We set up Baboo Gelato because we wanted to create great ice cream using the wealth of amazing ingredients in the West Country. Nine years on, and we still spend a lot of our time meeting with local farms and suppliers.

We think that our use of real ingredients sets Baboo Gelato apart. We don’t use flavourings, much to the astonishment of the big flavour houses. Instead we start with organic milk from Holy Cow in North Perrott, Somerset, and add real ingredients. For example, each July, Julian from Forde Abbey arrives with a van loaded with freshly picked strawberries, which we puree for our ever popular Strawberry Gelato.

We source a lot of fruit locally, whether it is plums from North Perrott Fruit Farm, pears from Ellwell Farm, elderflowers from the local hedgerows, damsons from a Victorian walled garden, blackcurrants and gooseberries from Forde Abbey. Kind supporters of Baboo drop in their excess produce. It is not only fruit that we source locally: our mint comes from Summerdown Mint in Hampshire; our salt from Dorset Sea Salt; our cold brew coffee from Read’s Coffee in Sherborne.

There are products that we cannot get locally. But we use the same principles of trying to find the very best suppliers we can, buying direct from farms rather than use large bulk intermediaries. So our rhubarb comes from the Yorkshire rhubarb triangle, our nuts come direct from farms in Piedmont, Veneto and Sicily, and our citrus from Sicily, and our tropical fruit from farms in Brazil. We really value the relationships we have with our suppliers, and believe that by working directly with the farmers we can be sure of the quality.