Rickett’s Point
Walking into the Rickett’s Point ice cream factory just before Spring Carnival is mayhem – organised, chilled, but mayhem all the same. Som Sayasane, co-owner and marketing director of the ice cream company is sorting through ice cream sticks for the races. It’s a contract they received from a catering company and Rickett’s Point are creating flavour combinations such as lemon yoghurt and blueberry sorbet, pineapple and lychee, and raspberry and lemon sorbet for the grown-up punters to enjoy at the track.

“Dining has become a bit more casual and I wanted to keep it fun but still a bit sophisticated and present it in another form for the consumer,” tells Sayasane when asked how the ice cream stick idea came about.

It’s this balance of the sophistication and playfulness – within the context of a high-quality product – that has seen Rickett’s Point become a significant, premium ice cream producer since Sayasane and his business partners bought the existing business three years ago.

Many of us adults love ice cream and Sayasane recognises this. “We want to bring out the inner child in everyone,” he enthuses, “by developing products like ice cream petit fours; people love them after dinner. We want to own that space.”

Owning the ice cream petit fours space is Sayasane-speak for cornering the market. He has a corporate marketing background but a savvy sense of flavour and food knowledge, and is using ice cream to synthesise his skill sets.

Rickett’s Point doesn’t do retail. There’s no shop. Instead, these guys expend their energy hand-making all their own ice creams and sorbets with real cream, milk and sugared egg yolk, selling them to restaurants, hotels, cafes and catering companies. Clearly these businesses are liking what they see, and taste, as the company’s products are in growing demand.

“When we started, our capacity was 250 litres a day and now we make 600 litres in a day,” says Sayasane. They are moving warehouses in a month or two and are taking on new clients, an encouraging indicator that if a business can’t make their own ice cream in-house, they are seeking out good quality ice creams rather than an anonymous, commercially produced product.

Rickett’s Point also do bespoke ice creams – flavours made to order – so if a chef needs a particular flavour for a specific menu, Sayasane will work with the chef to create the ice cream or sorbet. This has led to delicious pink moscato sorbet for Giant Steps in the Yarra Valley and a red grapefruit and ginger sorbet for a high-profile chef’s private function.

“Made to order is 50 per cent of our business. This is a service industry and if a specific flavour is needed for a businesses, we collaborate on it,” he continues. “We ask what’s it for, how are you going to plate it, is it based on value, what’s the theme, what are the expectations.”

All this work still rarely sees Rickett’s Point get a mention on menus where it’s served. “Generally chef’s go to great lengths on their menus to talk about where the oysters are from, cheeses are made, the beef,” he says. “An example of this is where we made a wine sorbet and they acknowledged the winemaker but there was no reference to us making the sorbet. We understand it’s the nature of the industry – we supply to chefs – but there are manufacturers who strive for excellence as well, not just chefs, and it would be great if diners were made aware of that.”

Rickett's Point
(03) 8521 4230 rickettspointfinefoods.com.au

Jock’s

Jock Main is wearing a hairnet and pouring large bags of pasteurised milk into a pasteuriser. Double pasteurising full-cream milk is part of his process for making his much-loved ice cream and serving scoops and small tubs in his Victoria Avenue shop in Albert Park. The shop opened just over 10 years ago and Main’s dedication to the integrity of his product has remained consistent. Ask anyone about Jock’s and they’ll tell you he’s unique and keeps it real, particularly his ice creams and sorbets.

After years working as a chef around Melbourne, Main was cooking for a catering company when he had a motorbike accident. “It wasn’t too serious,” he recalls. “But I wasn’t able to walk and was confined to my house. My mother and father bought me a little domestic ice cream machine as a Christmas present and it all went from there.”

Main worked “for some other guys” for about two years, but after that he reached a turning point. “My wife and I went out for dinner and I was freaking out; I didn’t know what I wanted to do and she said, ‘Why don’t you just start up your own ice cream shop’. I was 40 and I’d never had my own business before and I thought, you know what, I might as well. So I did it.”

As a local to the area, Albert Park was the chosen location, and he happened to find a vacant shop smack-bang in between a video shop and a pizzeria – ice cream was the only factor missing in the combination. “The place was empty,” he explains. “It actually used to be the porn section of the video shop. We took it and it turned out to be okay.”

What’s special about Jock’s ice cream is the quality and ingredients. “It’s real ice cream for a start,” he enthuses. “It’s made from scratch. We pasteurise the milk again because it’s having ingredients added to it that aren’t pasteurised like sugar and stabiliser.” Main has had his vegetable-based stabiliser developed specifically for his business. “What you saw me making is the base, that’s what we build on for all our ice creams.”

A restaurant scenario would see a crème anglais (egg custard) base for ice creams but at Jock’s, it’s not practical to stand and separate eggs. “The natural stabilisers do the egg yolks’ job and give the ice cream structure and ‘mouth-feel’,” he says.

While Main has his ice cream shop, he also wholesales to some restaurants and cafes around the city. He doesn’t insist that his customers put him on their menu – “it’s not a condition of sale” – but admits to liking it when they do. “Sometimes people come and say, ‘Do you supply so-and-so?’ and I’ll say ‘Yeah’, and they smile and say ‘I thought so’.”

Favourite flavours for the crowds who frequent Jock’s are Hokey Pokey and Chocolate, in any form. Main makes a rich, dark XXX chocolate, a chocolate sorbet and a chocolate ice cream, which all sail out the door on sunny days. “The hardest part of this job is the weather,” Main explains. “If it was sunny all the time it would be an easy job, but you get sun for two days and then a week of rain...it’s the most frustrating thing because you can’t control it.”

Come rain, hail or shine, we’ll be working our way through cool, sweet ice cream cones regardless.

Jocks
83 Victoria Avenue, Albert Park
(03) 9686 3838