From aged care to mainstream: Flavour Creations’ no-melt ice cream looks to shake up the market
“Our main market at home is [currently] residential aged care and hospitals, [with] many of our products being found in pharmacies, but with our ice cream, we’re looking to go mainstream,” founder and CEO Bernadette Eriksen told FoodNavigator-Asia.
Trends boosting ice cream’s mainstream market suitability
Eriksen explained that one of the major trends supporting the product’s move into mainstream F&B was that of sustainability.
“The cost of running cold chain, the environmental impact, is enormous, so we’ve taken that away [and don’t use] refrigerated trucks or refrigerated containers. We don’t have any cold chain, so it definitely reduces the impact that frozen products generally have,” she said.
Additionally, the convenience factor that it promises is appealing to consumers, so that ‘they can bring the ice cream with them wherever they go without worrying about it melting [unlike conventional ice cream]’.
That said, she added that even if frozen, the no-melt ice cream brings advantages in terms of taste and texture too.
“The technology behind this product also ensures that, there is no form of ice crystallisation that occurs even after freezing, [which tends to happen with [regular ice cream]. This ensures that it still stays smooth and creamy even after it is frozen and taken out, and even if frozen again it will still [be that way].”
The energy factor
With a good deal of their existing customers being hospital patients or elderly consumers, Eriksen added that nutrition was also a big consideration for the company.
“People love ice cream, even [recuperating] patients with poor appetites - but [regular] ice cream isn’t that nutritious. [With that in mind], our ice cream is really energy-dense, it’s got 2.5g of protein per serving, and it’s gluten-free and nut-free as are all our products,” she said.
“We’ve also made sure all variants are halal-certified, and most of them are kosher-certified too.”
Eriksen described this as ‘healing through ice cream’ as well as ‘nutrition through real food’.
“This is about getting good nutrition through real food, so now there is no need [for consumers] to take supplements as they should be able to get [the nutrition needed] from real food. Our ice creams are a way of getting fun real food to people that’s nutritious at the same time.”
The no-melt ice creams are currently available in three flavours: vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. Flavour Creations is also planning a line of high-protein, no-melt ice creams which will contain 8.1g of protein per serving. The first flavour currently available in this line is salted caramel.
Eriksen added that Flavour Creations was likely to be able to bring the no-melt ice cream to the European Union and United Kingdom later this year, and are also in discussions for Hong Kong, Singapore and India.