Damian’s Wholesale Ice Cream embarks on a new venture as it joins forces with ATL Cold Storage
From frozen lemonade to ice cream galore, Damian’s Wholesale Ice Cream (Damian’s) has been on quite the journey. Centered around Benjamin Franklin’s iconic quote, ‘Well done is better than well said’, Damian’s is a true American success story, and the business has been a roaring success since the 1970s. Since its initial incarnation as a powerhouse frozen lemonade company, it’s grown into a full-service, full merchandising, direct store delivery company and has become the partner of choice for the world’s leading retailers like Walgreen’s, CVS, Circle K, and Family Dollar, distributing global brands like Unilever, Dreyer’s, Mars, Ben & Jerrys, Häagen-Dazs, Good Humor, Popsicle, Danone, Simply, Fairlife, Horizon, Stoffer, Jimmy Dean’s, Hot Pockets, Tombstone, Digiorno and Cool Cow, among other leading brands.
In its latest development, Damian’s is thrilled to announce an exciting new chapter as it embarks on a new joint venture with ATL Cold Storage (ATL), with a new, dual-purpose facility scheduled for completion in October 2025. To learn more about this strategic move and Damian’s story thus far, Food Chain sat down with Joe Manning, President and Chief Executive Officer at Damian’s, and Bill Sadler, Owner of ATL. 
“Damian’s was founded in 1978 by a gentleman named Tony Jacobs, who moved from Rhode Island down to Pensacola and launched a frozen lemonade. Damian’s Frozen Lemonade was named after his oldest son, who was about six months old at the time,” Joe begins. “The company was a tremendous regional success. It served all the local events, featured in the food lines in public schools because it had such a high fruit content, and served all the Six Flags theme parks across the country. It was a brilliantly successful business for over a quarter of a century.
“While enjoying success as a manufacturer of frozen lemonade, Tony decided to branch out in another direction by providing full-service merchandising and direct store delivery to small format ice cream providers. He ultimately ended up servicing Walgreens, CVS, and all the major convenience store chains in North Florida for the major manufacturers of ice cream. Soon, all the big national brands and major retailers recognized Damian’s’ distribution strength and prowess. Fast forward 25 years and we’ve expanded our offering from ice cream to include frozen food, chilled beverages, and even milk for our strategic partners.”
Profitable partnership
Meanwhile, ATL launched operations in Pensacola in a brand-new facility located at the Ellyson Industrial Park in 1990 and, similar to Damian’s, its journey is also a tale of transformation and resilience. “The history of ATL is connected with its parent transportation company called Alterman Transport Lines based out of Miami, Florida and founded in 1938. The Company ran 18 terminals nationwide, from California to New York to Miami and points in between as a refrigerated LTL and TL carrier,” Bill begins. “I began my career with Alterman as the Operations General Manager for the facility located here in Pensacola which not only encompassed the transportation segment but also the cold storage operations. One of our first cold storage customers in this area was Tony Jacobs with Damian’s Wholesale Ice Cream. We established both a friendship and a great customer relationship.
“Some years later, the family decided to sell, divest and liquidate the entire company’s operations. My relationship with the ownership at that time allowed me to absorb ATL Cold Storage at Pensacola into one of my existing companies and as a result we continued to operate the cold storage here in Northwest Florida. Unfortunately, the Panhandle in the Gulf Coast got hit with a series of hurricanes back-to-back – Hurricane Ivan, Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Katrina – and the cold storage building suffered significant damages. We weathered through that yet had to move into some other facilities to continue operations and still continued to service much of our customer base. Through an interesting sequence of events, I met Joe and we realized that we had a lot in common. We felt a partnership could bring about a resurgence in cold storage operations after all the damage we’d suffered.”
“Bill and I became acquainted around a year ago and we hit it off,” Joe adds. “It was an immediate friendship that’s ultimately given birth to a business partnership as well.”
Now, having significantly outgrown its existing infrastructure, Damian’s is building a brand-new facility in Milton, Florida that it will share with ATL, as both businesses remain poised for growth. This major investment will see an innovative, accessible campus equipped with cutting-edge technology and spacious warehousing to optimize operations and increase capacity.
“The new building in Milton is strategically located off of Interstate 10,” Bill explains. “From the transportation side, it’s going to offer very easy access. A lot of our customer base are excited about the move.”
“Our new campus will be a dual-purpose facility made up of three buildings,” Joe details. “It will be the headquarters for both ATL and Damian’s. We’ll share the facility and operate as a combined entity – a true legal partnership where we’re joined at the hip.
“This is a really exciting opportunity to bring new state-of-the-art technology into the facility. We plan to bring in the latest and greatest voice pick technology to the warehouse and new, enterprise-style inventory management systems. Consequently, we expect to see greater efficiencies in the warehouse and greater inventory control, giving our customers a high level of confidence that the merchandise stored with us will be well-maintained, protected and well controlled.”
True teamwork
Concluding our conversation, Joe and Bill are keen to extend their gratitude to all the partners who helped make it happen. “There are a couple of people I’d love to mention and thank. We appreciate the opportunity to carry incredible, world-class brands of ice cream, frozen food, chilled beverages, and milk. We only deal with the best of the nationally recognized brands, but there are some local partners we work with that I’d like to mention.
“We’re moving our infrastructure from Escambia County to Santa Rosa County, due to the warm welcome and great support we’ve received from Shannon Ogletree, Executive Director of the Santa Rosa County Economic Development Office (SREDO), and the entire Santa Rosa County team. They’ve been wonderful to work with and they’re making this transition possible.
“We have a brilliant architectural partner with Quina Grundhoefer Architects; Danny Grundhoefer is quarterbacking this building and he’s doing a wonderful job,” Joe continues. “We’re grateful to Hanto & Clarke, the general contractor working on the construction, for their commitment and dedication to hitting this aggressive timeline, and doing so on budget. Of course, nothing happens without financing and The First Bank has just been brilliant to work with; we have great appreciation for Karen Wright and her entire team for funding the project and helping it see the light of day. And, of course, a very special thanks to Tony Jacobs, Damian’s founder, visionary, mentor, and dear friend.”
With the two businesses due to move into the facility in a few months’ time, Damian’s and ATL are both set for another successful year as they expand and evolve together. Remaining at the forefront of frozen distribution, the companies will continue to be partners of choice, with an ethos that epitomizes passion and integrity.