Focus on our suppliers: Saffron Ice Cream

Supplier of luxury dairy ice cream, vegan ice cream, and vegan dairy-free sorbet, Saffron Ice Cream, has become Hinxton Hall Conference Centre’s latest local supplier.

Their ethos is: no ultra processed ingredients, no unnatural colourings, no artificial flavourings, and no chemical emulsifiers or stabilisers.

About the Saffron Ice Cream Company

The Saffron Ice Cream Company grew from a boy’s childhood love of his mum’s ice cream, and together, Dom and his mum made the first commercial batch in 2010 in their first farm production kitchen.

In 2013 they won their first award, and over the next five years the team grew with the arrival of Harry and Tommy as Production Manager and Coordinator. They then hit the national stage when Saffron Ice Cream started supplying prestigious brands, such as the National Trust, the catering business of MasterChef star, Saira Hamilton, and catering at RHS flower shows. In 2019 they made their first vegan ice cream, and by 2023 their team had reached double figures. By 2024 they had to invest in new ice cream machines in order to be able to keep up with demand for their delicious ice cream. And so, the success continues! Their team, number of customers, and volume of ice cream produced are still growing.

A collage of photos of Saffron Ice Cream, showing the cone and tub products alongside the manufacturing machine.

Ice creams and sorbets, and sustainability

Saffron Ice Cream produces a core range of well-known flavours, complemented by seasonal specials. Their ice cream is made by hand, daily, using the finest ingredients, often sourced locally from micro producers.

Using local suppliers reduces the environmental impact of the products by reducing food miles and supports a local farming community of producers such as themselves.

Here is a selection of some of the seasonal and natural ingredients they use, the flavours they’re used in, and suppliers below:

Ingredient	Used in	Produced by	Food miles from Saffron Walden
Strawberries and raspberries	Summer strawberries and cream; Raspberry sorbet	Cammas Hall Fruit Farm	14 miles
Coffee	Espresso coffee bean ice cream	Wood Street Coffee Roasters	1.5 miles
Apples	Apple sorbet; Ice cream for dogs	Cam Valley Orchards	11 miles
Honey	British honey and lavender ice cream	Jerry from Saffron Walden	1 mile
Old salt rum	Spiced Essex rum and raisin	English Spirit Distillery	14 miles
Maldon sea salt flakes	Salted butter caramel; Vegan chocolate and sea salt	Maldon sea salt	39 miles
Elderflower	British elderflower sorbet	Their own family farm	0 miles
Peppermint	Summerdown Farm mint chocolate	Summerdown Farm	Hampshire
Sugar	all	British Sugar	27 miles
Whole milk and double cream	all	The Estate Dairy	Cheshire

No wonder their ice creams taste so good!

Find a full list of flavours here.

Interestingly, Saffron Ice Cream was one of the first UK ice cream producers to change to using potato milk as a vegan alternative to dairy, which they use in their Vegan Chocolate Sea Salt ice cream. Potatoes are a resource-efficient crop requiring significantly less water and land to grow compared to nuts, oats, or dairy. And East Anglia is a major potato growing region, so it’s also a local ingredient.

Where to find it

Other than at Hinxton Hall Conference Centre, Saffron Ice Cream is served in establishments and sold in shops across the east of England, and can also be bought from their online shop.

You can also find them serving their artisan ice cream at special events across Essex, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, and London, from their ice cream bike or catering trailer! Find out more here.