Could the demand for vegan ice cream overtake dairy?
29 Mar 2019 | Northern bloc
“Ice cream done different” is Leeds based Northern Bloc’s motto. “We are creating a revolution. We’re not dairy farmers diversifying, or old school dairy ice cream makers. We are pioneers who love ice cream,” says the company. They have launched a vegan line which is “flying” - so much so that Northern Bloc may decide to focus all of their future NPD for the vegan market.
This is actually from Haig reporting from the IFC in London.
I'm with Shane Stewart, the brand ambassador of the Northern Bloc, an ice cream company from Leeds.
Shane, can you tell me something about your company, please?
Yeah, yeah, so I just mentioned, yeah, we're based in Leeds, the city center, so something a little bit different from the, classic dairy farms of other ice cream companies.
So we've got a converted mill in the city center of Leeds by Armley.
We started about 4 years ago, actually started in a food truck van.
We've expanded so much that we've managed to get our little factory going now.
Our offices are based there, and that's where we work from, that's where we distribute all our ice cream from.
Mhm.
And what kind of ice cream do you distribute and create?
Yeah, so we're kind of known for our quirky flavors, so we've got like chocolate and sea salt, er, strawberry and black pepper, raspberry and sorrel, so mixing that sweet and savory together, getting something a little bit unusual that you don't get with the classic ice creams.
We've also got our vegan range as , which is absolutely flying, so that's quite good.
So what do you think, why do you think the vegan range is really flying, what er what's happening for consumers right now?
We kind of set out to make a ice cream that happens to be vegan as opposed to setting out to make a vegan ice cream, so a lot of vegan ice creams, they kind of taste a little bit different to your normal ice cream cos you know, your traditional ice cream's milk, cream and flavors, with a vegan.
You have to find that dairy substitute.
So with ours, we've actually found a a really good rice based syrup that we use.
Our Manolo, our chief er ice cream creator, he's er studied to the mannecul level of all these proteins and enzymes that go into the er ice cream, and he's managed to get an ice cream that happens to be dairy-free but tastes like ice cream.
Brilliant, so then consumers might not even know they're having vegan.
Yeah.
Great, and how do you see this growing, because you said it's absolutely flying, but do you think it's gonna overtake your classic ice cream range?
I believe us as as a company, cos we're making such good vegan ice cream that it could overtake, but there's always going to be that demand for the classic dairy ice cream, you know, that's where it's kind of always originated from, but you never really can tell with markets, but I can tell like the vegan market is, is, is growing hugely immensely.
Like, you know, it doesn't matter whether it's ice cream or not, like whether it's meat, there's always like a plant based substitute, so there's something really growing now.
But with our ice cream, yeah, the vegan, the vegan side of things is really, really, really flying.
You mentioned that another part of your business is having innovative flavors, er, and flavor combinations, but do you find finding all natural flavors for your vegan range is a bit of a challenge, like how to get around that?
Yeah, so there's been some limitations at times cos we, we pride ourselves on all natural ingredients, everything being gluten.
Gluten-free, everything being additive free, no preservatives, so we're kind of limiting ourselves to what flavors we can kind of use there, so it has been a bit tricky at times trying to find certain flavors, and ingredients, er, but we've er, we're cracking it, we're er we're managing to do it and er we're doing it.
Alright, cool, I look forward to seeing what you do next.
It's definitely a busy market and the vegan er ice cream.
Yeah.
Good flavors definitely make you stand out.
Yeah.
Alright, thank you so much.
Thank you.
