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Goat Milk Ice Cream Catching On Fast
The popularity of goat's milk due to health-conscious trends and lactose intolerance, combined with Laura Howard's flair for coming up with unusual flavors, has been a winning formula for a rapidly expanding goat's milk ice cream business.
    Howard left her job as a Los Angeles film and advertising producer to start her new venture, "Laloo's Goats' Milk Ice Cream," in the fall of 2004. Already she's selling thousands of pints of ice cream per month for $6 each.
    Appealing to an upscale crowd, Howard currently offers eight flavors. She's continually experimenting with flavors and has invented more than two dozen so far such as Saffron Cookie Crunch, Rumplemint, Campari Orange, and Honey Lavender.
    The 38-year-old has her own small herd of goats, but currently buys the milk she needs from two local goat dairies. She rents a commercial kitchen, leases equipment, and employs a "handful" of part-time employees.
    Gauging by the demand for her unique ice cream, Howard believes "there was a pent-up demand for goat milk ice cream."
    This translates into 18-hr. work days, seven days a week, including the day-to-day production work, as well as attending food trade shows and tastings for chefs. She sells directly to local restaurant chefs, as well as specialty markets.
    Howard has more than 130 distributors along the West Coast and in Hawaii. Her product was also recently featured on the menu at Saks Fifth Ave in New York.
    "Laloo's is made in small batches, the old fashioned way. It's extremely creamy, but has half the calories of other gourmet ice creams," she says. "The intense flavors are a result of slow cooking the ice cream's base, which produces a counterpoint to the mellow cream of the goat's milk."
    Some goat's milk tanginess can be detected in the Chevre Chiffon because it is loaded with fresh chevre. For the most part, however, Howard's products are very similar to "regular" ice cream.
    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Laura Howard, Laloo's Goats Milk Ice Cream, 3900 Magnolia Ave., Petaluma, Calif. 94952 (laloo@goatmilkicecream.com; www.goatmilkicecream.com).


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2006 - Volume #30, Issue #1