By now you know that COVID-19 has rattled the country, shutting down major industries and crippling many others. And in this economic downturn, many Belizeans have been doing what they can to support and buy local.
One Ice Cream Parlour has made buying local a creative and compelling campaign, producing 19 locally sourced flavours in 19 days.
And this afternoon we stopped by the Ice Cream Shoppe to get a recap of the unique and delectable concoctions that they've used to showcase a range of tastes from all over Belize.
It's the ice cream parlour that has been a staple of Belizean life since 1985 and while it went dark for almost 10 years,
it returned in 2014 to once again tempt and tickle the tastebuds of ice cream lovers - and who isn't one?
But when the folks at the Ice Cream Shoppe found themselves in the midst of a pandemic, they got creative in a bid to support local businesses that had taken the widespread COVID-19 hit.
Molly Doley, Owner/Operator, Ice Cream Shoppe
"We consciously made an effort to try and switch from the imported ingredients to local because we felt like the economy with everything COVID brought about was a way to assist and maybe do our responsibility as a small business to get local ingredients."
And with everything from the Belizean gastronomic list on offer, there was no shortage of combinations for the Shoppe's creations, like the ice cream version of a Sunday afternoon coconut pie:
Molly Doley, Owner/Operator, Ice Cream Shoppe
"I mean liquor was not hard to come by. And then the rest just kind of falls into place. You go to institutions in Belize like DITS for example knowing that I wanted the Coconut pie but when I got there and you stand at the desert counter it's like there's so many things there's so many options, you know, So we just kind of scoured the cities, Cayo toledo and found things we could use for the whole 19 days."
"The Rainforest crunch which is an exclusive flavour that we make for the San Ignacio hotel. That's kind of how we tied it into the local part. It's that the tourism Industry they're really feeling the hit of COVID-19 and I wanted to highlight a hotel and that hotel offers this flavor exclusively so we brought it on it's coconut flavor with cashew's cacao nibs, and Belizean fudge."
"It's so good that it sold out so fast and we've been making it constantly but I'm also a huge fan of the Cacao Nuts which are just coconut and cacao nibs. Today's flavour Karla's Milk Cake is boiled Milk, which I 've always wanted to work with and I don't know why I haven't, and just chunks of her delicious Milk Cake and I expect that that will be a hit as well."
And in doing a bit more the Shop is using a percentage of the local-19 profits to give back to their neighbors in the form of grocery bags.
Molly Doley, Owner/Operator, Ice Cream Shoppe
"I have learned that there is just not enough you can do, everybody needs to do their part."
A sweet sentiment, almost as sweet as these sweet treats we saw on offer today.
Today's flavour, Milk Cake, was the last of the local-19 flavours but there's still what's being called "a bratta." It's a much-requested mystery flavour that will be on sale alongside 18 other locally sourced flavours tomorrow at the Ice Cream Shoppe.
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