Iconic Welsh brands join forces for ice cream based on Welsh dessert classic

Nation Cymru staff

A new bara brith ice cream has been launched with a tasty twist on Wales’s much-loved traditional tea time favourite.

It’s been created through a collaboration between three well-known Welsh brands, historic ice cream maker Sidoli’s from Ebbw Vale, Denbigh-based Henllan Bread and food distribution firm Harlech Foodservice which has its headquarters near Cricieth.

Made using Henllan’s famous bara brith, the ice cream is part of Sidoli’s new Proudly Welsh range and aims to tap into growing demand for locally-produced food with a strong Welsh identity

The range also includes a coffee ice cream made with ingredients from Bridgend-based Ferrari’s Coffee and a salted caramel flavour using Halen Môn sea salt from Anglesey.

Dan Williams, ice cream sales and commercial controller for Harlech Foodservice, Stefano Sidoli, managing director at Sidoli’s, and Ruari Wood, business development manager at Henllan Bread, gave the new products a taste test at the Castle Gallery & Tearooms in Conwy.

Giving the new flavours a big thumbs-up, Dan said: “Collaboration between companies is so important to highlight and promote Welsh produce as a whole.

“It is amazing to work with such wonderful leading Welsh brands and the product is stunning.

“Harlech Foodservice started working with Sidoli’s recently and we have been working with Henllan for many years.

“It has allowed us to have a Welsh brand of ice cream on our books, it is really special.

“We are a very proud Welsh company, as are all the companies.

“Harlech Foodservice has been supporting Welsh brands and promoting Welsh produce from the day we started, and that has helped local producers and the local economy.”

Stefano Sidoli, great grandson of company founder Benedetto Sidoli, said linking up with other famous Welsh food producers was the next chapter in the story of the Ebbw Vale-based company, which was founded in 1922.

He said: “It felt like a natural thing to do, especially after we started working with Harlech.

“Bara brith is obviously an iconic cake within Wales and Henllan are an iconic bakery in Wales and Harlech started in North Wales, so it just seemed such a natural thing for us to explore.

“We launched the Proudly Welsh this year and it is something we want to expand over time and work with Welsh businesses.

“Over the past three to five years, provenance is really gaining traction.

“People want to know where their food is coming from, so to partner with Welsh brands just seems like a great thing to do.

“The Proudly Welsh range is listed with Harlech so any customer that uses Harlech has the opportunity to take these products on.

“Harlech provide great support to us, they have given us a route to market in North Wales.

“They have the same values as we have, they are a proper family-run business and have a great team of people there who are dedicated to their work. You can tell they really care about what they do and the products they sell.”

Ruari Wood said Henllan Bread, a fifth generation family business which was founded in 1908, was delighted to provide the vital ingredient to the new bara brith flavour.

He said: “The new flavour uses our bara brith cake and we are so pleased to be involved in the creation of a new Welsh product.

“We were delighted to have been approached and we said yes straight away.

“And we are really pleased to be working with Harlech Foodservice, we started with them in about 2018, and they are a really good wholesaler for us. Harlech’s service is very good.

“They are a very proud Welsh business and they stock loads of Welsh suppliers, they really focus on it, which is great.

“We are doing more and more with them all the time, so it was natural to do something like this new ice cream with their support.”

The ice creams were dished up by Karen Thomas, a director at Castle Gallery & Tearooms, which sits close to Conwy Castle.

Fellow director Andrew Barton predicted the new flavours would be a huge hit, especially the bara brith option which would attract interest from tourists in particular who are keen to hunt out genuine Welsh treats.

He said: “I would say 90 per cent of our customers are foreign tourists and a lot of them are off cruises and they all want to come into Conwy to see the castle.

“They also all want to sample something Welsh and they all want to sample the ice cream, so I think the new flavours will go down very well.

“All the Sidoli’s ice creams go very well to be fair, and the new flavours will be a great addition for us.

“Sidoli’s is a very good product and we actually get a lot of people coming in asking specifically for Sidoli’s rather than other brands.

“And we are delighted to be a Harlech Foodservice customer, we have been with them for just over two years and they give us a good service.”

The ice cream range is another new product listed by family-run Harlech Foodservice, which was started in 1972 by Gill and Colin Foskett.

It has enjoyed rapid expansion in recent years and has added new hubs in Carmarthen, Caerphilly and Telford to its long-established centres in Cricieth and Chester.

The business now employs 300 staff and supplies pubs, restaurants, schools and hospitals across Wales, the North West, Shropshire and the Midlands.