Vancouver’s first ice cream festival highlights local businesses
The event ends July 31 with multiple vendors to check out
Local food publication Noms Magazine is hosting Vancouver's first ever ice cream festival until July 31 to bring the community together. (Abby Luciano)
On a hot summer day, many people enjoy eating cold ice cream or gelato to cool off.
This year marks the first-ever Vancouver ice cream festival, a self-guided event hosted by local food publication Noms Magazine, until July 31.
Founder of Noms Magazine Jason Yeh created the self-guided festival to not only give people enough time to participate at their own pace, but also bring more summer events to Vancouver.
“There’s a lot of festivals that are just one or two days, which is great, but when you miss those one or two days because of a scheduling conflict, you have to wait a whole year, and that’s no fun,” Yeh says.
“It is also a new way to introduce people to new and old spots.”
Over 15 businesses are participating in the festival, each creating a limited-time dessert or highlighting their most popular flavours.
One of the businesses taking part is Vancouver gelato shop Bella Gelateria. They are featuring two items for the festival — Akbar Noon, a Persian inspired gelato sandwich with saffron, rosemary, pistachios, and a gelato frappe.
Amanda Lynn, the sales and marketing manager for Bella Gelateria, says Akbar Noon was created by putting a spin on one of their gelato flavours, Akbar Mashti.
“In Persian culture, an Akbar Noon is these two thin wafers, [and] we put the gelato [inbetween],” Lynn says. “It is very unique [and] different.”
Lynn says Akbar Noon was created by the kitchen and wanted to use one of their top selling flavours, Akbar Mashti, as one of the featured items for the festival.
For the frappe, people have the option to pick any gelato flavour they’d like and it gets mixed into a drink.
“It’s [a] very thick, creamy, [and] intense flavour. Something that’s nice and cold for the summer months,” Lynn says.
Bella Gelateria started up in 2010, and Lynn says they were contacted to join the ice cream festival.
“It’s a great way for people who might not know of the brand to find out about us.”
By sharing new and existing flavours with the community, Lynn hopes the festival will bring awareness to local businesses and educate others about the difference between gelato and ice cream.
“One of the biggest misconceptions is that authentic Italian gelato is like ice cream,” Lynn says, adding the major difference between gelato and ice cream is that it’s made with milk instead of cream.
“We’re hoping now that there is a very specific ice cream festival that people will be able to go around and see the difference between all the brands,” Lynn says.
To encourage people to visit all the businesses participating in the festival, Yeh says attendees can get a “passport” to collect stickers when trying featured items.
People can also participate in “missions,” such as trying a dairy free festival item and posting it on Instagram or TikTok, to have the chance to win prizes like gift cards. There are 25 prizes to be won, Yeh says.
Yeh hopes to see more food festivals like this one in the future to bring the community together and enjoy different meals or desserts.
“Vancouver still has that unfortunate label being a no fun city. Hopefully these food festivals that we are creating are part of that initiative to move that city forward,” Yeh says.
To learn more or visit one of the vendors participating in the festival, head to Nom Magazine’s website.
