167: From the world of finance to award-winning gelato makers: the unusual success story behind Beau’s Gelato

In this new series we get personal with the people behind the brands, with the debut episode focusing on Beau’s Gelato. We join Co-Founder and CEO Joseph Eyre to find out how two partners with no previous experience in the food industry, one with a background in nursing the other in finance, came to start an award winning plant-based gelato brand.

We discuss what made them take the plunge and start a business in an industry that was so alien to them, what fuels their passion and what comes next as they scale their brand. Join the conversation on Table Talk.

Beau’s Gelato was born out of our shared passion for travel, discovery and – most importantly – great food. Prior to setting up Beau’s we travelled extensively, searching high and low for vegan dishes that were good enough to write home about.

Along the way, we were lucky enough to meet many incredible artisans doing amazing things with vegan ingredients. Inspired, we decided we would go back and craft our own contribution to the plant-based world: a fantastic vegan ice cream that everyone could indulge in and feel great about.

At the time that we made our decision, the vegan wave was still very much in its infancy. In stark contrast to all the exciting and interesting plant-based foods that we tasted on our travels, the scant options and bland fare that was available to us back in the UK left us cold. We could see that vegan food was being grossly undersold – and wanted to do something about it. With backgrounds in nursing and finance, there was a huge learning curve for us to go through before we could make a product as good as those we’d sampled abroad. Keen to learn more, we reached out to the former owner of a highly successful vegan ice cream parlour which operated in New York, who helped us to refine our initial development and recipe research, as well as providing valuable commercial advice for starting out.

From all of this emerged Beau’s Gelato: an authentic Italian-style ice cream made without any animal products. In keeping with the Italian heritage we learnt in Bologna, we created many of the classic household flavours that everyone knows and loves.

Beau’s Gelato were the 2021 Food Matters Live Awards Plant Based Product of the Year winner.