Oser Communications Group

1 6 SNACKING NEWS February 2019 Ice Cream as Performance Art: Humphry Slocombe BY LORRIE BAUMANN The best ice cream tasted by this year's sofi™ Award judges was Humphry Slo- combe's Black Sesame. It's one of a dizzy- ing array of flavors offered by San Francisco, California, entrepreneurs Jake Godby and Sean Vahey, co-Founders of Humphry Slocombe. Godby, a pastry chef by training, is also the com- pany's Chef, while Vahey, who has a background in food and beverage management, also serves as its Marketing Director. The Black Sesame flavor includes toasted black sesame seeds with sesame oil added to amp up the flavor even more. The rest of the current lineup includes fla- vors like POG Sor- bet, which combines passion fruit, orange and guava in a nondairy sorbet; Matchadoodle, an ice cream made with green tea from Kyoto and snickerdoodle cookies made in- house; Blueberry Boy Bait, which of- fers brown sugar streusel stirred into a blueberry ice cream and Dirty Chai, a chai ice cream with espresso in it. The adult-oriented flavors were Godby's idea, Vahey says. "We didn't necessarily pigeonhole it as ice cream for adults," he said. "We just happen to have adult tastes." "I just don't know how to do anything else," Godby adds. "The ice cream that we make is to my taste. I just did- n't see the reason to duplicate what other people were al- ready doing very well. We were very fortunate that there was a market for what we were making, but we were going to make what we do ei- ther way." The two originally founded their business in December of 2008 with the thought that what they were starting was going to be just a quirky little ice cream shop in San Francisco's Mission District. "We're just being ourselves. We're lucky that people liked us. This was not t e s t - m a r k e t e d , " Godby says. "We had no clue that it would blow up the way it did. And it did — it blew up hot." It took the busi- ness partners two years of wading through bureau- cracy and working with contractors to get their doors open, and on their opening day, there was still a saw- horse in their lobby, and Vahey was sweeping up sawdust off the floor. "Most ice cream stores are pink and they're soft and they're cute. We are not cute," Vahey says. "There's nothing about Jake or I that's cute or adorable. We're intense and in-your-face, just like the ice cream. When you came into our shop, you had an expe- rience." Vahey and Godby had eight flavors of ice creams in the case in those days, and they were rotating flavors every day. Cus- tomers could sample any or all of the fla- vors before committing to a whole scoop. "Every ice cream had a story, and that wasn't happening anywhere," Vahey says. "We were bringing you into our world." "We couldn't keep up with the demand; the lines were getting longer and longer," Godby adds. One of the proprietors' first surprises was their customer's apparent fondness for strawberries. Their culinary approach to ice cream required fresh ingredients and seasonal flavors, and their customers were asking for strawberry ice cream in the dead of winter, when there were no strawberries to be found. Finally, when spring came around and strawberries came onto the market, Godby made the ice cream that so many had been requesting, and he called it Here's Your Damn Strawberry, which is the name by which the flavor is known today at Humphry Slocombe. The pair didn't have any marketing budget, but social media was just getting under way, so they made the most of it with posts that cre- ated a sensory expe- rience. "We were going to put our faces and our voices into our marketing," Godby says. We were doing tons of image-heavy ice cream and food porn, and that res- onated with a lot of people." Today, the pack- aging for their re- tail pints reflects that same desire to bring customers into the world of Humphry Slocombe. Pack- ages include a little of Godby and Vahey's story, and there's a quote on every carton. "It's about staying true to ourselves. ...You're still getting that ex- perience. It doesn't get lost in transla- tion," Vahey says. "Of course it's super fun to come into our store, but we want you to have that when you pick up a pint of our ice cream too. At the end of the day, it's about the ice cream. It's a unique high quality ice cream that we want you to remember." n Clif Family Napa Valley Launches Bean-to-Bar Chocolates Clif Family Napa Valley has launched a new line of bean-to-bar chocolate bars. Clif Family's executive chef and head winemaker worked together to mix unique ingredient combinations with high quality chocolate, all designed to pair with Clif Family's small production wines. The bars are available in five flavors: White Chocolate Lemon & Ginger, Milk Chocolate Cacao Nibs & Sea Salt, Dark Chocolate Smoked Spanish Pimenton Al- monds, Dark Chocolate Cabernet Sea Salt and Dark Chocolate Espresso. The cacao beans used to make Clif Family Napa Val- ley chocolate bars come from two sources – Finca Elvesia in the Dominican Repub- lic and Kokoa Kamili in Tanzania. Both of these sources have a focus on ethically and sustainably sourced cacao beans. "We have long sought to add a line of high quality, bean-to-bar chocolates to our Clif Family Napa Valley specialty food line," says Linzi Gay, General Manager of Clif Family Napa Valley. "Our goal is to bring to life flavors that enhance our wines and highlight ingredients representative of our home in Napa Valley." Founded by Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford, the Founders and co-Owners of Clif Bar & Company, Clif Family Napa Valley products are created for entertain- ing, cooking and gift giving. The products can be enjoyed on their own or added to other simple, seasonal ingredients to create delicious new dishes. Clif Family Napa Valley is inspired by the foods and fla- vors of Napa Valley, including its own CCOF certified organic farm and or- chards on Howell Mountain. In addition to the new line of chocolate bars, Clif Family Napa Valley crafts savory nut mixes, spice blends, preserves, olive oil, hot sauces and dark chocolate covered items, as well as a variety of small-pro- duction wines. The new Clif Family Napa Valley chocolate bars retail for $10 each. They are available in the Clif Family tasting room, at select specialty food stores nationwide and online at www.cliffamily.com. n

• Cover