As July is World Ice Cream Month we thought we’d interview Tony Hackley from Yarde Farm. If you’ve ever come along to any of our Bidfood Big Food & Drink Shows, you may very well have met Tony behind the Yarde Farm stand. He loves nothing more than encouraging people to try ice cream at 10am in the morning and chatting about all the flavours Yarde Farm produce for our customers!
But we wanted to get to know Yarde Farm a little more, so here is the inside scoop on everything Yarde from Tony.

Hi Tony, please introduce yourself. What is your role at Yarde Farm?

I have had the pleasure of recently being appointed the Managing Director and I’ve held two other roles within the business over the last three and half years, Head of Sales and Commercial Manager.

What is the best thing about working for Yarde Farm?

Working with such a dedicated and passionate team making the best ice cream we can, so that our very loyal customers want to keep selling Yarde Farm year after year.
Also, being able to go out and about with some exceptional sales people across the country who are equally passionate and, I’d like to think, proud of being able to call our brand part of their ‘family’.  Because, that’s what we are – a family!

What is your favourite ice cream flavour? 

I’ve got to go with a classic; chunky chocolate. We only use melted Callebaut chocolate in our dairy ice cream to create the creamy chocolate flavour and, of course, some wonderful crunchy chocolate pieces to add a little texture!
It really is the best chocolate ice cream on the market (in my opinion!).

Could you tell me about Yarde Farm, when and where did Yarde Farm ice cream start?

The business is now over 30 years old and started on Yarde Farm just outside Exeter. As we grew and started to make more and more flavours, we had to move to a new home in Plymouth, Devon, which is where we are today.
We recently received AA+ BRC grade at our latest inspection at Yarde Farm HQ which we are super proud of the team for!

Is there anyone at Yarde Farm still that has been here since the beginning?

Our Operations Manager, Ian. He has actually worked in our business since it started, working part time through college and Uni and then joined full time working through the business to become our Operations Manager!
Ian knows Yarde through and through and is such an integral part of our small team here in Plymouth.

How is Yarde Farm ice cream made? What makes your ice cream so good?

We use only the best ingredients! Including double cream and clotted cream from Cornwall, amazing Belgian Chocolate and some of the very best Italian pastes and inclusions on the market.
And we are very proud to say we are still an Artisan producer and are still hand filling our Napoli’s (ice cream tubs)!

And have you won any awards recently?

Well yes we have actually won a few so far in 2024! We won a few at the Taste of the West, three of our new flavours for this year actually won Gold; lemon meringue, strawberry cheesecake and marshmallow mudslide.
Our tropical delight won at the Cash & Carry Management Own Brand Awards, and our white chocolate and honeycomb and rhubarb and custard won at the recent BFFF Awards.
We’ve also entered some of our flavours into the Great Taste Awards and Q Awards 2024 so we can’t wait to see the outcome of those soon!

How do you develop and decide on the new flavours you create?

We have recently created a New Product Development Kitchen, and given we have a very experienced production team, their understanding of what works well together allows us to play with some wonderful flavours and ingredients.
This year we developed and launched a new sorbet based on the cherry cola sweet! We are lucky to be able to reach out to customers, sales teams and our own factory team for suggestions, which is always a treat to try something a little quirky and new!
If you follow us on Instagram or LinkedIn, we are always keen to receive messages from people suggesting a new flavour!

Why should our customers choose Yarde Farm over other ice cream brands?

Well, first of all Yarde Farm is exclusive to foodservice businesses, we do not sell to the big retailers – it’s a treat consumers can’t get at home. Second, the ice cream is just soo tasty and speaks for itself! And third of all, we love working with our customers.
We pride ourselves on being as helpful as possible and working with our customers to help them create the most successful business they can be. Which is so important in the tough foodservice environment we find ourselves in at the moment.

Have you got anything exciting coming up from Yarde Farm?

We’ve just finished preparing for our Christmas ice cream flavour for this year, a truly warming gingerbread ice cream that will go so well with so many desserts. Not to mention a surprising addition to the Affogato expanding market as it will combine beautifully with a pumpkin spiced coffee!
There is also some very exciting news about our packaging coming soon too… watch this space!

If you wanted to find out even more about Yarde Farm head to Yarde Farm | Brand Solutions – Bidfood where you can find their full Bidfood brochure.
Or to check out their own website go to Yardefarm.co.uk.