“I ran behind ice-cream carts and made cola Popsicle with my mother in my summer holidays. These are fond childhood memories that I treasure.” Anjana Srinivasan (29), founder of Frooze, a city-based popsicle brand gets nostalgic. “Love for food runs in our family. My husband has a sweet tooth. So it was natural that I chose to be in the food industry. I experimented with different permutations and combinations for six months before the launch of my range of hand-crafted popsicles in August,” she says.
Srinivasan mostly uses locally procured fruits for her products. “I buy fruits from the local farmers. Most of us fail to see the rich nutrition in our local produce.” She adds no preservatives or colours in her popsicles. “There will be no colourful tongues after eating my ice- pops. The only machine that I use is a juicer and a freezer.” To retain the freshness she makes them in small batches of 80, according to demand.
After procuring the fruits, she juices it and fills it into stainless steel moulds, before flash-freezing them. “Each popsicle has about 60 ml juice. Flash-freezing takes less time when compared to the usual freezing methods and helps to lock the freshness and nutrients.”
Srinivasan says that she is often asked why her pops are not as sweet as the regular ones. “That is a conscious decision. I do not add sugar to fruits that come with natural sweetness. For others like the lime-flavoured one, I add approximately 4-8 gm of sugar. This makes my product simple, clean, and healthy.”
Srinivasan’s flavours include watermelon, kiwi-lime, lime-mint, icy maanga, grape-vanilla, orange ginger, pine-lime and musk melon. “Orange ginger is one of my favourites. The strong taste of the spice and the sweetness of oranges, blend together perfectly in this popsicle. Adding these popsicles to a cocktail or mocktail is an alternate way to enjoy the ice-pops,” she suggests. Not all; her experiments were successful. “I wanted to make one with cucumber and it turned out very badly. Those who sampled it asked me not to include it in the menu so I did not.”
Srinivasan’s unit is situated at a farm in Vedapatti where two other women help her in make and pack the popsicles. “I am planning to grow my own fruits in the future. To start with, I have planted mint in my farm.” She is now excited about the approaching summers. “There are new flavours in mango for this season. It includes Alphonso, mango coconut and mango ginger lime.” She undertakes party orders and also makes customised popsicles to order.
Info you can use
Available at @641 Saibaba Colony and at JM cake shop at Race Course
Price of each pop is ₹40
Visit www.facebook.com/froozepop/ for more info
