Students at the OSU Food Science and Fermentation Club were invited by Ever Fresh Fruit Company to team up with their colleagues in the College of Agricultural Sciences program for a unique competition to develop creative, market-ready ice cream concepts. 

Contest sponsor Ever Fresh Fruit Company is ensuring participating teams have access to the highest-quality clean-label ingredients for their formulations. This includes Ever Fresh’s own ice cream flavor bases, fruit feeders and variegates, as well as vanilla ice cream mix from Lochmead Dairy, custom flavor kits from Flavor Producers and handmade inclusions from The Ice Cream Factory. Teams will work in the state-of-the-art OSU Creamery to perfect their ice cream formulations. And for inspiration, team members will receive a copy of the Salt & Straw Ice Cream Cookbook by Tyler Malek and JJ Goode. We had 11 teams sign up to participate in this year's competition.

The contest will take place over several months, culminating in a judging event on May 30 where students will present their final ice cream concepts to a panel of judges, including the Ever Fresh Innovation Team and guest judge Tyler Malek, co-founder and head of innovation at Salt & Straw.