMillan, management professor and director of Wharton's Entrepreneurial Programs, who praised MicroBatch's efforts toward social responsibility. "I think it's a shame that such a community-minded business had to close," he said, referring to the company's practice of hiring many local residents during its West Philadelphia residency. "I wanted to use it as an example of a company that was launched to do good for the community," Macmillan said. But while MicroBatch's mission may have been clear, its operations were less than smooth. Kraus had to deal with major internal upheaval over the summer, including the loss of its chief operations officer, the arrival of a new chief executive officer, the appointment of an entirely new management team and a relocation from Philadelphia to the suburbs.

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