The scoop on Kenny Boy Ice Cream

Entrepreneur — and Pearl City High School senior — Kenny Tsuru began making ice cream after going through a challenging period with his health. He is a member of the newest cohort for ‘Āina to Mākeke, a food business program from Leeward Community College's Office of Workforce Development in partnership with the Hawai‘i Ag and Culinary Alliance, and at 18, he's the youngest participant in the program’s history.

SS
Stephanie Salmons

February 28, 20266 min read

Kenny Tsuru, a Pearl City High School senior and owner of Kenny Boy Ice Cream, works on a batch of his Melono ice cream Feb. 18 at the Wahiawā Value-Added Product Development Center.
Kenny Tsuru, a Pearl City High School senior and owner of Kenny Boy Ice Cream, works on a batch of his Melono ice cream Feb. 18 at the Wahiawā Value-Added Product Development Center. (Stephanie Salmons | Aloha State Daily)

The overhead lights are bright on this Wednesday morning.

In the commercial kitchen at Leeward Community College’s Wahiawā Value-Added Product Development Center, Kenny Tsuru carefully pours a bright green syrup into the creamy base for his ice cream. A melon scent fills the air.

  • Kenny Tsuru works on a batch of his Melono ice cream Feb. 18 at the Wahiawā Value-Added Product Development Center. The young entrepreneur has just turned 18 and is the youngest participant in the history of the ‘Āina to Mākeke food business program.
    Kenny Tsuru works on a batch of his Melono ice cream Feb. 18 at the Wahiawā Value-Added Product Development Center. The young entrepreneur has just turned 18 and is the youngest participant in the history of the ‘Āina to Mākeke food business program. (Stephanie Salmons | Aloha State Daily)
  • Kenny Tsuru, the name and driver behind Kenny Boy Ice Cream, packages his Melono ice cream.
    Kenny Tsuru, the name and driver behind Kenny Boy Ice Cream, packages his Melono ice cream. (Stephanie Salmons | Aloha State Daily)
  • Kenny Boy Ice Cream is one of 15 food entrepreneurs participating in the ‘Āina to Mākeke food business program.
    Kenny Boy Ice Cream is one of 15 food entrepreneurs participating in the ‘Āina to Mākeke food business program. (Stephanie Salmons | Aloha State Daily)

After it’s mixed, he talks as he moves to the ice cream machine, pours it in and presses the buttons to make it go. It would take him 24 hours to make a batch at home, he says. This produces six times as much in less than 10 minutes.

When that step is done, he moves to the table and begins to meticulously scoop his Melono ice cream into individual cups.

“When I started this business, I really wanted to bring in a Melono [flavor], but make it unique,” Tsuru explains. “I really like the taste of Melona shave ice and the mixture of that with condensed milk and ice cream, so I started and I made my own creation, which is ‘Melono’ which is exactly that — all combined into an ice cream with a very creamy texture and really my dream ice cream flavor.”

The entrepreneur — and Pearl City High School senior — is the namesake and driver behind Kenny Boy Ice Cream. He produces out of the WVAPDC commercial kitchen and sells his ice cream online and at the center’s monthly market.

He’s also a member of ‘Āina to Mākeke’s newest cohort, and the youngest participant in the program’s history. The day we meet him — Feb. 18 — was his 18th birthday.

‘Āina to Mākeke is a 12-week program is offered by the LCC’s Office of Workforce Development and the Wahiawā Value-Added Product Development Center in collaboration with the Hawai‘i Ag and Culinary Alliance. It aims to help local makers turn home recipes into market-ready products.

Aloha State Daily caught up with Tsuru to learn more about his business and participation in the program.

Tsuru started Kenny Boy Ice Cream after dealing with some health problems.

He was an active teenager, working two jobs, participating in sports and used to work out daily, but with his health condition, he could no longer do that. It even got to a point he says he couldn’t walk, couldn’t go to school and had to stop working.

“I wanted a way to put a smile on my face,” he told ASD. “I went out and bought a Ninja CREAMi ice cream maker for Black Friday [in 2024], and I just started making ice cream for myself and my friends and my family. I really got into it.”

