DC Foods, parent company of premium frozen dessert brand Island Way, has appointed Matt Close to its board of directors as the South Africa-based company accelerates distribution and retail penetration in North America. The move brings a 32-year Unilever veteran — most recently President of Global Ice Cream — into the governance structure of one of the frozen dessert segment's faster-growing insurgent brands.
The Numbers
By summer 2026, Island Way will be stocked in more than 15,000 retail locations, roughly triple its shelf footprint from prior periods. Over the past year alone, the brand added more than 3,000 new store doors and executed exclusive product launches with Sam's Club and Target. DC Foods is projecting significant revenue growth in the U.S. and has flagged continued expansion into Canada and additional international markets. Island Way was also named to Bain & Company's 2026 Insurgent Brands List, a closely watched benchmark of challenger brands outpacing their categories.
The Hire
Close spent three decades at Unilever across marketing, general management and category leadership before reaching the Global Ice Cream presidency, a role that put him over one of the largest ice cream portfolios in the world — a stable that includes Magnum, Ben & Jerry's and Breyers. He currently advises Blantyre Capital. David Peters, CEO of DC Foods and Island Way, called Close's expertise in consumer trends, brand building and category growth "unparalleled" as the company looks to scale distribution and consumer awareness simultaneously.
Close cited Island Way's "distinctive brand" combining premium quality and consumer appeal as the draw. The company's signature product line features handcrafted frozen desserts served inside actual fruit shells — a format that differentiates it on shelf against conventional novelties and positions it closer to the premium-indulgence tier than the mainstream frozen treat aisle.
What This Signals
Board-level hires with deep category credentials typically precede accelerated channel development or capital activity. For Island Way, the timing aligns with a retail expansion cycle that is already straining toward grocery, club, and mass simultaneously — a multi-channel push that demands both supply-chain discipline and marketing scale, precisely the competencies Close built at Unilever. The frozen dessert category has seen sustained interest from better-for-you and premium-indulgence entrants alike, and insurgent brands with strong club-channel placement have historically used that volume base to negotiate broader grocery distribution.
For foodservice operators and specialty frozen dessert suppliers, Island Way's trajectory illustrates the growing consumer appetite for experiential frozen formats — a trend that has pushed operators toward premium LTO dessert programs as a daypart traffic driver. Whether DC Foods pursues a foodservice channel alongside its retail build remains to be seen, but Close's category network makes it a logical next conversation.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
