Tuesday, 06 December 2022 11:55

Sweet way to get your greens

Written by  Peter Burke
Taranaki entrepreneur Jenni Matheson Taranaki entrepreneur Jenni Matheson

Taranaki entrepreneur, Jenni Matheson is a vegan who loves using vegetables for breakfast, lunch, dinner and now dessert.

Her ice-cream made from cauliflower, drew hundreds of people to the Massey University site at Fieldays to sample this unique dessert. It comes in three flavours, strawberry, chocolate and mint and looks and tastes like ordinary ice-cream.

What started off 20-years-ago as just making delicious dairy alternatives for her children and their friends is about to be launched nationwide on the menu of the Hell Pizza chain.

“When our family went vegan and there were no alternatives on the market, so I tried making ice-cream out of different things like chickpeas, lentils, carrots, pumpkins and cauliflower,” she told Rural News. “As it turned out, cauliflower came out the best because it was creamier, had a subtle flavour and the colours were neutral.”

The breakthrough for Matheson came when she pitched her idea at a ‘start up’ weekend in Taranaki. The idea caught the imagination of Milli Kumar, who’d just completed a food tech degree at Massey University, and the pair decided to form a company. Then came the task of scaling up the product and for this they enlisted the help of fourth year Massey students to help them.

“The home-made formulation that I made was only in small batches like one litre at a time, whereas we were looking at producing 600 litres at a time,” Matheson explains. “To do that the process changes and ingredients level changes and the equipment changes – so it’s taken us two years to get from a benchtop formula to what we have now.”

Sourcing cauliflowers for ice-cream is also quite special. Matheson has a deal with a company called Perfectly Imperfect, which obtains the product from growers that the supermarkets won’t accept because they don’t meet their very strict specifications. She says there is nothing wrong with the cauliflowers and they are supporting growers and the environment.

“It’s been a fun, crazy wonderful journey and I am looking forward to the future and in the process hopefully making a difference,” she says.

More like this

Unsung heroes under the soil

Much of the scientific work being carried out at the Massey University led regenerative agriculture project, Whenua Haumanu, is below the ground.

Massey Research Field Day attracts huge interest

More than 200 people turned out on Thursday, November 21 to see what progress has been made on one of NZ's biggest and most comprehensive agriculture research programmes on regenerative agriculture.

New ag degrees at Massey

Changing skill demands and new job opportunities in the primary sector have prompted Massey University to create a new degree course and add a significant major into another in 2025.

Featured

New UHT plant construction starts

Construction is underway at Fonterra’s new UHT cream plant at Edendale, Southland following a groundbreaking ceremony recently.

National

Machinery & Products

GEA launches robotic milkers

Milking technology provider GEA Farm Technologies is introducing its first automatic milking system (AMS) in New Zealand.

More front hoppers

German seeding specialists Horsch have announced a new 1600- litre double-tank option that will join its current Partner FT single…

Origin Ag clocks up 20 years

With roots dating back to 2004, Origin Ag was formed as a co-operative business model that removed the traditional distributor,…

» Latest Print Issues Online

The Hound

Dark ages

OPINION: Before we all let The Green Party have at it with their 'bold' emissions reduction plan, the Hound thought…

Rhymes with?

OPINION: The Feds' latest banking survey shows that bankers are even less popular with farmers than they used to be,…

» Connect with Rural News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter