The Spot / A blog by Beachy Cream Ice Cream

Keepin' It Real (Organic)...

2012-01-23T08:54:00.000-08:00

Some days we ask ourselves, “Is it really worth it to keep making Beachy Cream Ice Cream (and our cookies and everything else) from 100% organic ingredients?". We want to believe that our competitors who use the word “organic” to promote their products, or say they use some “organic ingredients – whenever possible” have their hearts in the right place by promoting awareness and benefits of going organic (and not just misleading their customers), but alas, it’s not the same as producing a 100% organic product.

As the prices of organic ingredients continue to climb, we do the calculations and we see that we could make so much more money (and lower our prices!) if we substituted conventional ingredients. For a fledgling company this is very tempting, because we need to make money to stay in business! But we can’t do that – because Beachy Cream is committed to 100% organic, and we’re not going to compromise.

When we open our new Beachy Cream full-service ice cream store at 1209 Wilshire in Santa Monica, we will have not only our famous ice cream sandwiches, but also scooped 100% Organic ice cream in 18 amazing flavors that we make everyday at our store.

We are so proud to be Los Angeles' ONLY organic ice cream company!

If you need convincing that it’s important, read this article from Organic.org:

Top 10 Reasons to Support Organic in the 21st Century

Source: Alan Greene, MD ( Organic Trade Association), Bob Scowcroft (Organic Farming Research Foundation), Sylvia Tawse (Fresh Ideas Group)

1. Reduce The Toxic Load: Keep Chemicals Out of the Air, Water, Soil and our Bodies
Buying organic food promotes a less toxic environment for all living things. With only 0.5 percent of crop and pasture land in organic, according to USDA that leaves 99.5 percent of farm acres in the U.S. at risk of exposure to noxious agricultural chemicals.

Our bodies are the environment so supporting organic agriculture doesn’t just benefit your family, it helps all families live less toxically.

2. Reduce if Not Eliminate Off Farm Pollution
Industrial agriculture doesn’t singularly pollute farmland and farm workers; it also wreaks havoc on the environment downstream. Pesticide drift affects non-farm communities with odorless and invisible poisons. Synthetic fertilizer drifting downstream is the main culprit for dead zones in delicate ocean environments, such as the Gulf of Mexico, where its dead zone is now larger than 22,000 square kilometers, an area larger than New Jersey, according to Science magazine, August, 2002.

3. Protect Future Generations
Before a mother first nurses her newborn, the toxic risk from pesticides has already begun. Studies show that infants are exposed to hundreds of harmful chemicals in utero. In fact, our nation is now reaping the results of four generations of exposure to agricultural and industrial chemicals, whose safety was deemed on adult tolerance levels, not on children’s. According to the National Academy of Science, “neurologic and behavioral effects may result from low-level exposure to pesticides.” Numerous studies show that pesticides can adversely affect the nervous system, increase the risk of cancer, and decrease fertility.

4. Build Healthy Soil
Mono-cropping and chemical fertilizer dependency has taken a toll with a loss of top soil estimated at a cost of $40 billion per year in the U.S., according to David Pimental of Cornell University. Add to this an equally disturbing loss of micro nutrients and minerals in fruits and vegetables. Feeding the soil with organic matter instead of ammonia and other synthetic fertilizers has proven to increase nutrients in produce, with higher levels of vitamins and minerals found in organic food, according to the 2005 study, “Elevating Antioxidant levels in food through organic farming and food processing,” Organic Center State of Science Review (1.05)

5. Taste Better and Truer Flavor
Scientists now know what we eaters have known all along: organic food often tastes better. It makes sense that strawberries taste yummier when raised in harmony with nature, but researchers at Washington State University just proved this as fact in lab taste trials where the organic berries were consistently judged as sweeter. Plus, new research verifies that some organic produce is often lower in nitrates and higher in antioxidants than conventional food. Let the organic feasting begin!

