About continued…

Starting with natural ingredients and innovative recipe ideas, Val Gaskell has created her own ice cream empire built on a breathtaking range of award winning flavours which are sure to tantalize and indulge the most discerning taste-buds.

It seems only natural that Ricketts Point Fine Foods was born from a combination of early life experience and Val’s belief that the dessert makes a memorable meal. Growing up on a dairy farm watching as her father milked the cows by hand and separated the rich, thick cream from the milk. Picking and sampling fresh fruits from her maternal grandmother’s commercial orchard. Helping her mother make jam and bottle fruit.

Learning about food quality, freshness, flavour and purity from a very young age, Val’s interest in the creativity of food developed further in her role as a teacher of Home Economics. Continually experimenting with new recipes and flavours, her home-made ice cream rapidly became a favourite with anyone who tasted it, prompting Val to open her first Ricketts Point Fine Foods retail shop selling her ice cream in Sandringham in 1987.

Ricketts Point Fine Foods quickly gained recognition in Melbourne and throughout Victoria for producing top quality, home made ice cream and sorbet for the retail, restaurant/café and catering industries.

While classic flavours such as Chocolate, Strawberry and French Vanilla remain popular, Val continually experiments with exciting combinations of ingredients to produce products such as Grapefruit and Campari ice cream, Blue Cheese ice cream, Beer Sorbet and her acclaimed Botrytis Supreme and quintessentially Australian Christmas Plum Pudding.

In 2001 Val moved her production facility to its present site at 3/32 DeHavilland Rd, Braeside and maintained the retail outlet until she decided to close the shop in September 2003 to concentrate on wholesale output.

A recent article was written by "Australian Dairy Foods" in December 2007 on Ricketts Point and the history of Lemon Delicious. Click to read Ricketts Point and the Lemon Legend.