Rosy Goat: How a Lancashire mother turned her child’s condition into an ice-cream shop with a difference

Nicola Green, 36, from Preston launched Rosy Goat last year – a goats milk ice cream business which is named after her two-year-old daughter Rose who was the inspiration behind the idea. The family run business at Throstle nest farm in Goosnargh was built and designed from a horse box by husband Matt and has many travelling far and wide to sample the tastes “better than ice cream” goats ice cream! The idea came about after Nicola noticed that Rose who loves ice cream but has a dairy intolerance to it.

Nicola, who has been farming on the goat farm in Inglewhite for 15 years, told the Post: “We started with the goat ice cream last year as Rose developed an intolerance to cows milk and couldn’t have normal ice cream when her brother and sister could so we developed the ice cream with her hoping she would be fine with it and luckily she was. She absolutely loves it and it’s great for people like Rose who have an intolerance to dairy. As a kid if you can’t have normal ice cream you don’t want sorbet. We milk the goats, then we pasterise it and age it for 24 to 48 hours and then it gets churned into ice cream.”

Dispelling the myth that it will not taste like goats cheese, she added: “People would say to me, ‘I would love an ice-cream but I don’t like goats cheese’, so we have to say to them it doesn’t taste like goats cheese. The amount of samples I have had to hand out, but once people taste it they love it. It’s like a normal ice cream but better. It’s a lot fresher and creamier and it’s doing really well.”

The ice cream can be bought as a £4 cone or a £12 for a two litre tub and comes in a range of flavours such as raspberry ripple, white chocolate, coconut ripple and lemon and amaretto. The farm is open Saturday and Sunday from 12-4pm where people can call to get their ice cream fix and see the goats. While not tending to the goats or making ice cream, the family are kept busy with the other animals on the farm which include three dogs, one pony, one cat, six sheep, 10 lambs and four chickens. They also cater for shows and events and private functions and it can also be bought at wholesale. For more information on the farm which boasts a 5 star Google rating, visit the Rosy Goat Ice Cream website.

And if Nicola had to pick a favourite goats ice-cream? “Definitely the coconut ripple as it tastes just like a Bounty!”