Our Early Days at The Farmer's Markets

As we enter into our 8th year in business we're thinking about where Nobó began. 

From very early on, we knew what we wanted to do. We wanted to create a health food brand with better for you alternatives, starting by redefining a much loved classic, ‘ice cream’. So we got started from our home kitchen in Dublin. We borrowed an ice cream machine and set off to create the perfect recipe for Frozen Goodness, our ice cream alternative.

This was no easy task! It involved hours and hours of trialing different combinations of ingredients; cashew nuts, avocados, almond milk dates and many different methods; blending, straining, churning, tasting. 

We wanted our ice cream to be very different, to be made from whole foods, healthy plant fats and wholesome ingredients that would not only be dairy free but also free of gums and stabilisers. 

AND it had to taste as good, or actually better, than traditional ice cream. 

Our naivety and lack of experience stood to us, as did our determination and belief that it was possible. And with each failed experiment, we got closer and closer to achieving what we wanted!

So as to get feedback and see if anyone would be interested in what we were making we started attending local Dublin Farmers Markets, first at Marlay Park every Saturday and then at Dun Laoghaire People’s Park on Sundays. 

There we met some amazing folks. We still reflect with gratitude on the support and encouragement we have received from our earliest customers and how it inspired us to keep going. Many would eagerly arrive early on Sunday morning to ensure they got their weekly supply!

We spent our days in the kitchen trying to make as much ice cream as we could, roasting strawberries, toasting almonds, refining our recipe, filling and labelling tubs.  

We loved our farmers market weekends, early starts and long days but so fulfilling and rewarding. Over the course of our first summer, our regular customers quickly became new friends and we looked forward each market - except for the occasional cold one (can you tell in the below photo that I'm FREZZING?!!)

Thinking back to our days spent at the Farmers Markets in Dublin, we really got so much out of them and we've been missing that face to face time with our customers ever since. 

So it perhaps comes as no surprise how excited we are about the next chapter in the Nobó story, the opening of our first retail space this Autumn. It will be wonderful to have that face to face time with our customers once again. It really does feel like meaningful social interactions have never been more important and we hope we can create a space in the community that allows these moments to happen every day.  

We’ll be sharing lots more soon, so watch this space!

Rachel & Brian

Read more about the Treathouse here.