Innovative ice-cream maker opens for business in Wickham

Well, you're going to miss out big time.

The winter menu at Duff's Ice Cream, opening on Saturday, June 15, on the corner of Union and Bishopsgate streets in Wickham, features seven exclusive, original flavours created by owner - and food technologist - Olivia Duffin.

Consider Bean Toasted (toasted milk and vanilla), Hazel's Salty (salted hazelnut), King Mario (dark chocolate with Oreo crumbs and King Mario of Fruit dessert wine), Smashing Pumpkins (pumpkin seed oil with pumpkin seeds), Harry Said (strawberry milk with white chocolate stracciatella, caramelised strawberry swirl), Simply the Zest (lemon cream with candied lemon rind). And, of course, The Beach, a mystery flavour that's "a little bit sweet, a little bit salty, and a little bit hot".

There's also vegan vanilla soft serve.

Duffin feels like she is the perfect addition to the inner-city neighbourhood that has seen much change in recent years, particular with four apartment buildings nearby at the end of the Newcastle train line and the near-constant building of units and renovated homes in the area.

"Master Muse is my neighbour," she says of the other ground floor commercial premises on the site. "It's hair, make-up and beauty. People go in for a treat to themselves and then they can go and get a little treat [from me] as well. There's a barber just across the road. This is perfect."

Duff's Ice Cream has seating inside the 57-square-metre premises, and will have outside seating on its veranda as well.

Duffin has long had an affinity with ice-cream. She graduated from the University of Newcastle after studying food science and human nutrition, and stays in touch by bringing her food truck to the uni's alumni events and student stress-less days.

"I've always been interested in ice-cream," she says. "I have a tattoo of a unicorn and it has an ice-cream cone as the horn with strawberry ice-cream in it. I got that when I was 21."

Her ice-cream career kicked into gear when she did a year of study through Deakin University in Melbourne. That year included a study trip to the US, where she visited Penn State University "where Ben and Jerry learned to make ice-cream".

"They have one of the oldest ice-cream schools in the world," she says.

How big was the influence? She makes premium Philadelphia-style ice-cream from scratch, including creating her own flavours.

"That means without eggs, it's typical of Philadelphia - New York, with high butterfat, anywhere from 12-16 per cent butterfat, whereas gelato is 8 per cent butterfat.

"It's nice and creamy."

Since leaving university, she's worked at Masterfoods, Mars Chocolate and gelato franchise company, Gelatissimo ("I was their flavour innovator," she says).

Duffin began her business on the Central Coast, where she is from.

She named the business after her father Chris, who died in 2020.

"He died just before COVID," she says. "He was an inventor and an entrepreneur. He was an engineer, really handy. He was called Duff as his nickname."

Her mum Lyn has been involved with the start-up, proving herself to be pretty handy with the hundreds of tasks necessary to get the business up and running.

Olivia had an ice-cream truck for a year during 2021-2022, selling her Duff's ice-cream products from pop-up locations.

"I would go to suburbs during lockdown," she says. "I had people pre-order tubs of ice-cream, they would pay me on Sunday, I'd make it and deliver it on Friday. They'd come, grab their ice-cream and go home. So it was kind of like their one trip out during COVID lockdown."

She progressed to doing pop-ups in conjunction with a night-time burger business at Toukley. By day it was Rise Coffee, and by night it was Snoop Burgers. "I'd take the truck there and do dessert while they did burgers," she says.

She was also doing other pop-ups, including Olive Tree and Home-grown markets in Newcastle. Her first vehicle was a vintage Ford Transit van ("Stevie the wonder van"). She's going to run a Daihatsu Midget truck in Newcastle for pop-up events.

Duffin moved on to open a kiosk on Budgewoi Road on her family's property, near Lakes Beach in Noraville, and did a booming summer trade. However, the business was shut by Central Coast Council, which contended that Duffin needed development consent.

Expect the unexpected from this young entrepreneur. She's just returned from a holiday in Italy, her head buzzing with more ice-cream flavours.

"I do kooky flavours, like Chinese Fire Spice with Lemon Curd Swirl," she says.

"Fun, weird things. But good."