Thirty-three years after its founding in a small workshop in Athens’ Argyroupolis district, Kayak is entering a new chapter in its long-standing history. The milestone marks the entry of Halcyon Equity Partners — a London-based private equity firm — into Kayak’s shareholding structure. Kayak is Greece’s premium frozen dessert company, specializing in artisanal ice cream, frozen yogurt, and gourmet confections. This investment paves the way for international expansion, new capital injections, and, most significantly, a strategic plan for complementary acquisitions aimed at positioning Kayak as a leading player in Greece’s standardized ice cream sector — a market valued at around €300 million. For a family-run business that began with homemade recipes and guidance from an Italian family friend, it’s the dawn of a new era.
The Early Steps
Kayak’s story is deeply intertwined with that of its founder, Giorgos Stavridis. A child of post-occupation Greece, he began his career as a young street vendor selling spices by bicycle before shifting in the 1970s to the then-emerging supermarket industry. He was even a co-founder of SESME — one of Greece’s earliest supermarket associations — alongside prominent market figures including the Veropoulos brothers and Dimitris Marinopoulos.
The 1981 earthquakes caused extensive damage to his facilities in Corinthia, prompting a strategic pivot. His answer came from gelaterias. After opening initial stores in Glyfada and Chalkida — and guided by insights from an Italian family friend who had identified a gap in the Greek market — Stavridis moved into production. In 1993, Kayak was born in a modest workshop of just a few dozen square meters in Argyroupolis, built on a simple premise: to craft ice cream using pure, high-quality ingredients — the kind you’d make at home for your family.
In early-1990s Greece, ice cream was largely confined to neighborhood pastry shops or mass-produced by industrial giants dominating retail freezer space. Kayak broke new ground by targeting cafés — a virtually non-existent channel at the time — and boldly stepped away from the traditional chocolate-vanilla duo. Early on, some retailers returned shipments, complaining that the ice cream contained ‘pieces’, mistaking intentional inclusions like fruit or nuts for production errors. In this spirit, Kayak introduced sorbet to the Greek market, launched alcohol-infused ice cream, and in 2006 debuted Greece’s first certified organic ice cream — effectively creating an entirely new category.
Premium Positioning as Strategy
Premium positioning was a deliberate strategic choice from the outset. Packaging design evoked boutique chocolatiers; boutiques were placed in luxury venues; and collaborations followed — first with Greek pastry chef Stelios Parlialos, and later with world-renowned French pastry chef Pierre Hermé, who co-created annual limited-edition ice cream collections.
Flavors such as mastic with pink pepper, rosewater loukoumi, tsoureki praline, and even melomakarona ice cream helped forge a distinctive identity — a ‘premium Greekness’ that has earned Kayak numerous international awards. In 2000, production shifted from Argyroupolis to Kayak’s own factory in Koropi, which underwent major upgrades in subsequent years.