Premium pudding com­pany Gü looks likely to create a few shivers among frozen food producers as it expands its booming brand into the ice cream market.
Three Italian gelato-style dessert ice creams roll into Waitrose stores and onto Ocado's online menu next week and are set to hit Sainsbury's freezers in the latter part of next month.
The company is hoping to tempt taste buds with a trio of exotic and indulgent flavours of ice cream made with more milk than cream for a ­lighter effect.
Bourbon & Tahitian Vanilla blends punchy Bourbon vanilla with the more flowery Tahitian ­variety, Double Choc has 53% chocolate ganache rippling through it and Choc & Raspberry combines chocolate and raspberry ice cream with a raspberry coulis. All are priced at £3.99 for 500ml.
Packaging echoes the rest of Gü's rapidly expanding portfolio, with the ice cream being presented in a black insulated cube to keep the product ­frozen on the way home, as well as fitting neatly into the freezer.
Marketing manager Becs Hurwitz said the decision to move into ice cream had come about for two main reasons. "Firstly, the products ideally complement our range of Puds, while offering new taste experiences," she explained. "Secondly, we realised there was a gap at the top of the ice cream sector. The category lacked a lighter, fresher alternative to the conventional American-style ice creams, and Gü's premium gelato-style ice cream meets this demand perfectly."
The Gü brand, created by James Averdieck, a former business development manager at Uniq, in a joint venture with Rensow Patisserie, revolutionised chilled desserts when it launched three chocolate puds in 2003. It has since added mini pots, lar­ger sizes and new ­flavours, as well as chocolates, a fruit-based pudding brand called Frü and chilled brownies.
Mary Carmichael

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