The first time I tried Brad Kurtenbach’s ice cream, it was early summer 2004. After a long, dreary winter, the sun had finally shown itself. Kensington Market was hopping.

Thickset, with dark brown hair and a desperate grin, Kurtenbach had recently retired from a short career as an orderly at St. Michael’s Hospital, and had decided he’d try to make a go of the ice cream business—though business, the young man didn’t have to say, was hardly his strong suit. He was standing out in the street, handing samples to passersby, promising a discount to anybody who was wearing a bicycle helmet (memories of St. Mike’s trauma ward). If judged only by Kurtenbach’s seat-of-the-pants intensity, his fledgling enterprise, called Kensington Market Organic Ice Cream, was already doomed.

But his handmade ice cream, thick and buttery rich with beautifully balanced, novel flavours, told another story entirely. He made it the old-fashioned way, with organic cream, eggs, sugar and spices, and fresh, seasonal fruit. And some of the flavours he was making then—rose petal, for instance, and cardamom-and-vanilla—showed that Kurtenbach and his ice creams were well beyond the usual.

We talked for a while that day, and, as I went to pay for the cones I’d eaten, he wouldn’t let me. I insisted. He was adamant. So I asked him the question I would soon begin to ask him every couple of months, a question I still ask him to this day: “Have you turned a profit yet?” He chuckled, embarrassed, as if the thought of profit had never occurred to him. “Well, no,” he said, “not by a long shot.” So I told him he could buy me an ice cream when he started making money. His face lit up, and he agreed right away. I’ve been waiting to collect on that deal ever since.

Small-scale, artisanal food producers often complain that business isn’t easy. Making an excellent product is hard enough, even before you consider the large-scale competitors, the near-chronic undercapitalization, the realities of marketing and distribution, and the high cost of production. But Kurtenbach has had more than his share of setbacks. He’s been through five scoop shop locations in Kensington Market in the past three years. The market, in spite of its patchouli-and-dreadlocks aesthetic, can be a tough, highly competitive place for a small, seasonal business; he’s currently looking for a space for this summer. In a province where the majority of dairy farmers see organic milk as more of a threat than an opportunity, he’s struggled to source enough quality organic milk and cream for his needs. Kurtenbach has also never had a permanent space in which to produce his ice cream.