Artisan ice cream maker joins forces with specialist fresh food distribution company

Rays Ice Cream, Swindon’s only artisan ice cream producer, can now be tasted across the South of England thanks to a partnership with local company Heritage Fine Food.

Hadi Brooks, managing director of Rays Ice Cream, is now working with the company based at Coate, near Devizes to supply hotels, restaurants, pubs, tourist attractions, schools and cafes with fresh, high quality ice cream in multiple flavours.

“This is an exciting development for us,” Hadi said. “We’ve been wanting to grow and offer great ice cream to anyone providing good food across the south west of the country, however we were limited by our capacity to deliver. Working with the team at Heritage Fine Food allows our ice cream to be delivered the next day to Wiltshire, Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset and beyond.”

Heritage Fine Food is a family run business which specialises in offering next day delivery of fresh, frozen, often locally produced, products to schools, cafes, restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions all around the South of England. The business was first established in Wiltshire in 1979 as a shop and has since evolved into a specialist delivery company. 

Tom Edwards, sales director of Heritage Fine Food, said: “We’re thrilled to be able to work with Rays Ice Cream and bring this quality product to a much wider audience. This is an obvious next step for the brand.”

Rays Ice Cream was set up by Hadi in 2011. It’s proved popular with families in Wiltshire with two shops, one in Swindon’s Old Town and another in Royal Wootton Bassett. The top five flavours are vanilla, chocolate, raspberry ripple, mint choc and salted caramel and there’s even a vegan ice cream available.

Hadi said: “The quality of our product comes from great ingredients including local whole milk and double cream with no cheap fillers. Many ice creams contain no milk or cream at all. 

“We make our ice cream in smaller batches and it’s churned slowly for a short amount of time – so it’s not full of air. You can tell when you taste it, it's called ‘mouthfeel’ in the industry. Our products are denser, more luxurious and a lot more filling.”

Heritage Fine Food are currently offering ten Rays Ice Cream flavours including Christmas Pudding and Mince Pie ice cream and two flavours of vegan ice cream. For more information on Rays Ice Cream and its wholesale service visit www.RaysWholesale.co.uk/wholesale. To order from Heritage Fine Foods please call 01380 860968.

The image shows Heather Greenwood and Hadi Brooks from Rays Ice Cream with Tom Edwards from Heritage Fine Food.