Cool idea up for national award

Thursday 28 July 2016

A pair of local ice cream makers are hoping to scoop a national award with their new healthy treat.

Natasha Dowse and Anna Boletta’s Minioti Strawberry flavoured ice cream has been shortlisted in the Dairy Category at this year’s Great British Food Awards.

It’s great news for the health conscious pair who only launched their range of sugar and gluten free strawberry, vanilla and milky chocolate ice cream made from pure Jersey milk in February after struggling to find healthy treats for their children.

Natasha said: “We did loads and loads of practicing in our kitchens, feeding our children and friends. We experimented with all different flavours, flours, syrups, anything we could find that wasn’t a refined sugar, all sorts of alternative sugars that didn’t have an effect on the blood sugar levels and we researched heavily.

“Once we had an ice cream that we were really happy with, a base recipe, we went to the Diary and they helped us to adapt the recipe, they loved the concept.”

“We’ve had amazing feedback, from all ages – they can’t believe it tastes creamy, that the flavour hasn’t been lost when we’ve removed the sugar and they can’t believe it’s not grainy, it tastes just like normal ice cream.”

John Torode and Rosemary Shrager are among the celebrity judges tasting this year's entries in the Great British Food Awards which were launched in 2014 to celebrate the country's finest home-grown ingredients.

Natasha and Anna said: "We're ecstatic to be selected for this award and would like to thank the whole Minioti team and colleagues at Jersey Dairy for working so hard on this project.

"We've focused on flavour and ingredients and defy anyone to taste our product and realise it has no added sugar."

Jersey Dairy’s Head of Marketing and Export Bob Jones said: “It’s very prestigious to be recognised by high calibre judges in this Dairy category. For a brand like Minioti to have such recognition will create significant awareness of the brand within the grocery trade.

"The Jersey cow produces milk with a higher protein and calcium content than other breeds so it really is a win, win product. It’s got all the nutritional benefits of Jersey milk with a number of other healthy ingredients. They use the plant stevia instead of refined sugar.”

The ice cream is now being exported to China and has just launched in Genesis Cinema, an independent upmarket cinema in London's Whitechapel. Natasha and Anna will also be taking their range to the Speciality & Fine Food Fair at Olympia in London where they will be exhibiting it during the first week of September.

If you haven’t tried the ice cream yet, you can get try a scoop when the Minioti team will be in-store at Waitrose Red Houses on Friday.