Scoop Up an Ice Cream Ball in Every Color

This evening I'm thinking of gift ideas for my host family and close friends that my parents can hand over to me when we meet up at Christmas.

Before looking through coffee table books on Ohio and the United States, I scrolled to the bottom of my Amazon page to find this thing to the left, a Play and Freeze Ice Cream Maker. For some reason, this item really intrigues me as far as imagining it in Ukraine. There are two main arguments that I can think of as to whether this product would succeed in Ukraine. I wouldn't be surprised if the marketing team has considered Eastern Europe, as I'm sure there are warehouses full of them. Russian channels on satellite often feature As Seen on TV products, orders that weren't sold out for Christmas 2003, remember the sonic ab massaging belts?


Argument One: Ice Cream Ball will sell in Ukraine

This country is obsessed with everything being "domashny"(homemade) when it comes to food. It has been drilled into the mind of every citizen that homemade, chemical free, and organic is the way to go. Yes, it is nice that Ukraine is very forward thinking when it comes to the quality of food, but why this is is less expected. For one, the general public is truly afraid of genetically modified products because of the media. I sat through a school assembly where the students were told that if they had genetically modified tomatoes, they would grow pig tails. Everything is labeled "without GMOs" even the water. It's always a delicate blend here between what's actually good and healthy versus myth.
Second, home products are considered safer because some packaged products are known to cause illness. I'd rather get yelled at for wearing a light jacket on a chilly day than face the consequences of someone going through my trash to discover a sausage wrapper or some Kraft cookies. Therefore, Ukrainians would go crazy over the fact that it is "homemade."


Argument Two: Ice Cream Ball won't sell in Ukraine

It's so superfluous. We're talking about a public that hasn't changed much in their habits when it comes to food preparation for hundreds of years (when it comes to villagers). It looks like too much fun. The kids will break it by kicking it too hard. Ice cream, though delicious, is only edible for approximently two months of the year. If you eat it outside of July and August, you will indeed get a cold and possibly die.