BRUNSWICK

Gelato Fiasco and Frosty’s Donuts want to sweeten their chances of expanding, and are hoping federal funding may help.

Gelato Fiasco is looking for a $350,000 Community Development Block Grant to help move them toward a new phase of wholesale production.

The company is planning a $1.4 million expansion to keep up with demand as business has boomed over the last couple of years, according to cofounder Joshua Davis.

In an interview Monday, Davis said Gelato Fiasco will expand from 6,200 square feet to 12,400 square feet in two stories at its current location on Industry Road in Brunswick.

The new space is in response to the company’s rapid expansion, he said.

“We’ve added over 1,000 stores in the last year, including in a number of Kroger stores,” said Davis. “‘Made In Brunswick’ is now on pints in 47 states.”

The company added 20 positions over the last 20 months, and is looking to add 15 more as part of the stipulations for accepting the CDBG. Salaries would range from $10 to $15 per hour, plus benefits.

“We looked at plenty of other options, and we thought we had to move from Brunswick, but at the end of the day the grant convinced us to grow (in Brunswick),” Davis said. “It’s important to reiterate how important Brunswick is. One of the reasons we have been successful is that our roots are here in Brunswick, Maine. That’s something people recognize.”

“It’s a widely known product,” Brunswick Business Development Manager Linda Smith told the town council on Thursday.

Brunswick mainstay Frosty’s is seeking more than $100,000 in CDBG funding about a year after applying for a previous grant to expand wholesale production at Brunswick Landing.

The latest grant would help cross-train employees in order to have redundancy in the Frosty’s workforce. Through the 16-week training process, new employees would see their wages increase from $10 per hour to $15.

Maine’s minimum wage is $7.50 an hour.

Brunswick Town Councilor John Perreault said that the 16 weeks seemed like an “extreme” amount of time to train someone to put “the frosting on the doughnuts and stacking doughnuts on a tray.”

CDBG are federal funds that are applied for through the state by a municipality that earmark the funds to a specific business.

Council vote

The council unanimously voted to apply for grants for both Frosty’s and Gelato Fiasco. That was over the objection of resident Richard Fisco, who argued that public money should not go toward private business that would “destroy” competing businesses.

Councilor John Richardson defended the CDBG program as “maybe the most important program the federal government offers, which is workforce training.”

Sweet Gelato

GELATO FIASCO is looking for a $350,000 Community Development Block Grant to help move them toward a new phase of wholesale production.

The company added 20 positions over the last 20 months, and is looking to add 15 more as part of the stipulations for accepting the CDBG. Salaries would range from $10 to $15 per hour, plus benefits.