Now available from the University of Guelph: ice cream in support of the United Way Guelph Wellington Dufferin.
Lotsa Local Love is exactly what the name suggests, a frozen dairy treat made with mostly local products. The Honey Bee Research Centre donated honey to sweeten the vanilla spice cream base and U of G's Creelman Bake Shop provided crunchy snickerdoodle cookies.
The idea came to Patricia Tersigni about a month ago.
The local United Way campaign cabinet chair said they've worked together with U of G in the past on ice cream to sell to school classes, and figured the ice cream could be a way to raise money for United Way.
"It really was a bit of a whim, to be honest with you," she said. "And also ice cream is fun, and it's one of the things U of G is known for, and it's collaborative.
"There's lots of ways to get involved, and then there are also these opportunities that involve the local product, which really then drew people into the idea."
It was developed at the Guelph Food Innovation Centre (GFIC), on the campus of U of G.
"We went through two or three rounds of prototypes before we got to the final formula," said Alessia Roma, project manager for the GFIC.
The final product is a "nice fall flavour," according to Mike von Massow, U of G's faculty co-chair with United Way.
The batching was done Thursday, and packaging happened Friday, with a number of volunteers helping out.
Nick Repin, a food technologist, got the machines ready to turn what was a rather liquidy substance in a silver vat – which had a rich cinnamon smell coming from it – into what resembled soft ice cream coming through the pipes.
Once that was done, the snickerdoodles – which were chopped last week – were added into a separate compartment and mixed in with the ice cream, just before filling the pints.
Afterwards, the pints were brought into a freezer at -30 C, where it will freeze over the weekend.
Pints are available for $12 each on Shopify, and residents can choose from a list of where and when to pick up their order.
It is a limited time offer, with only 1,000 pints being made.
Roughly $8 of every $12 will go to the United Way. There will also be an option to donate more when purchasing.
"We have explored placing it in some local stores, but it's just a question of whether we're going to have enough to make that work," said von Massow.
"A couple of places have said that they were interested and willing to take it, but it's just a question of whether it's going to disappear too quickly."
Here's a bit of the ice cream being packaged, with the chopped snickerdoodle cookies being added into the mixture. pic.twitter.com/f6f1VWtoer
— Mark Paré (@MarkLPare) October 28, 2022
