The Health | MAy, 2019
28
Nutrition
I scream
for
healthier
ice cream
Two guys wanted to have
healthier ice cream, now they
have Calli
By Reenassri Sekaran
W
e’ve all been there. After a really
satisfying lunch, there’s nothing
better to beat the Malaysian heat
with a scoop or two of ice cream.
After all, there’s always an excuse
for ice cream right?
However, ice cream in its essence, means refined
sugar, full fat cream or milk, artificial flavours, additives
and all those extra calories we feel guilty for.
So to those who are always looking for a way to enjoy
that guilty-pleasure dessert but are weary of its fatten-
ing side effects, why not look for Calli Ice Cream?
We spoke to one of Calli’s sweet-toothed owners,
Nathaniel Loe on their new venture. Calli is actually a
joint venture between Lush Protein owners, Moham-
mad Dzarrin Alidin and Nathaniel himself.
Calli ice cream’s
founder Nathaniel Loe
has a not-so-secret
love for ice cream.
Two men’s quest for the perfect treat
“Calli is actually our second business. We actually
dipped our feet into sports nutrition about six years
ago when we started Lush Protein. We wanted to find
a new way to get protein delivered to our customers,”
explained Nathaniel.
So why ice cream? “Selfish reasons – I love ice cream,”
he jokes.
“We began looking at snacks in particular and
noticed that the options available in the market were
not so great – nutrition wise. Snacks come in a lot of
forms; be it cookies and cakes, however we found that
ice cream stood out as one format that would work
really well with our proteins. Generally speaking, it’s
a well-loved dessert, and the idea initially was to come
up with high protein ice cream.”
“We began testing, R&D, all the way from focus
groups to speaking to existing and potential customers
and we identified the one thing most of them had in
common – calories. The guilty feeling after consuming
the cold, sugary treat was the main issue. We realised
this was the main issue that we ought to tackle first.
That was how Calli was born. I understand it’s not a
new idea, but definitely a new one in Malaysia and we’re
happy to be the first ones to do it.”
A pint of goodness
“Our low-calorie ice cream is one-third the calorie of
your premium ice cream in the market. Calli also differs
in terms of it having a higher protein content, low GI
and fibre content –there are plenty of benefits that
comes with a single scoop, so to speak. We kept it in
mind not to compromise the taste and texture because
we didn’t want consumers to have the misconception
that a ‘healthy ice cream’ would lack in taste and texture
when compared to a normal ice cream. We even got
our friends and family involved in the taste test,” he
mention joyfully.
“Calli was launched around November last year – we
started selling them online in Malaysia and in February,
we launched them in Village Grocer’s all over Malaysia.
We just launched them in Singapore – you can find them
at NTUC. Calli has found its home in over 50 grocery
stores across Malaysia and Singapore.”
What’s your flavour?
Currently Calli offers a range of four flavours such as
Choc-a-lot, Caramel-by-the-sea, Durian Durian and
Earl Grey Teh.
“Our ingredients and flavouring are all real - the
durian is D24 durian pulp which Malaysian is blessed
with, the chocolate ice cream uses Belgian chocolate
for a richer taste, the Earl Grey Teh flavour is done by
steeping Earl Grey tea leaves to extract that distinct
bergamot flavour, and we also caramelise the sugar
ourselves for the salted caramel flavour.”
Currently marketed in pints, they hope to introduce
single servings like bars or single scoops.
Taste test
There are
four flavours
currently in
the market,
Choc-a-lot,
Caramel-
by-the-sea,
Durian Durian
and Earl Grey
Teh.
Being a fellow lover of desserts, Nathaniel gave us
spoons and we started our ice cream taste test. The
Durian Durian ice cream have managed to keep its
authentic flavour with its rich, creamy and familiarly
pungent body of flavour.
However, the award has got to go to the Earl Grey
Teh. There is a somewhat soothing taste to it. It is quite
impressive to have such a robust tea flavour in our ice
creams. It was just the right amount of sweet while also
having that slight tea bitterness. As we would call it, a
sweet and floral flavour profile.
We had almost forgotten that the ice cream we had
was a much healthier one compared to others, and
therefore was having no problem satisfying our ice
cream fix – without the guilt. — The Health