We made our debut at the Auckland food show on 27th July. We exhibited our ice-cream at the 4-day Food Show event at the Auckland Showgrounds until the 30th of July and to say being overwhelmed would be an understatement. Before we begin to share this experience, let us paint you a picture of how we got to such a big event.
The Food Show is an annual foodie-affair hosted in three different cities- Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. We won a free stand at the food show and bagged the opportunity to showcase our business amongst 200+ exhibitors.
What followed next was two long weeks of ice-cream manufacturing before the event, but the team this challenge head-on. The footfall we received in these 4 days was astonishingly huge and exceeded our expectations. We kid you not when we say that some people came to the stand twice and some even twice to the food show to get hands on the ice cream.
While it was refreshing to see so many people stop by at the stand, the star of our show-The Cauliflower successfully achieved the goal of changing people’s minds about the vegan delight.
A few highlights from the experience:
A whopping 27,000 people went to the food show and an estimate of 4,000 people came to the stand to try the ice-cream.
A few people confused at the sight of cauliflower displayed when already tasting the ice-cream. They were extremely shocked to know that the vegetable was the main ingredient.
Successfully convinced hesitant onlookers to taste the ice-cream and they even bought some tubs to take home!
All ages enjoying the delicious treat; kids were huge fans, some even asked for repeats.
Sold a 5-litre tub of the strawberry swirl flavour.
“Have you tried the cauliflower ice-cream” spread like a wildfire bringing many exhibitors across the hall to try the delicious treat.
We asked people of what they thought of our product. Here are some feedbacks we received:
“The cauliflower on display brought me here and I can’t believe the ice-cream is made out of cauliflowers!”
“I can finally get my kids to eat vegetables and not trick them.”
“How did you get this ice-cream so creamy?”
“What else is in the ice-cream? How is it so creamy?”
“Strawberry swirl was definitely my favourite.”
“You guys are honestly the star of this event. Everybody is talking about your cauliflower ice-cream.”
“Excuse me? May I have one cauliflower ice-cream please?” *they’re all made from cauliflower. What flavour would you like? *
“The mouthfeel is so good and smooth. You can’t even tell there’s a vegetable in this!”
“This ice-cream is honestly the best thing I’ve had made from cauliflower. My mum makes a lot of stuff from cauliflower, but this is definitely the best.”
The four-day event saw us meet some lovely people and Jenni quite spent some time to answer their queries about the products, business, inspiration and brains behind the recipe and so much more. Meanwhile our other co-founder & CEO Mrinali was in Hawaii attending the East-West Centre Leadership Changing Faces programme for two weeks.
WHAT WAS THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT?
Yes, we did have a big announcement for everybody asking if the ice-cream is available in the supermarkets.
We officially announced that it will be made publicly accessible to anyone and everyone in *drumroll* Countdown later this year!
NZ FOOD AWARDS AND THE IMPACT AWARDS
NZ Foods Awards has recently released their finalist list in different categories. We’re proud to announce that EatKinda has made it to two categories- Below Zero Award, Novel Award for our Strawberry Swirl and Mint Chocolate Bikkie, respectively. Out of 396 entries from 124 different companies this year, EatKinda successfully managed to bag two nominations after they highlighted three distinct themes- plant based proteins, functional foods and sustainability.
The New Zealand Food Awards have celebrated Aotearoa New Zealand’s food and beverage manufacturers focusing on innovation, sustainability and excellence, since 1987. The board invited food and beverage industry to submit their new and innovative products to be part of the event, where storytelling was used to narrate many journeys from concept to product.
Inspiring Stories, a kiwi charity founded with a bold vision to back young individuals to change the world, are also behind the Impact Awards that celebrates New Zealand’s most inspirational young changemakers. They recently released the semi-finalist lists for 2023 Impact Awards. EatKinda has been on a roll and our co-founder Mrinali was nominated for these awards under the categories- Climate and Enterprise.
It's been a good month so far and we have so many exciting news lined up for the upcoming months.
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