Good health in Sabah ice cream

Organic milk and Chinese herbs make a world winning recipe

Taste, of course, does matter. But conventional wisdom says that anything that tastes good may not be good for the body. So it is with ice cream laden with calories, harmful artificial colours, and preservatives. But not with Sabah’s innovative Frozherb, a new ice cream touted for its nutritional and health benefits. Made from Sabah’s organic cow’s milk and Chinese herbs of wolfberry and hawthorn, it won last October’s Best New Ice Cream award of the International Dairy Federation in Parma, Italy.

Nasir Yeo, managing director of Sabah International Dairies Sendirian Berhad, which supplied the milk, is overwhelmed by the award. He says it has made Sabah’s milk the best in the world and proved its critics wrong. The herbs came from Eu Yan Sang, a company which sells traditional Chinese medicine for the last 132 years in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Singapore’s Nanyang Polytechnic made Frozherb, an experimental ice cream, which beat those of two of Asia’s giant dairy companies, Mengniu of China based in Inner Mongolia and Japan’s Meiji, in the Belgium-based IDF Dairy Innovation Awards which attracted 106 entries from 25 countries in 14 categories.

The victory is Nanyang’s second. It won the IDF inaugural award in 2010 with La Femme green tea aloe vera ice cream which beat America’s Häagen Dazs’ Five. The key to its success, says Patrick Loh who heads a student research team, is the herbs that offer health benefits.

The herbs are touted to have anti-oxidant and anti-ageing properties. Hawthorn aids digestion while wolfberry is said to improve eyesight, according to Richard Khaw, the Nanyang project manager.

“Everybody went for taste, but we went for function,” says Loh who is also the chairman of the scientific advisory board of Eu Yan Sang.

However Loh says Sabah’s organic milk gives Frozherb the edge. The milk has come from free range Friesian cows in the 2,000m highland on the eastern ridge of Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia’s tallest at 4,095m (13,435 feet), and the lowlands of Kota Marudu and Keningau.

The cows graze on lush grass that is free from pesticides and fertilisers. They are not injected with genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH) to boost milk production unlike those in America and other countries.

Frozherb contains natural ingredients and even the colours, pink and purple, come from the red wolfberry and Hawthorn berries. Loh says only fructose from the berries and honey are used as sweetener. The ice cream however tastes a bit sour, much like yoghurt. It comes in three varieties: hawthorn, wolfberry and a combination of hawthorn and wolfberry.

The ice cream is smooth and creamy largely because Sabah’s organic milk is creamier, says Loh.

Yeo says Frozherb is ready to take on Häagen Dazs and other premium ice cream. He tells Insight Sabah that he expects commercial production to start in three months and his company would be manufacturing Frozherb.

But he fears that producing just three varieties of Frozherb may not be commercially sustainable. He is thinking of using other local herbs such as Tongkat Ali (Eurycoma longifolia), a tree root that has proven to be an aphrodisiac and to have anti-malaria, anti-microbial and anti-diabetic properties. He may also introduce local coffee and fruit flavours such as those of pomelo (Citrus maxima).

Details of the venture with Eu Yan Sang and Nanyang are not available. But a survey conducted by Nanyang has found that Singaporeans are willing to pay between S$2.80 and S$3.50 (6.80 and 8.50 ringgit) for a cup of 100ml (3.5 fluid ounce) of Frozherb. – Insight Sabah