A new vegan soft serve ice cream business is opening in Wichita
.jpg "Maranda Asche is the owner of Soft Swerve Creamery is a self-serve vegan soft serve business opening inside the new Sunflour Cafe & Collective.")
A local vegan who has dreams of opening her own ice cream shop one day is getting started with a spot in a new local cafe.
Maranda Asche is the owner of Soft Swerve Creamery, which specializes in soft-serve vegan ice cream. She has a dedicated self-serve space inside the just opened Sunflour Cafe & Collective at 6120 W. Central.
Asche will make her soft serve with a mix provided by Oatl-y Soft Serve, which is made with oat milk.
During a trip last year to New York City, Asche said, she found a business serving Oat-ly Soft Serve and decided she had to try it.
“Vegan soft serve is hard to find, and it’d been so long since I’d had soft serve,” she said. “I was so excited, so we went and tried it out and all said, ‘Holy cow. This is so good.’”
She wanted to help contribute to her family’s income, and she and her husband, who had banked their COVID stimulus money, decided to use it to help launch a business.
Initially, Asche said, she hoped to open a vegan soft serve food truck and even bought an RV with plans to convert it. After, she learned about the plans for Sunflour Cafe & Collective and thought her ice cream would be a perfect fit for the business.
The owners, Nicole Mullen and Whitney Feltrop, agreed.
Asche’s machine and a toppings bar are set up in a corner of the store, and people can serve themselves chocolate, vanilla and twist ice cream. They can then add on toppings like gluten-free pretzels and Oreos, all-natural sprinkles, chocolate chips and peanut butter crunch, which is like the inside of a Butterfinger candy bar. Customers will be able to get the soft serve in either a cup or a gluten-free cone, and they pay by the ounce at the counter.
She’s no longer sure about her food truck but plans to see how people respond to the vegan soft serve before she makes a decision.
“We’ll see,” she said. “If this is really successful, I might maybe have my own brick and mortar space,” she said.
Asche said that the soft serve mix comes in refrigerated packages from Oat-ly. The finished product is creamy, almost like custard, and even non-vegans love it, she said.
“It’s not good for being vegan,” she said. “It’s just really good soft serve in general.”
This story was originally published June 28, 2022 at 2:52 PM.
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