Meet the Warwickshire farming family that’s been making ice cream for 20 years
LEGACY and love are poured into hand-crafted ice cream made on a farm near Tysoe.
Rebecca Billing makes Bee and Ridgways ices in a dairy on her family’s farm, using milk and cream produced by their 90-strong herd of cows.
Her parents Jane and Geoff Ridgway had been making ice cream on Downs Farm for 20 years and as well as helping them, Rebecca used to work full-time for the NHS.
But tragedy struck two years ago when Rebecca’s husband Steve, who worked on the farm with Jane and Geoff and Rebecca’s brother Tom, died suddenly following a brain aneurysm and heart attack.
Rebecca said: “My life changed from that moment.”
She took over the Ridgways ice cream making business full time and changed the name to include her childhood nickname ‘Bee’.
The family’s ethos of supporting and networking with other local farmers and food producers is central to everything Rebecca does.
As well as using milk and cream from their own dairy herd, she includes only best-quality, natural and locally sourced ingredients in the ice creams and sorbets.
More than 40 flavours include chocolate chip, salted caramel, mocha, liquorice, ginger and lemon meringue.
And thanks to a tie-up with Hook Norton Brewery and the Cotswold Distillery there’s also a selection of ‘boozy’ flavours ranging from cream liqueur, whisky orange marmalade and coffee stout to summer cup gin ice cream and wildflower gin sorbet.
There’s even a diabetic range, something close to Rebecca’s heart as she is diabetic herself.
The 100ml and 500ml tubs of ice creams and sorbets can be bought from a pop-up shop on the farm, and through several local stockists including Tysoe Village Stores, Taste of the Country in Shipston, Gaydon village store, Carpenters farm shop near Warmington, the Cotswold Distillery, Hook Norton Brewery and Saltway farm shop in Banbury.
The Red Tractor award-winning ice creams and sorbets can also be found at beer and music festivals, fetes and rugby club events via ‘Pinky’, a distinctive bright-pink ice-cream van.
Rebecca said: “Steve was passionate about farming and the countryside and was living his best life. “His passing inspires me to carry on.”
She added: “I’ve been brought up on a farm all my life and want to go out and help support British agriculture and raise awareness of the farming way of life and the beautiful countryside we live in.”
