Before I signed the lease and started Mapley, it all really started with Vermont maple syrup. I grew up in New England, and I have always loved the flavors and produce we have here - Maine blueberries, local corn, strawberries, raspberries and so much more. But more than anything, I loved Vermont maple syrup.
The idea became real when I tasted a maple creemee in Vermont. I remember thinking, "This is unbelievable. Why the heck isn't this everywhere?" It had such a clear, delicious maple flavor. I immediately thought that this was something that should be available far outside Vermont and, eventually, everywhere. I later saw several places in Boston selling maple creemees successfully, which showed me that I was not the only person who felt that way.
At first, I thought I would make maple soft serve. But the more I researched the industry, the more I realized that many maple soft-serve businesses buy their mix from distributors instead of making it themselves. When I visited suppliers, I found that even mixes marketed as natural or organic could still contain stabilizers, additives and highly processed flavor systems. Some of those stabilizers are naturally derived, but that was not really the point to me. The finished product was still much more processed than the simple, fresh Vermont product I had imagined.
I also learned that some distributor mixes use maple flavoring made from a highly processed extract derived from real maple syrup. Because the extract started as real maple syrup, suppliers could still identify maple syrup in ingredient statements, even though the actual flavor system was much more processed than customers might realize. That did not feel the same as making a recipe with a clear maple flavor from maple sugar or maple syrup. I wanted to make our own base and know exactly what was in it.
I began looking more closely at why large ice-cream brands use so many stabilizers and other formulation aids. They serve real commercial purposes. They improve shelf life and help protect the product through major temperature changes and swings as it moves through shipping, warehouses and retail freezers.
All that extra stuff also helps soft serve maintain a very strong texture and resist melting. That is part of how a shop can serve a perfect swirl that stays standing long enough for the customer to walk outside, take out a phone and get the Instagram picture before it begins to lose its shape.
Stabilizers and other formulation aids can also help ice cream retain more incorporated air. If an ice cream reaches 80% overrun, its finished volume is approximately 80% greater than the original mix. More air means more sellable product from the same amount of base, which can increase profitability. That may make sense for a mass-market brand that needs a long shelf life and national distribution, but the tradeoff is a lighter product with less concentrated flavor.
I was also thinking about people who have a hard time digesting ice cream made with all that extra stuff. Ingredients such as guar gum, carrageenan, soy lecithin, high-fructose corn syrup and other highly processed ingredients made me question why ice cream needed to be so complicated. I wanted to do the opposite: use simple, recognizable ingredients, display them publicly and make a dense, smooth product where the actual flavor is the most important thing.
Gelato was not part of my original plan. I went to Italy on a trip that had nothing to do with starting an ice-cream company. I took a gelato class even though I was not planning to make gelato at all. But I loved the gelato so much that I knew it had to be the main product, alongside the soft serve we will also offer.
That was when it clicked. Alongside Vermont maple soft serve, I could take the Vermont maple flavor I already loved and put it into gelato. I had barely seen maple gelato anywhere. The dense texture and stronger flavor of gelato seemed like a perfect match for maple.
Once I figured that out, I started thinking about all the other New England flavors I grew up with. We have incredible blueberries, corn, strawberries, raspberries and so many other local ingredients. That is really what Mapley became: making great gelato, ice cream and soft serve with simple ingredients and the best flavors from New England.
Maple Cream will always be the most important flavor because it is the reason I started the company. But the idea is much bigger than one flavor. I want to make an ice-cream product that is so good people will go out of their way to try it. Then, if we build the business the right way, I want to put it in stores and make it available everywhere.
— Gabriel Rogoff
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