Anyone who knows us knows we’re constantly working to create the ultimate ice cream. But to be the best, you have to know what else is out there and make sure you’re ahead of the curve. So we flew out to Italy for SIGEP – an international trade show for gelato, coffee and pastry – to check out the competition.
SIGEP is massive, split into core sections each with incredible stands and samples flying out of each. We headed straight for Gelato and were inundated with scoops of ice cream from the off-set, there were endless flavours to try, some that wouldn’t look out of place in an NBºC tub, like Dark Chocolate & Dragon Fruit or Pistachio & Pomegranate.
There were thousands of iterations of current trends, charcoal ice cream anyone? DIY ice cream stands drew in plenty of crowds, from Magnum style dip and decorate stations to live flavour mixing. Vegan was a big thing this year, which you may or may not know is something we’ve been working on for a long time now. The vegan ranges on offer tasted great and some even nailed the texture (some were unfortunately rather grainy), but no one was offering all natural vegan ice cream, and natural ingredients are something we just won’t comprise on.
Moving on from tasting to testing, you can find every kind of ice cream tech at SIGEP, from simple tub fillers to robotic arms, scooping up ice cream in front of your eyes. We caught up with a few friends in the business, ticked some new tech items off our list and dipped into the other sections for a proper coffee and a pastry shaped pick-me-up. Swinging back by one of our favourite, all natural suppliers, we picked up some samples and rounded off the day with a wander through the pastry section, in need of something savoury to balance out a full day of sweet.
Thanks SIGEP, it was awesome and gave us a look of food for thought,
