An ice cream maker who took the Devon market by storm has now returned to Cornwall where she grew up to launch her own business on the Lizard Peninsula.
With five years' experience making award-winning ice cream in Devon, Katie Bray has returned to her parents' dairy farm near St Martin where she has opened Gwella Dairy.
Producing luxury ice cream made from the milk of grass-fed pedigree Jersey cows, she describes it as having the silky smooth texture of an Italian gelato but with the rich creaminess of a proper Cornish ice cream.
She has now opened a shop at the farm, Tregevis, between St Martin and Newtown, where customers can visit to buy a range of flavours of ice cream by the scoop, as well as take it home in full sized tubs.
Katie's 'thunder and lightning' ice cream has proved especially popular
Katie said: "I make all the ice cream myself on-site and even though starting a business and running it is hard, I love all aspects of it and variation of it; making the ice cream, marketing, deliveries, serving it by the scoop and receiving the amazing feedback from the customers.
"I have had such amazing support from locals and it seems to have brought a lot of excitement to the village, which I am so pleased about."
Katie with her young daughters checking on their herd of Jersey cows
She has also seen a huge interest from local businesses, with the ice also on sale in a large number of pubs, restaurants and beach cafes across the Lizard Peninsula – something Katie said she was "absolutely thrilled about."
Milk for the ice cream comes exclusively from the a small herd of pedigree Jersey cows bought especially for it, as the milk is renowned for being particularly thick and creamy.
The ice cream comes in a range of flavours
‘Gwella's girls’ live alongside the Tregevis pedigree Holsteins, spending two thirds of the year outside grazing and one of the year housed and fed silage.
The Jerseys are milked with Tregevis’s herd but the milk is then taken off before reaching the tank, when Katie collects it to pasteurise it and make the ice cream.
Katie has five years' experience making ice cream in Devon before returning to Cornwall where she grew up
Gwella Dairy is currently open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 4pm, serving ice cream, teas and coffees. There is outdoor seating and a children's play area, so that customers can enjoy them on the farm.
Katie said she planned to open more days of the week during the summer months and also hoped to extend the menu in the future.
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