Like so many other businesses that began in the lockdown, Prerna’s Handcrafted Ice Cream began with a lot of time on Prerna Puri’s hands, her natural caution as a mother who didn’t want kids eating from outside during a health crisis, and the ability to spot a gap in the market for her product.
“Ice creams can scarcely be called that anymore, as these are made with everything — powders, oils, emulsifiers and so many other preservatives and chemicals — but cream. During the lockdown, we were not getting any food from outside. Only local vendors were selling ice-cream, and I didn’t want to take a risk buying from them.
But my 12-year-old son is very fond of ice-creams and was on my case. So I gave it a go and kept experimenting before finally hitting on the right recipe,” says Puri, 41, admitting that her son now has the enviable unofficial position of the brand’s taster-in-chief.
Using that recipe, Puri began churning out, literally by hand, ice cream for her son and family, and subsequently, to friends and relatives, who lavished her efforts with much praise. “They all got together and forced me into selling by word-of-mouth, and so I did that, and the feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that I decided to take it a little more professionally and get it out to more people.
I reached out to Modern Bazaar and they loved it and began stocking in it on their shelves,” recalls Puri, who then added other organic stores in Delhi-NCR to her portfolio, and recently branched out to Nature’s Basket in Mumbai and Pune. Prerna Ice Creams are made with pure cream and absolutely no additives or preservatives, meaning that they have a limited shelf life, unlike other brands that can hang around for months, meaning every tub you buy has been churned less than 20 (for the fruit flavours) to 40 (for the others) days ago, rendering it the freshest store-bought ice cream you have probably eaten.
“Because of their perishable quality and the truly unique way they are made in, we had to come up with special packaging. I also wanted to keep our brand as eco-friendly as possible so all our containers are made with reusable, microwaveable, food-grade plastic,” shares Puri, who came up with some fairly unique flavours to complement her preparation method, including Pure Almond Marzipan, Pure Vanilla with Assorted Nuts and Black Raisins, Pure Litchi, and Pure Coconut.
“It’s funny, but in the beginning I was doing everything by hand, and as this baby brand kept building up, I initially roped in my husband and mother-in-law for help. But when I went to the market, once lockdown had lifted, I couldn’t really find equipment to make ice-cream the way I did, because these machines cater to the usual industry practices. We got some blenders and stuff, but even now it’s very much a handcrafted product, and I am going to make sure it remains that way,” signs off Puri.