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Van leeuwen ice cream brooklyn8/19/2023 ![]() The cashew milk used to produce the vegan is made in-house in Vitamix machines. Ben Van Leeuwen called the process “very labor intensive.” On the day Dairy Foods visited, the company was making its dairy-based cookies-and-cream ice cream.ĭuring our visit, we also watched the company make vegan peanut butter chocolate chip ice cream, which is a slightly different process than the dairy ice cream. The 14-ounce cups are filled, lids are added and the containers are hand-packed into boxes, before being moved to the 500-square-foot freezer. The ice cream is then moved by hand in pails from the batch freezer and manually poured into the semi-automatic pint filler. Most inclusions are added after freezing or at the tail end, like with chocolate chips. The mix will then be removed by hand into tubs and poured into the batch freezer.ĭepending on the flavor being produced, other ingredients, like peppermint extract, will be added before freezing. Next, it gets pumped into the refrigerated holding tanks, where the mix is aged for 24 hours. From there it gets pumped to the homogenizer and then to the heat exchanger to cool down before aging. To make a batch of dairy-based vanilla, the company puts milk, cream, organic sugared egg yolks, milk powder and cane sugar into a 200-gallon vat pasteurizer where it’s cooked at 174 degrees for 33 minutes. The milk is delivered twice a week in 5-gallon polybags and stored in a 500-square-foot walk-in refrigerator. Cream comes from various sources in upstate New York and Pennsylvania. Van Leeuwen gets all of its milk (which is mostly grass-fed) from Battenkill Valley Farms in upstate New York. The vegan version is made with house-made cashew milk, organic coconut milk, organic extra virgin coconut oil, organic cane sugar, pure cocoa butter and organic carob bean. It’s also high in butterfat – about 16% to 18%. It has a custard-like texture with a high egg yolk content, which allows the company to avoid stabilizers, a detail that is very important to Van Leeuwen. The classic product is made with milk and cream, cane sugar and egg yolks. The company makes dairy-based ice cream (what it calls classic ice cream) and vegan ice cream. The company’s production facility includes the ice cream room, a bakery room, offices, a conference room and a freezer and walk-in refrigerator. The new flavors are all based on successful flavors already being sold in the company’s ice cream shops. As O’Neill puts it, the new design is “not so noisy” but still features information about the company’s story and ingredients, which is important for transparency and its overall message.Īlong with the new packaging, the company added 10 new flavors, increasing offerings to 27. The goal with the update is to stand out more on retail shelves. Each dairy flavor features its own special cup color with black lettering, and all of the vegan flavors feature white cups with colored lettering. The new design is simple and clean but more cohesive. It also recently updated all of retail packaging to be more reflective of the brand and its message. The transition to all new equipment is expected to be completed and up and running by the end of the year. ![]() Currently, the company is still using its batch freezer. The company purchased a refurbished continuous freezer with rotary filler (which will automatically fill and lid all of the pints) and a fruit feeder. At the time of Dairy Foods’ visit, it was in the process of making more equipment updates.
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