6. Assist Family Farmers of all Sizes
According to Organic Farming Research Foundation, as of 2006 there are approximately 10,000 certified organic producers in the U.S. compared to 2500 to 3,000 tracked in 1994. Measured against the two million farms estimated in the U.S. today, organic is still tiny. Family farms that are certified organic farms have a double economic benefit: they are profitable and they farm in harmony with their surrounding environment. Whether the farm is a 4-acre orchard or a 4,000-acre wheat farm, organic is a beneficial practice that is genuinely family-friendly.

7. Avoid Hasty and Poor Science in Your Food
Cloned food. GMOs and rBGH. Oh my! Interesting how swiftly these food technologies were rushed to market, when organic fought for 13 years to become federal law. Eleven years ago, genetically modified food was not part of our food supply; today an astounding 30 percent of our cropland is planted in GMOs. Organic is the only de facto seal of reassurance against these and other modern, lab-produced additions to our food supply, and the only food term with built in inspections and federal regulatory teeth.

8. Eating with a Sense of Place
Whether it is local fruit, imported coffee or artisan cheese, organic can demonstrate a reverence for the land and its people. No matter the zip code, organic has proven to use less energy (on average, about 30 percent less), is beneficial to soil, water and local habitat, and is safer for the people who harvest our food. Eat more seasonably by supporting your local farmers market while also supporting a global organic economy year round. It will make your taste buds happy.

9. Promote Biodiversity
Visit an organic farm and you’ll notice something: a buzz of animal, bird and insect activity. These organic oases are thriving, diverse habitats. Native plants, birds and hawks return usually after the first season of organic practices; beneficial insects allow for a greater balance, and indigenous animals find these farms a safe haven. As best said by Aldo Leopold, “A good farm must be one where the native flora and fauna have lost acreage without losing their existence.” An organic farm is the equivalent of reforestation. Industrial farms are the equivalent of clear cutting of native habitat with a focus on high farm yields.

10. Celebrate the Culture of Agriculture
Food is a ‘language’ spoken in every culture. Making this language organic allows for an important cultural revolution whereby diversity and biodiversity are embraced and chemical toxins and environmental harm are radically reduced, if not eliminated. The simple act of saving one heirloom seed from extinction, for example, is an act of biological and cultural conservation. Organic is not necessarily the most efficient farming system in the short run. It is slower, harder, more complex and more labor-intensive. But for the sake of culture everywhere, from permaculture to human culture, organic should be celebrated at every table.

Happy Holidays from the Beachy Cream (Rockette) Girls!

2011-11-26T09:28:00.000-08:00

Last week the Beachy Cream Girls debuted their holiday attire, and so far it’s a big hit! I got the inspiration to have them dress up like Radio City Music Hall Rockettes from a story my father, Jack Ryan, inventor of the Barbie Doll told:

When my father was a little boy (back in the 1930’s) his father James Ryan was a prominent builder in New York City, specializing in homes for the rich and famous (Katherine Hepburn and Helen Hayes) as well as lavish store facades and other commercial projects. One of his assignments was at Radio City Music Hall. My father often accompanied his father on these jobs, and while his father was busy working, my father would hide in the orchestra pit and watch the Rockettes rehearsing. From his vantage point far below the stage, the beautiful, high-kicking dancers legs looked a mile long. This was a lot of glamour and excitement for an impressionable young lad, and these images of the long-legged beauties were indelibly inscribed in his imagination. Later he cited it as one of his earliest influences in his development of the Barbie Doll.

-ANN

Inspiration for Beachy Cream (continued...)

2011-11-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

My next foray into ice cream was at Howard Johnson’s in Chatham, MA on Cape Cod where we spent our summers. I was 16 years old. It was basically a hot dog stand with stools at a counter and picnic tables outside. My grandmother would come in almost every day and order a chocolate ice cream soda with coffee ice cream and leave me a big tip. I wore a turquoise and white houndstooth checked uniform. I scooped a lot of ice cream that summer and I remember that the chocolate chip was always the hardest to scoop. I recently noticed that the colors I chose for Beachy Cream – the aqua and orange are very close to Howard Johnson’s colors!

