An Essex dairy ice cream company, which has been helped by Defra's Rural Enterprise Scheme (RES), will be celebrating its first birthday tomorrow (Saturday 3 December).
To mark the first year of 'Caprilatte' Farmhouse Luxury Dairy Goat Milk Ice Cream, Butterfly Lodge Farmshop, in Mersea Road, Abberton, will be relaunching its popular Christmas flavours. These include Christmas Pudding, Mandarin and Cranberry Swirl, and Cinnamon and Spiced Apple, along with a new gluten-free Christmas Pudding ice cream, for anyone wanting to avoid wheat products.
The shop opened in 2003 thanks to a (RES) grant and in 2004 a further application for a goats' milk processing unit was approved by the Rural Development Service, which administers the scheme. The 2004 application was made under the RES "Fast Track" application process. All RES projects seeking grants of up to £15,000 go through the "Fast Track" process, enabling many applications for small projects to be dealt with in one month or less
Warren Goff, General Manager of The Farmshop at Butterfly Lodge,
said:
"Thanks to help from Defra, we've been able to make and sell more than 4,000 pots of real dairy ice cream in the last six months.
"Our most popular flavour throughout the year has been "Honeymoon", which is ice cream with a blend of Essex honey and honeycomb. People also like to try something different, so for the festive season, we have included some seasonal flavours including Stollen and the Christmas Puddings."
And 2006 will bring another different taste - the launch of ice cream truffles, made using ice cream cakes.
Roland Randall, who set up the shop and applied for the Defra funding, said:
"With the success of the farm shop, we came to realise how important it was for a small farming enterprise to capitalise on a niche market and add value on-farm to our products.
"The ice cream is generating additional sales in our shop, as well as from local pubs and restaurants, and outlets across East Anglia.
"It has also created a demand for local products including raspberries, blackberries and honey."
Ian Trouse, an advisor for the RDS in the East of England, said;
"The popularity of this goat milk ice cream has created an additional year-round income for this farm and is creating an extra demand for local fruit and honey producers.
"Caprillate is proving to be popular at all times of year, not just in the summer, and its Christmas flavours are creating a new market of ice cream eaters wanting a cooler yuletide dessert."
