Morelli's licks rivals to win top ice cream award

Morelli's in Northern Ireland makes the best vanilla ice cream in the UK…and that's official! The company's double cream vanilla ice cream has been voted the UK's best for taste and quality in influential Ice Cream Championships, an annual competition run by the Ice Cream Alliance, the trade body for the UK's £1 billion ice cream industry. It makes ice cream, at Coleraine in county Londonderry.

There were awards too for other Northern Irish ice cream specialists Maud's, based at Carrickfergus in county Antrim, and Mullins, located at Kilrea in county Londonderry.

Arnaldo Morelli, a director of the award winning business, says: "The latest endorsement is our eighth for vanilla over the past 10 years. We can justifiably claim to produce the UK's best vanilla ice cream. It's a further boost for our ongoing sales drive to build business outside Northern Ireland particularly in Great Britain."

The company gained several other awards including a Silver challenge Cup in the Ice Cream Open Category.

The Morelli family, from Coleraine, has been making ice cream in Northern Ireland for over 100 years. The Morelli family came to Ireland from Italy in 1911 and has been at the centre of the ice cream industry since then, earning widespread recognition and local customer particularly for unique ice cream sundaes sold through ice cream parlours and cafes.

As a result, the Morelli family has become synonymous with high quality soft ice cream.

The company, still family owned and managed, now supplies retailers including Tesco, Mace and Costcutters with a range of ice cream packs.

The business produces 50 different flavours of ice cream at its Coleraine factory. It supplies hotels and restaurants, as well as Tesco supermarkets across Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The company, a specialist in Italian ice cream, has expanded direct sales in the Republic and has invested in a fleet of refrigerated vans. It has a distribution agreement there with Crossgar Foodservices.

Both Maud's and Mullin's were awarded diplomas for their dairy ice cream. Maud's gained recognition for it strawberry, rum and raisin and coffee flavours. Maud's has been making ice cream since 1982 and Mullin's since 1954.