Ingredient story
Strawberry
Jensen Jordbær · Sæby, Denmark
In our Strawberry Ice Cream and Strawberry Sorbet, we use genuine Danish Honeoye strawberries from Jensen Jordbær near Sæby. It is a variety that most supermarkets don't want. Its dark colour costs Honeoye its place on the supermarket shelf, but it is one of the reasons we choose it.
Honeoye — a variety with colour and power
Honeoye is a hybrid bred at Cornell University in the 1970s as a cross between the varieties Vibrant and Holiday: one for its stable performance, the other for its size, hardiness and firm fruit. The result is a large, deep red berry with an intense flavour — and an entirely natural colour that we never need to help along with additives.
The berry supermarkets turn down
Honeoye is rarely sold in retail, because the dark red colour makes shoppers think the berry is overripe. For us it is the other way around: it is precisely the deep colour and concentrated flavour that are the reason we use this variety. We are among the few who use it in ice cream production.
The climate of Vendsyssel and the long, bright hours
The fields near Sæby lie close to the Kattegat, where the sea evens out the temperature and keeps the frost away in spring. The coast limits cloud formation, so the berries get plenty of hours of sunshine and ripen slowly and evenly. It is this combination of light, moderate warmth and cool nights that builds up the sugar and aroma in the berry.
Picked when ripe
Most strawberries in the shops are picked half-ripe in order to survive transport. We accept berries picked at full ripeness — that is when the sugar is at its highest, the scent at its deepest and the berry simply tastes of the most. That flavour is the whole foundation of the ice cream, which is why we need neither artificial flavouring nor colouring.
In brief
- Supplier
- Jensen Jordbær, Sæby
- Variety
- Honeoye
- Picking
- At full ripeness
- Used in
- Strawberry Ice Cream and Strawberry Sorbet
- Additives
- No colouring or flavouring
