Happy Cream & Co. open their first café – and they’re serving vegan ice cream

Local ice cream brand Happy Cream & Co. has ambitious plans to operate three outlets by February 2019 and offer vegan options for their ten most popular flavours.

Kong Chung Ang, who started Happy Cream with his wife Daisy Han from home three years ago, said earlier today that their second outlet – located behind the Arch in jalan Pasar Gadong – was now open for business, with a third branch in Mabohai slated for an opening next Febuary.

“This (latest) outlet is our first café; we’ve always wanted to have a space where customers to sit so we could introduce the ice cream and waffle combination,” said Kong, who was previously a teacher.

“We’ve also moved our (central) production at the café so we’re able to save on costs while pursuing expansion.”

Happy Cream began producing commercially towards the end of last year, renting a residence in Kiarong to set up central production. In the past 12 months, they’ve opened a small outlet at The Mall and secured supply to Supa Save’s Mata-Mata and Seria branch.

The couple market their brand as serving handcrafted, premium ice cream, using no preservatives or stabilizers. Kong says the latest evolution is to develop vegan options, although the current majority of customers don’t mind dairy.

“We’ve never claimed or marketed our ice cream as being healthy – but we put a lot of effort to ensure that only wholesome, fresh ingredients are used,” said Kong.

“The vegan options build on that. We’ve had a few customers inbox us asking if we had vegan (non-dairy) options because they’re lactose intolerant. We used this an opportunity to begin doing research and development because it will take a while to get the right flavour and consistency.”

Happy Cream currently has three vegan options: teh tarik, horlicks and caramel biscuit. All use coconut milk instead of traditional dairy milk and cream, and are currently only available directly from their outlets.

“There are procedural (steps) before being able to supply new (vegan) options on supermarket shelves,” said Kong, who first served their vegan options at a pop up event by The Collective last October.

“Right now we are trialing the vegan ice cream at our outlets – and will adapt (it into) 10 flavours – to see what the public’s response is.”

Watch: Happy Cream & Co. supply to their first outlet and Supa Save 

Visit Happy Cream & Co. on Facebook and Instagram for the latest updates. Happy Cream’s cafe is located at Bangunan Majid Mohd, Jalan Pasar Baharu, Gadong (above Pustaka Remaja) and opens from 12pm to 10pm daily.