Would you try an ice cream that tasted like lemon and coffee? How about lemon pepper?
These bold flavors were the creations of the top two teams in the recent OSU/Ever Fresh Fruit Company Ice Cream Innovation Contest, which held its final judging event on campus May 30 after students spent several months concocting their submissions.
“Product development is a huge part of food science,” said Hailey Light, coordinator of student recruitment, outreach and marketing for the Department of Food, Science and Technology within OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences. “And having to create an ice cream flavor while also thinking about that product going on the market is a very hands-on experience for our students – it’s what they’d be doing in industry.”
The idea and funding for the competition came from the Ever Fresh Fruit Company, alongside contributions from the Pacific Coast Coalition–Dairy Business Innovation Initiative, which comprises regional dairy businesses as well as OSU and Extension faculty. Ever Fresh worked with students throughout the process and supplied Ever Fresh ice cream flavor bases, vanilla ice cream mix from Lochmead Dairy, custom flavor kits from Flavor Producers and handmade inclusions (food items to mix in) from The Ice Cream Factory. The fruit company also sponsored the contest's monetary prizes.
OSU opened its new Beaver Classic Creamery and Scoop Shop in early April, so it made sense to host an ice cream contest this year and build around that momentum, Light said. Part of the winning team’s prize is the chance to commercialize their flavor at the creamery.
The contest launched Feb. 19 with 10 teams made up of 32 AgSci students total, with each team required to have at least one student from the food science department. Teams had to use only the ingredients provided by Ever Fresh, and they used Withycombe Hall to develop and test their products over the past few months.
On May 30, the teams presented their ice cream samples to a panel of judges, including representatives from Salt + Straw and Tillamook County Creamery, who judged them based on taste, creativity and innovation, commercial feasibility and presentation skills.
First place went to Team “Thinking On It,” with students Sarah Medrano, Hussain Alrumaih, Teagan Knox and Camryn Lau. They won $1,500 and the opportunity to sell their “café con limone” ice cream at the creamery if the recipe fulfills cost and food safety expectations.
In second place were the “Scoop Sisters,” Ellie Kojima, Alyssa Moy, Sage Briggs and Molly Hagen, for their “lemon pepper” flavor. They received $1,000.
Third place went to Team “Ever Fruity” made up of Erika Mariana Llamas, Reagan Hansen and Gabriela Jones Rivera for their whiskey-tinged “barrel and brownie” ice cream. They received $500.
“Alcohol was not included in the kits, so they actually used different kinds of flavorings to create that whiskey taste,” Light said. “It was really cool.”
Two members of the Scoop Sisters team serve their lemon pepper ice cream during the post-competition celebration.
One team mixed flavors to achieve a banana taste for their banana cream pie ice cream, despite banana not being included in the kits, either. And another made a strawberry shortcake ice cream in honor of the late researcher Bernadine Strik, who was nicknamed the “Berry Goddess” for her work developing berry cultivars.
“I thought the winning flavors were very innovative,” said Jones Rivera, a soon-to-be third-year student in food science. “This also makes me want to participate in other product development competitions in the future while in school, and I most definitely want to do the same competition next year.”
Jones Rivera wants to go into product development with snacks, candy or drinks, perhaps at Lay’s, so this competition was a good way to gain experience, she said.
“This was already related to what I wanted to pursue in the future, but I just want to do it more now. I am hoping this is the start of a lot more,” she said.
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