Salcombe Dairy has been lucky enough to go from strength-to-strength since we first opened our doors. We credit this to our passion which comes from being a small, locally run business along with always sourcing the best quality products and doing what we can to innovate the business when necessary.
We were founded by Peter Howard more than 40 years ago. Peter started making real dairy ice cream from a small stone-built shed at the bottom of Coronation Road in Salcombe. It was so good that we still use the very base recipe he devised before opening the company.
The business is now co-owned by Dan and Lucy, along with their good friends from Kent who are also our South East distributors.
Our ice cream
What started as a dream to make great ice cream has ended in a successful business with more than 60 awards to its name.
We refuse to compromise on quality or taste which is why the milk we use in our ice cream comes straight from the farm first thing each morning. Our double cream comes in fresh from the creamery and the flavour ingredients we use are the best quality available.
We have a large selection of flavours from traditional vanilla and chocolate to some super exciting creations including banoffee, coconut, Kenyan coffee, popcorn, rainforest nectar, stem ginger and more.
Did you know that we were the first to bring the amazing honeycomb flavour to the UK? We have of course also adapted to changing needs and offer dairy-free and nut-free options as well as a selection of tasty sorbets.
While our ice creams are incredibly popular in the summer, we wanted to extend our product range to have something to offer our customers all year round. A trip to Peru and Costa Rica inspired us to start our bean-to-bar range of chocolate which has been a successful addition to the business.
Our chocolate
Our chocolate-making adventure started with tours of various cocoa plantations in Costa Rica and Peru. After extensive research, we decided to source our beans from Peru because it was the best flavour we could find and also because it allows us to offer a fair trade and organic product which is important to us.
We really went to town to ensure we could produce the best chocolate possible. We have a great team working with us including chefs, health and safety teams and distribution experts. We also went to Italy to find out more about the bean-to-bar process. There was of course lots of chocolate tasting involved in the process. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it!
We were really keen for our chocolate to reflect our ice cream flavours. Our honeycomb ice cream is our most famous for example, so we’ve translated this into a chocolate bar which has been very popular.
A lot of the ingredients we source for our ice cream is actually used for our chocolate as well. If you love our ice cream, you’ll really enjoy our chocolate.
What makes us different from larger manufacturers is that everything is done by hand rather than being mass produced. From sorting the cacao nibs to wrapping each and every chocolate bar, we manage every step of the process. This helps us to ensure the very best quality with every single product.
It’s a very labour-intensive process but it’s a labour of love and it’s worth every minute to see our customers’ happy faces.
If you would like to try Salcombe’s finest chocolate, head to our online store and you can have it shipped straight to your door.
