Projo Biz Blog

WARWICK RI _Knowing that the state was looking at stringent new nutrition regulations for schools with an eye toward cutting fats, sugars and other bad things, Warwick Ice Cream Company owner Gerry Bucci recruited food chemists more than a year ago to see if there was a way to keep a few frosty treats in cafeterias.

He acted none too soon.

It has taken the local company about a year, and more than 40 test products that didn't past muster, to come up with an ice cream cup that meets the new dietary regulations that went into effect with the start of the current school year.
"It was very difficult," Bucci said Wednesday, noting that the new regulations not only required a reduction in the fat and sugar in the final product, but also banned artificial sweeteners.

"With those restrictions it's almost impossible to come up with something that's palatable and really tastes like ice cream," said Bucci who is president of the family business that started in 1930. "But while I support the new (nutrition) guidelines and all the work that went into them, I also felt it was important that kids still be offered something that tastes like a treat."

Equally important to Bucci was that the final product be ice cream -- not sorbet, not frozen yogurt, not sherbet.

He explained that there are industry standards that delineate the fine difference between those variations, and said he was committed to making an ice cream cup with all the flavor and creamy smoothness of its high-fat, high-sugar ancestors.

He and sales director Barry Newman said they had to taste nearly 50 incarnations before the chemists came up with a formula that met their approval. "Some just didn't have the flavor," he said. "Others were icy or watery."

In the end the proof was, not in the pudding, but in the ice cream cup.

Warwick Ice Cream now has vanilla, chocolate, coffee and strawberry ice cream cups approved by the state Department of Education and already being purchased by some school districts. Bucci said his goal is to now market it to the large food service companies that run the lunch programs in most school districts.

"It had to taste good," he said. "We're very passionate about ice cream here."

 Tags  economy school food Warwick RI

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