His sweets-loving family was supportive and encouraged his work, and Tsuru began selling to friends, family, neighbors and people around him.

He “really got official” last summer. Tsuru says he started to feel better and his health problems began to go away.

“I decided that this wasn’t just going to be a passion project. This was going to be my business. This was the first thing I ever found in my life that I really enjoyed, and I felt this is my purpose. I felt this was a calling. This was really the career I wanted to go into,” he says. “And I know as a high school teenager, not a lot of people say that, and it is early on, but I really found that this made me happy. This helped me during that hard time in my health, and I really felt that this is what I wanted to do, so I went all-in in July.”

He came up with the name — Kenny Boy Ice Cream — and borrowed the slogan from an uncle: “It’s ono ono brah!”

From there, Tsuru says he started selling 32-ounce family-size tubs of the sweet treat, began networking and attended business entrepreneurship opportunities.

Tsuru also is in the management cohort program of the International Business and Design Academy at Pearl City High School, where he can earn early college credits and a certificate of achievement. His mentor at school suggested he check out the WVAPDC and he went to the showcase for the ‘Āina to Mākeke cohort six.

“I got to see what the ‘Āina to Mākeke program was and I was so amazed,” Tsuru says. “I wanted to make it happen for me. I wanted to be a part of that, so I really made it my goal to figure out what it was going to take for me to be a part of the cohort. As a young entrepreneur — at the time under 18 — I didn’t know if it was possible.”

He kept talking with employees of the center, participated in workshops and went to events the center hosted to get in the door. When applications for the new to ‘Āina to Mākeke cohort opened, he jumped at the chance to apply.

"I said no matter what, no matter my age, I want to do it, so I signed up."

Tsuru says, too, that he was working to become a WVAPDC kitchen user at the same time he was applying for ‘Āina to Mākeke.

Using the center has allowed Tsuru to scale his production, commercialize his product and made the process much faster.

Kenny Boy Ice Cream offers three classic flavors — Melono, a melon cream flavor; Strawono, a strawberry flavor made with fresh fruit; and a cookies and cream flavor — as well as rotating flavors. He sells them in 32-ounce tubs but you can find 6-ounce cups at pop-up events and for his newly launched catering component.

When he started his business, Tsuru says he not only wanted to support himself financially and save for college, he also wanted to dedicate a portion of his profits to helping local organizations. This year, he’ll donate 10% of all profits to Make-A-Wish Hawai‘i.

Tsuru is one of 15 food entrepreneurs from O‘ahu and Kaua‘i that’s part of the seventh ‘Āina to Mākeke cohort, which ranges from early-stage makers to established local chefs.

When asked why he wanted to participate in the program, Tsuru say he saw the opportunities it provided when he attended the showcase for cohort six.

“The whole thing about ‘Āina to Mākeke is you take a value-added food product — ice cream is my product — and you get it to market,” he says. “That’s something I wanted to do. I wanted to share my ice cream in the market, and I wanted to someday live out that childhood dream of having a product that I can go to the store and say ‘That is mine. I’m proud of that.’”

He also wants to grow his business and help more people.

In addition to Kenny Boy Ice Cream, other cohort 7 entrepreneurs include Hawaiʻi’s Only; Honolulu Mochi; Kahawai Farms; Kauaʻi Fresh Fish; Mālama Protein Bar; Myna Trading Co.; Nā Kālai Waʻa; Nourish Your Soul; ReBran; rōmu; SAVA Provisions; Shaka Butter; Shaka Mex and Sol Food Kitchen.

Now, more than 100 entrepreneurs have participated in the ‘Āina to Mākeke program since its launch in the spring of 2023.

“It’s incredible. It’s surreal, in a relatively compact period of time,” Chris Bailey, manager of the WVAPDC told ASD of hitting the milestone. “I think it demonstrates the need and the interest from local entrepreneurs to figure out how to take all the parts and put it together and continue to build that mindset for actually taking an idea and really having a strong and stable business that they can grow and take to the next level.”

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Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.

Authors

SS

Stephanie Salmons

Senior Reporter

Stephanie Salmons is Senior Reporter for Aloha State Daily covering business, tourism, the economy, real estate and development and general news.