Flash forward to 2009. I was living in Malibu and everyday I passed a tiny building for lease on the corner of PCH and Heathercliff Rd on Point Dume. It had a circular driveway that accessed both streets, a nice grassy area for picnic tables – an ideal location that would take advantage of the thousands of beach goers, and local residents – a perfect spot for an ice cream shop I thought. Until, I started talking to the City of Malibu, the Health Department and all the other regulatory bodies. I soon realized that unless I had lots and lots of money that it wouldn’t work.

Plan B: Buy an ice cream cart, make ice cream sandwiches (using my grandmother’s cookie recipe) and try to get some local businesses to sell them. I was so fortunate to have the help of Dolores Rivellino – owner of The Godmother of Malibu Café and Catering – who let me use her kitchen, and to Michael Osterman, owner of Pacific Coast Greens in Malibu who took a chance on me and became my first commercial customer.

Right around that time I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to do this all by myself, so I talked my long time friend (and expert baker) Debbie Kimble into becoming a partner and that allowed us to really take off. A defining moment was when we were featured on Daily Candy – and then the phone started ringing off the hook.

We had always done events, but then I got the idea to have Beachy Cream Girls – pin-up style models who wear vintage swimsuits and serve ice cream to party guests from their “cigarette” trays. This garnered us even more publicity and bookings. My daughter Beth Stockwell is now a partner in Beachy Cream and she handles our marketing, wholesale and Beachy Cream Girls.

In May we opened our first retail location at The Market at Santa Monica Place, and we hope to open more locations and expand our wholesale operations over the coming months.

-ANN

Beachy Cream's inspiration... Wil Wright's

2011-11-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

So, after many months of procrastination, I’m starting to blog. Our fabulous graphic designer and knower of all things technical has insisted that we do this – partly because we might have something to say that might interest our readers...

I’m often asked how I got the idea for Beachy Cream, so I’ll riff on that. My first, and fondest, memories of ice cream from my childhood revolve around a very special ice cream parlor, Wil Wright’s, where my mother would take my sister and me on special occasions (like after a school performance) or sometimes just as a treat. Usually it was to the one in Westwood Village located in a beautiful old building.

Marilyn Lewis, former co-owner with her husband Harry of the fabulous no-longer-what-it-used-to-be Hamburger Hamlet chain, wrote about this in A Romantic History in Westwood Village: “Built in 1933, the handsome round red brick building was called "La Ronda de las Estrellas ("the round court of the stars") which provided Westwood village with its early identity. On the south wall of La Ronda (on the Lindbrook drive side) is a hand painted fresco (now faded) of a maid and a man of old Spain, playing his guitar, painted by artist, Margaret Dobson, who flew in from France to do the work, when the building was erected.” “Of course, Wil Wright's ice cream parlor was probably the most well known tenant, with its famous red and white stripes and little angel with wings motto,"It's Heavenly"... and it was ...Wil Wright served the richest ice cream (32% butterfat but who knew...) and do you remember the macaroon cookies in the little cellophane bags?”

The décor at Wil Wright’s was perfect – marble topped tables, wire backed chairs, black and white checked floor – oh, I miss it so much! There were lot’s of interesting flavors of ice cream--Vanilla Bean, Strawberry Water Ice, Fresh Peach, Butter Pecan, Rasberry Sherbet, Orange Sherbet , Peppermint Stick and my favorites – Chocolate Burnt Almond and Coconut. More on Wil Wright's later....
--ANN

Opening May 20th / Santa Monica Place

2011-05-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

Beachy Cream debuts in Daily Candy!

2010-05-12T18:07:00.000-07:00

"...Putting all tastiness aside (if only to wipe the crumbs from a vanilla bean Surfin’ Safari Chocolate Chip snack off our face), it was chewy exterior, toothsome interior delivered from first bite to last — even right out of the freezer — that amazed. We know, it’s a lot to digest." - Daily Candy, May 2010

View the full feature on Daily Candy right here!

Welcome to the new site!

2010-01-10T15:48:00.000-08:00

Coming Soon.
We are working on getting our ducks in a row for the Beachy Cream blog, The Spot. Please checkout the rest of our newly launched site & check back for updates. Enjoy the site!