Gorse flower ice cream to tempt royal garden parties
The luxury ice cream manufacturer aims to meet demand from upmarket restaurants and hotels in the UK and Ireland.
Dairy farmer Will Taylor, who set up the business as a diversification project in 2006, said: "We work with a number of leading chefs to develop unique flavours for their menus. Our focus is on natural products from local sources to blend with milk from our dairy herd.
"Gorse is among the most natural and plentiful plants here in Northern Ireland and so I decided to see if it would work as an ice cream. It has a coconut scent and taste.
"We picked the flowers during a dry sunny period in February and dried them before mixing with glucose and milk in our on-farm processing plant. The result is an ice cream with a distinct coconut taste.
"Taste panels produced very positive feedback which has encouraged us to consider the further development of the product for foodservice and retail outlets. While the new ice cream is likely to be geared initially for foodservice customers, we may consider extending it to our growing retailer network."
Among the firm's foodservice clients is the National Trust's prestigious Mount Stewart House in Northern Ireland, for which Glastry created a lavender and raspberry ice cream.
