PURE Team Profile - Anna Howard

Lake Wanaka and the pristine Mount Aspiring National Park that we are privileged to call our backyard are responsible for inspiring many an artisan and it got Anna reminiscing.... Anna's Grandfather, William Joseph Kenny, a fitter and turner by trade, came to NZ from the post-war UK Midlands in the late 1950's. His son John, Anna's Uncle, had the Papanui Milk Bar in 1963 and decided to buy an ice cream churn. John discovered that virtually all churns were imported either from Italy or the USA and when they discovered the price, they decided to jolly well make their own.

William and John had started an engineering company, Kenfol Engineering. "We made a prototype and installed it on loan to a supermarket in Brighton, where it worked quite well and enquiries came in to purchase them. We built 6 more and they were all sold before we finished. So we made a further 12 which were also sold before completion" says John. They then set about building 27 machines (amounting to all the parts available at the time) and had a small assembly line in place, when a visitor to the factory announced that he wanted to buy 100 machines. He offered one third deposit, one third at the halfway build point and the final third before delivery. The deal was conditional on the pair selling them only to his company. The visitor turned out to be the manager of a new company being set up by General Foods (at the time, the biggest ice cream manufacture in NZ) and the company they were setting up was a certain 'Mr Whippy'.

Even back then, to use the term 'ice cream', the product had to have a milk fat content of at least 10%. Mr Whippy used a product made from a milk powder which had less than 10% milk fat, so they cleverly branded the product 'Snowfreeze'. Many stores also wanted to sell Snowfreeze - and now of course, General Foods had the sole agency for the churns. So they proceeded to install them all across NZ, with John holding the contract to install them. "Our agreement was never reduced to writing, only a handshake, which was honoured by all of us for quite a few years" says John.

With her ice cream heritage a matter of history, becoming involved in the industry seems to have been pre-ordained for Anna...

Nearly 60 years on from her Grandfather's and Uncle's pioneer exploits, Anna is now the brains and much of the elbow grease behind a busy, creative freezery nestled off the beaten track in the Lake Wanaka Township. Commercial neighbours and passers-by are mystified by the constant stream of supply trucks heading in and freezer trucks heading out, as there is no overt branding to give away what's going on at 78 Anderson Road, Wanaka.

Anna's focus is always twofold: to never deviate from and to continue to enhance PURE's philosophy of make truly outstanding ice cream, free of any artificial additives and full of goodness and flavour; and to make sure her PURE Team have fun making ice cream and are able to achieve growth and their personal objectives whilst at work.

If you want to talk to Anna about PURE New Zealand Ice Cream, or anything connected to genuinely good food and drink, feel free to call her on +64 3 443 7792 click here to message her.