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Best One Yet is saying goodbye to the well-known red Vespa scooter that owner Helen Williams uses to serve customers her vegan ice cream: Williams is expanding to four wheels with the help of her recently launched Kickstarter.
Because the ice cream cart attached to Williams's Vespa is so small, all of the ice cream must be prepackaged in cups, and she’s limited to five flavors. But with the truck, Best One Yet will be able to serve scoops, cones, floats and other desserts, and as many as ten ice cream flavors. Williams will be able to expand beyond her usual Boulder and Longmont radius and spend more time in Denver and Fort Collins. The added capacity will also allow the business to set up longer on any given day.
“It’ll be a totally different experience — bigger in every way,” Williams says. “It’s almost like starting a new business.”
The vegan ice cream vendor has set up a Best One Yet Kickstarter page to raise $7,300 to convert a 2003 GMC postal truck into her new mobile ice cream shop. Pledges result in everything from free scoops and swag to designing your very own flavor.
Williams launched Best One Yet after running a vegan and vegetarian food blog for seven years. “I wanted to do something in food, and I thought that while I figure that out I’ll do the blog,” she explains. Deciding to ditch dairy led to a search for an alternative to ice cream, but she was disappointed in what was out there. “It may have tasted good, but the texture was wrong, or vice versa,” she recalls.
After experimenting with different recipes and getting a plethora of positive feedback, Williams decided to launch her own business. All of the ice cream varieties have an organic coconut base and use organic cane sugar. Williams also makes all of the gluten-free baked goods, such as cookies, birthday cake and brownies, that go into the ice cream. The most popular flavors are peanut butter ice cream with gluten-free brownies, cookie dough and her seasonal delights, like pumpkin for fall and peach for summer, both made with Colorado produce.
Her favorite compliment is when people tell her they wouldn’t have even known the ice cream is vegan. “Vegan food has changed so much even in the last year or two, with more options and better options,” she says. “It’s really cool to be in midst of that change.”
So far, the Kickstarter campaign has raised more than $2,500, with nearly a month to go. If the rest of the money comes in, Williams plans to launch her truck next spring.