The vegan and dairy free food market has literally exploded this year, on the back of veganuary and ever more people choosing plant based alternatives. Which is a good thing for those who have allergies too - there's so many choices now!
In the chiller cabinets they've been a little slower to take off for some reason, but things are definitely improving - there's now Dairy Free Halo Top varieties, and a soon-to-be-launched Coconut Ice Cream brand I must keep hush about for now!
Today's review are these sticks I picked up on special offer in a large Waitrose store. I've reviewed various Coconut Collaborative products before and it seems they've dropped that name on these ice creams and opted for "Coco Nutters", which is a fun name I have to say and one I have called my snacks pal Reaching For Refreshment in the past, as she is very much a coco-nutter!
Anyway, these sticks are of course vegan, gluten free, dairy free, and also nut free and soya free, hurrah! They consist of salted caramel flavour coconut based ice cream with the top half coated in a dairy free chocolate flavour coating.
I wasn't expecting too much as so often these type of coconut based "ice creams" taste more like sorbet with a little coconut cream added, but luckily that wasn't the case this time. These taste super caramelly, definitely fitting their name and not skimping on the flavour at all. They taste very indulgent and you don't feel like you're eating flavoured sorbet. The chocolate coating was good, giving a nice flavour contrast and added to the indulgent feel, although I'm not sure it was entirely necessary since the ice cream is so good (a fully coated Magnum-style version would be nice though!)
What can I say? These are delicious and it's a shame they only seem to be available in Waitrose and Ocado.com! I'm sure Sainsbury's might stock them before long though, since they do the original variety.
Ingredients:
Coconut Cream (29%), Water, Fruit Derived Sugars (from Grape), Dark Chocolate (15%) (Cocoa Mass, Coconut Sugar, Cocoa Butter), Dietary Fibre (Chicory Root), Stabilisers (Locust Bean Gum, Guar Gum), Emulsifier (Mono & Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Natural Caramel Flavouring (0.4%), Natural Flavouring, Colour (Beta-Carotene).
Nutrition per 85ml lolly:
154 Calories, 9g Fat, 14.5g Carbohydrates, 10.3g Sugars, 6.5g Fibre, 0.7g Protein.