Enjoy the summer while indulging in Bears Ice Cream Company
Do you have a craving for sugar or a sweet tooth that needs to be satisfied for summer? IndieBloom can cool that urge for you with the Bears Ice Cream Company 🧸🍦🍨
Bear necessities
Regular readers of IndieBloom will recognise we mentioned Bears Ice Cream in our ActOne Cinema blog post. Situated in several key/prime locations along West London (Hammersmith, Acton and Shepherds Bush). Its main store on Goldhawk Road sells soft serve jersey ice cream and milkshakes, with many toppings available. At ActOne, it has other flavours such as raspberry with white chocolate chip, along with sorbets. We’ve got lots to scoop here with Mr Bear, himself 🧸, Phil Harrison providing the answers to our questions.
It all started with a Bear, our daughter more precisely, her name is Mia Mist but she’s always been nicknamed Bear, I (Phil) when Mia was 3, I got a tattoo of three bears holding hands - that was the three of us. One day when we were planning Bears, we had most things done, still no name. Then Vera (Mrs Bear) came running down into the kitchen (we lived above a very nice pub where I was the Head Chef at) it was the middle of service, she was holding her laptop and just said ‘sorted’ with a big smile on her face. She’d taken the tattoo and turned it into the logo and then we were officially Bears. We had to add the fourth Bear when our son Atlas was born a few years later.
What sets Bears Ice Cream apart is jersey milk. Standing out from other indie ice cream parlour brands, is that Bears specialises in traditional Icelandic soft serve ice cream 🇮🇸 Phil further explains,
Iceland is where Vera is from, they have amazing soft serve there, I remember soft serve being good in England as a kid, but it got pretty bad in the last 20 years. We just wanted to make it really fun again. The Icelandic parlours just have every piece of chocolate or candy you will ever think of and more. We just took this idea, made it a little more ours with more baked goods (brownies, apple crumble) more fruit, fruity sauces and just made our take on it really.
Inside Bears flagship store, Parlour W12 on Goldhawk Road, West London - so much selection!
What’s your flavour?
Offering ice cream (of course), cakes, cones, honeycomb, ice cream Scotch eggs, and scandi candy (Scandinavian candy). There’s lots of flavours to explore for people who are curious to try out new intriguing tastes (vegan options also 🌱). We've tried the honey sorbet, salted caramel version 6 ice cream, 3 scoop jersey milk ice cream and the apple crumble milkshake with raspberry bits - all highly recommended 👌😋 With us being curious, we wanted to know the plans for new flavours and items, to which Phil replied,
In the last 2 years I’ve made over 100 flavours of ice cream, it’s just constant creativity. Raspberry with baked white chocolate chips and white chocolate fudge swirl will be coming soon (it’s already at ActOne cinema), the ice cream cookie sandwiches with banana jam and milk ice cream will be out in force this summer. This week I made a milk ice cream with a rhubarb and harissa jam swirl, super tasty, just working out the crunch part now.
We also wanted to know how the flavours and ideas are thought up at Bears. Phil replies with ‘not sure, all I’ve ever done is food. I’ve been in the food industry for over 20 years. Working in tiny restaurants to massive hotels and many things in between, I just think about fun combinations and go for it.’ 👨🍳 A lot of experience and a flair for pushing the boundaries in taste - quite the creator.
Bears ice cream cake 🧸🍦🍰
We had to ask Bears what their fav flavours and ideas have been -
Favourite flavour is a hard one, in the soft serve shops there’s so much choice, I do love a cone, dipped in a dark chocolate shell, and rolled through popcorn and an extra sprinkle of Maldon sea salt. Salt, chocolate, crunch and delicious soft serve, just can’t go wrong. From the scoop club range (events, e-com, ActOne Cinema and Riverside Studios residency) it's milk chocolate ice with raspberry jam and crunchy hazelnuts. Sticky tart house made raspberry jam, crunch hazelnut pieces in epic milk chocolate ice cream, what’s not to love?
Phil also explains the Bears process for making their ice cream- ‘It’s just about making things that bring joy to people, being creative but not silly. Everything must taste amazing but needs to be interesting. Life is too short for boring ice cream.’ We definitely agree!
Ice cream for all
What was the story getting Bears and ActOne to collaborate?
Well, they are just up the road (kinda) and they approached us for supplying ice cream in cinema style pots. One day they asked if we wanted to come and see the progress of the build (ActOne) and we kinda just fell in love and then talked about what we’d do there, we have an ice cream counter, a very funky wine bar serving epic wines from an award winning wine shop Vindinista, a few cool cocktails and some lovely beers and ciders. Then their super awesome popcorn from Maize and Grace who are just up the road, and the best sour dough toasties in the West. Great coffee and pastries for the day time. The directors of ActOne liked the idea and the rest is history, I guess.
As an indie business starting off, promoting yourself on social media is key. ‘It doesn’t matter where you promote it, if your brand identity is not right. If you have your branding sorted, then the brand execution and delivery will be great on any platform. The brand strategy and identity is always the core. Social media is just one of many ways to deliver that.’
The highs and lows within Bears have involved -
Highest is definitely just opening, bringing joy to peoples faces. Lowest - probably having to rip out the basement twice in 3 years due to flooding (once was broken pipes, the other was Thames Water being useless). Nothing says let’s see how quick you can think when you have almost everything destroyed by water.
Some drama indeed, with that being said are you Interested in making your own ice cream? Phil simply states, ‘be original and think about texture.’ While we asked if there’s any plans to open up more stores around London (or in the UK?), Phil humourously replies, ‘we have always said world domination is the only option.’ 🌍👑😁
What next for the Bears team? ‘The summer, events are back, keeping people supplied with ice cream. We are launching more delivery areas in London shortly (along with currently being able to order locally for delivery using Deliveroo) which will be really fun. Running an equity based crowdfunding to bring ice cream to more people quicker.’ Looking forward to these! 😎🌞👍
Bears milkshake
Final words from Phil - ‘Thanks for getting in touch, thanks to all our amazing Bear cubs both old and current and thanks to the people that come day in, day out and have believed in us since the beginning.’ You’re very much welcome and cheers again for providing all the ice cool answers to our questions 🧊😎
If you’re a local or visiting West London, do yourself a favour and taste Bears Ice Cream Company - have a scoop (or 3 🍦🍨🍦), you won’t be disappointed! Along with checking and following their blog and socials - Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Pinterest, if you’re into all of that, plus try out their recipes if you’re feeling adventurous and keep tuning into IndieBloom😉
