Patagonia Chocolates co-owner Alex Gimenez says quality milk and cream originating from New Zealand farms is a factor.
“Definitely, the difference is the quality of the hazelnuts we use, mainly from Central Otago and Canterbury,” he says of the Hazelnut Cremino ice cream, adding that the nuts are roasted, ground and refined in-house “to make the most beautiful hazelnut paste I’ve ever tried”.
“Of course, using the best quality New Zealand milk and cream helps as well, making our ice cream a beautiful one,” he told Dairy News.
Patagonia Chocolates, a boutique ice cream maker and chocolate shop based in Otago, won big at this year’s New Zealand Ice Cream & Gelato Awards.
As well as scooping the Formula Foods Supreme Champion – Boutique Award for its Hazelnut Cremino ice cream, Patagonia also picked up a gold and a silver medal in the Chelsea Sugar Premium Ice Cream category.
The boutique ice cream store also picked up two gold medals for its Hazelnut Cremino and Dulce de Leche ice creams in the PACT Packaging Champion Standard Award. Chief judge Jackie Matthews noted that the base of New Zealandgrown, hand-roasted nuts provides a “delicate and truly authentic flavour, which combined with a superbly crafted and wellmade ice cream is simply stunning, deserving of the Supreme Award”.
The company’s story starts in 2005 when Gimenez and fellow coowner Lorena Giallonardo longed for the chocolate of their Argentinian homeland. So, they opted to make it themselves, selling the chocolates to their local community in Arrowtown.
Since then, they’ve expanded both the range of products available, introducing ice cream and coffee to the menu, and the number of locations, having since opened stores in Queenstown and Wanaka, including its Queenstown Ice Creamery & Chocolaterie which offers customers the opportunity to create their own ice cream sticks and a chef’s cabinet full of desserts.
Gimenez says the team is “extremely happy” about winning the award.
“We are a small team of very passionate people and winning the supreme award is showing us we are in the right direction,” he told Dairy News.
Tip Top Tops
Kiwi icon Tip Top has topped multiple categories in the recent NZ Ice Cream & Gelato Awards 2023.
The company took out five trophies, including the Davis Food Ingredients Champion Novelty Ice Cream Award, the Pacific Flavours and Ingredients Kids’ Choice Award, the NZ Life & Leisure Low Fat & Frozen Yogurt Award, the Invita NZ Champion Open Creative Award, and the Chelsea Sugar Premium Ice Cream Award.
A newcomer to the trophy is Americold Supreme Champion Commercial winner, Allied Faxi New Zealand Food Co which won for its G’nature Vanilla Ice Cream.
Allied Faxi, a Chinese-owned maker that reopened the Kerepehi cheese factory in Paeroa in 2016 to make the G’nature brand, was also awarded the awarded IMCD & Givaudan Champion Premium Vanilla Ice Cream Award.
“This classy ice cream has an uncompromising depth of flavour, is rich and creamy and succeeds perfectly in its mission to deliver a super smooth vanilla flavour,” the judges said.
A panel of 20 food judges, led by chief judge Jackie Matthews, evaluated each entry over two days in late July.
After careful deliberation, they decided upon the 16 Trophy winners and 183 medal winners.
Matthews says the 2023 entries met a high standard for ice cream.
