Hill Station and the Holy Grail

Hill Station Ice Cream has secured the exclusive UK licence to use a revolutionary new technology enabling it to make premium dairy and non-dairy ice cream that can be scooped or extruded at ultra-low temperatures and repeatedly taken in and out of the freezer without collecting ice crystals.

Typically, top quality dairy ice cream must be taken out of the freezer and left until it is scoopable (usually at -12°C to -14°C) before being returned to the freezer. This causes ice crystals to form, which can ruin its texture, said Hill Station consultant Gwyn Jones. "Soft scoop ice cream, meanwhile, is typically made with vegetable fat, and the quality is not generally as good. You also get the same problems: take it in and out the freezer a few times, and you get ice crystal formation and shrinkage."

By contrast, Hill Station's ice cream, which is made using emulsifiers and stabilisers that have been combined and microencapsulated using patented sonic vibration technology, is scoopable at -18°C to -22°C. It also has a smoother mouthfeel and maintains its quality for a year, regardless of how many times it is taken in and out of the freezer, claimed Jones.

"The ingredients aren't unusual, it's the process of bonding them together that gives them unique properties. This really is the Holy Grail in ice cream and there has been a huge amount of interest from the trade. We've already got a trial running with Spirit Group on single portion tubs and we're talking to retailers about take-home tubs as well."

To commercialise the novel stabilising system, UK-based McGill Technology Group has created a dispensing system for single portion ice cream called One Shot. Hill Station has in turn secured a licence from McGill giving it exclusive rights to sell the novel ice cream in the UK.

McGill is now negotiating similar deals outside the UK, said director Colin Beale: "Three dairies are running trials, with particular interest from Japan. But it also opens up other opportunities including soft scoop fat-free, dairy-free fruit ice products."