Miyoko’s Creamery, a vegan cheese company, has teamed up with Frankie & Jo’s, a vegan ice cream company based in Seattle, to develop Miyoko’s Butter Toffee & Chocolate ice cream. A creamy caramel foundation is topped with bite-sized butter toffee bars made with Miyoko’s cultured vegan butter and dipped in rich dark chocolate for a festive treat.
Until November 2, the ice cream is available for shipping nationwide and in Frankie & Jo’s Seattle scoop shops. The ice cream may be ordered online and is delivered on Tuesdays in a box packed with dry ice to keep the dessert perfectly frozen.
The origins of Miyoko’s vegan ice cream
Miyoko’s Creamery has long been considered a pioneer in the vegan movement and a company that Frankie & Jo’s looked to for ideas on how to alter people’s attitudes about dairy, so it was a natural fit to incorporate Miyoko’s product in one of their ice cream flavors. Frankie & Jo’s creative team dreamed of developing a candy bar ice cream when designing the October seasonal tastes this year, and developed endless variations of butter toffee ice cream.
“After testing other vegan butters for a chocolate-covered toffee inclusion in our ice cream, we decided that Miyoko’s Creamery made the perfect version that was up to our standards…We reached out to see if they were interested in partnering with us, and Miyoko herself was able to taste the ice cream and give it her stamp of approval, and our partnership was born.” said Kari Brunson, Frankie & Jo’s CEO and co-owner.
Trailblazing vegan dairy
Miyoko Schinner, the founder and CEO of Miyoko’s Creamery, founded the company in 2014 and has since become a trailblazer in the vegan movement, assisting in the development of a future where an animal-free dairy food system is a reality. Miyoko’s Creamery has transformed the cheese and butter categories by uniting old-world creamery traditions with new, creative technology, demonstrating how plant dairy is, in fact, dairy.
Last year, a US district court ruled in favor of Miyoko’s Creamery, preventing the state of California from enforcing its demands that the vegan brand stop using terms like “butter,” “lactose-free,” and “cruelty-free” on its products, setting a precedent for other businesses seeking free speech protections for terms dairy lobbyists have fought to reserve for animal secretions.
More than 25 plant-based cheeses and butters have been developed by the company, which can be found in roughly 20,000 stores nationally, including Whole Foods, Target, Trader Joe’s, and Walmart.
One of the company’s most recent innovations is a pourable mozzarella designed exclusively for pizza. The brand’s European-Style Cultured Vegan Butter for cooking and baking debuted in 2016, and since then, the range has grown to include Spreadable Cultured Vegan Oat Milk Butter and Spreadable Cultured Vegan Garlic Parm Oat Milk Butter. Miyoko’s Creamery is branching out into the restaurant industry. The company received $52 million in a series C fundraising round in August, which will allow it to fund the expansion and hire up to 10 more research and development staff.
“We are so excited by our collaboration with Frankie & Jo’s. They came to us with the idea to create a seasonal ice cream featuring Miyoko’s European Style Cultured Vegan Butter—and Miyoko’s Butter Toffee & Chocolate was born, perfect for the fall,” Schinner said. “We couldn’t be more excited about the outcome of this delicious flavor. Partnering with like-minded brands who are on the same mission to inspire, do good, and use plants creatively in foods is how we grow this community and create the future of food.”
Source: “There’s Now A Miyoko’s Creamery… Vegan Ice Cream. Here’s Where To Get It.” by VegNews
