Wherever possible, buy British. That’s the lovefood mantra, and we even extend it to our iced summertime snacks. So here are our favourite regional ice cream makers, starting with one in Hampshire…
Jude’s, Hampshire
Theo’s family soon joined the team (including inspiration and wife Jude, plus sons Alex and Chow) and now they boast clients including Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, Raymond Blanc and James Martin. There are about 20 flavours in production at any one time – my personal favourites are ‘salted caramel’, ‘strawberry tease’, and ‘ginger spice’ – and wherever possible local ingredients such as elderflower, apple juice and mint are used.
What we also like about Jude’s is the fact that they give 10% of their profits away to charity, including local causes such as the village hall and childrens’ hospital, and international charities like Action Against Hunger. Plus they do a lot to try and limit the environmental impact of their ice cream factory, including recycling all cardboard, plastic and metal; re-using thousands of litres of water a day via an ‘adiabatic water cooler’; and using incoming cold milk to cool down outgoing hot mix.
Price: around £4.69 for a 500ml tub
Cream o' Galloway, Scotland
Their ice creams are luxuriously rich and are all made with their own organic milk - flavours include 'caramel shortbread', 'whisky, honey and oatmeal', and 'chocolate to die for'.
Interestingly, in 2008 the company introduced 'Made Fair', a range of Fairtrade and organic ice creams including 'caffe latte' and 'strawberries and cream' flavours.
You can make a whole day trip out of Cream o' Galloway ice creams - they've a visitor centre, slides, pedal karts, bikes to hire, an adventure playground, indoor play areas, a nature trail, wildlife spotting, designated dog walks, pond dipping in the summer, and, of course, tours of the farm and creamery, complete with ice cream tasting. Find out more here.
Price: £6.50 to enter the farm and eat ice cream
Purbeck, Devon
Hazel and Pete turned their attentions towards ice cream after the introduction of milk quotas, which made it impossible to maintain their dairy farm as a viable enterprise. “We had to come up with something pretty fast to do with our lovely milk, that didn’t result in penalties for over production, or tread on anyone’s toes by embarking on a venture which was already being done locally,” said Hazel.
“Along with the occasional pub crawl we had developed quite a passion for ‘ice cream crawls’ and it seemed a natural progression to make our own ice cream… but so much better than anything we had ever come across on our ‘crawls’. We were adamant from the start that our ice cream should be utterly natural with no artificial additives and most certainly not coloured,” she added.
Purbeck has just over ten flavours – including ‘chilli red’, ‘vanilla bean’ and ‘cappuccino’ – and often pushes the limits with unusual ice creams such as ‘Dorset Blue Vinny’ (pictured here).
Price: around £3.69 for 500ml
Glastry Farm Ice Cream, Northern Ireland
Their ice cream range includes 'vanilla bean', 'yellowman honeycomb' and 'strawberry blonde', and in 2010 they added sorbets to the list too (pear, raspberry ruffle, champagne...) Much of it is sold in restaurants across Northern Ireland, and their awards include the 'Bridgestone Best in Ireland 2012' and a Gold in 2013's Great Taste Awards.
Price: varies
Black Vanilla, London
They like to keep things fresh by introducing limited edition gelatos alongside its core flavours such as its Great Taste Award winning 'Mango Sorbetto' and the ever so popular 'Salted Caramel'. Joining forces with other London artisan producers such as The Meringue Girls and Meantime Brewing Company, it creates amazing exclusive Gelato recipes for its loyal and devoted customers as well as tourists.
Simply Ice Cream, Kent
Sally Newall is the woman in charge, and she both creates the recipes and makes the ice cream in Bonnington, Ashford. Her 20-year-long background in the catering industry prepared her for the challenge, and she strongly believes in making every single tub of ice cream by hand. Only one local farm shop stocked the stuff at first, but within the first year that had grown to 16 establishments. Today it’s available in nearly 400 outlets across the south of England, including 42 Waitrose stores.
Their ‘heavenly honeycomb crunch’ flavour has won four Great Taste Awards, and other exciting additions include ‘lemon curd’, ‘caramelised brown bread’, ‘Christmas pudding’, and ‘Kentish cobnut fudge’.
Price: around £4.65 for 500ml
Mr Moo’s, East Yorkshire
Chef Brian Turner described it as “beautiful, old-fashioned ice cream” and one of the most endearing things about Mr Moo’s is their beautiful ice cream parlour, located on the farm. Their ‘cow pat’ ice cream sundae is apparently ‘world famous’ and there is even the six-scoop ‘mega moo’ cone for those with insatiable appetites. The Mr Moo’s website considerately suggests two local walks, to walk all that dairy off afterwards.
The parlour gets fantastic reviews on TripAdvisor, with people recommending the Eton mess, marmalade and chocolate orange flavours out of the 30-strong selection.
Price: around £1.20 for a large scoop
Taywell, Kent
Entrepreneur Alastair Jessel set the Kentish company up in 2006 to utilise surplus fruit from his farm, and at the end of 2012 the ever-expanding business moved to just outside Tunbridge Wells. They’re now a supplier member of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, and their aim is to “thrill the connoisseur, invent awesome flavours, and to boldly go where no ice cream business has gone before”.
They make their ice cream in a commercial kitchen and all the milk and cream comes from Northiam Dairy, right on the borders of Kent and Sussex. The team famously claim that any fruit that can be grown in Kent is also available as a Taywell ice cream or sorbet – easy to believe, given their extensive list of flavours. We like the sound of ‘blackberry and apple crumble’, ‘Guinness’, ‘cherry and kirsch’, and ‘pink champagne’.
Price: £16 for a 2.5L tub
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