Developing Ice Cream in Africa with Cornell Alumni

By:  Kim Bukowski, Extension Support Specialist

If someone had told me that I would get the opportunity to travel to Kenya to help a couple of Cornell Alumni make ice cream I would never have believed it.  But that is exactly what I got to do.

Through another Cornell Alum, I was connected with Delia and Andy Sterling, both Cornell Alumni that own and operate a cheese plant in Nairobi. Kenya. Brown’s Cheese has been in business for 30 years in Kenya. Delia and her husband have taken over the business from her parents and are working on adding ice cream to their product line.

There is no ice cream currently being produced in Kenya. Since they already have a distribution system in place for the cheese, adding ice cream to their lineup makes good business sense.

The challenges of making a great ice cream in Kenya were many. First of all, there are no ingredient companies, so everything must be grown and processed from scratch.  When I say scratch that literally means getting the eggs from the chickens, the milk from the cows and the flavorings from the garden. The extra work involved in all these processes is incredible. The weather in Nairobi is pretty mild and since they are almost at the equator, they are able to have gardens year round.

Second the power was inconsistent and would always seem to quit during a batch of ice cream. The power also affected the storage of the ice cream. But when everything was running well and we tweaked the formula so that it could handle the batch freezer process, the product was good.

Delia then introduced the ice cream at Christmas Fairs, where people go to Christmas shop. Their cheese is “award winning” and many people buy it around the holidays for entertaining and gifts.

When they introduced the ice cream at the fair, they sold out each day. It was a big hit!

 African Ice Cream 1

Selling ice cream at the Xmas Fair

African Ice Cream 2

 

 

 

 

 

Delia making a batch of ice cream.

African Ice Cream 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freezing the first batch of ice cream. Most of the employees had never tasted ice cream so they were very interested and curious.

 African Ice Cream 4

Receiving raw milk in cans from the local co-op every morning. The average herd size was 5-6 cows and they have no refrigeration. The milk is received and immediately processed into cheese and ice cream.

 

African Ice Cream 5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The roads are poorly paved, no sidewalks, road signs or traffic lights.

African Ice Cream 6

 

 

 

 

 

Their property was adjacent to the tea plantations.

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