As if you needed another reason to eat more ice cream, here's a good one: Salt & Straw, a chain of ice cream shops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon, has teamed up with nonprofit organizations that fight hunger to develop its June Rescued Food Series, a collection of limited-edition ice cream flavors made from food waste.
No, these aren't food scraps collected from kitchen floors being churned into ice cream, the ingredients are perfectly edible and tasty food that would have otherwise been sent to landfills. Food redistribution groups helping Salt & Straw in its waste-minimizing efforts include Urban Gleaners in Portland, Food Forward in Los Angeles, and Food Runners in San Francisco.
In Portland, there's Urban Gleaners’ Toasted Baguette PB&J flavor, made by toasting leftover baguettes, steeping them in sweet cream to create ice cream, and then topping off the mixture with chocolate peanut butter and jam from Urban Gleaners' freezer. Los Angeles locations are selling Salt-Cured Backyard Citrus Creamsicle, made with oranges, lemons, grapefruits, and limes collected from more than 400 backyard tree orchard harvests. The citrus fruits are then soaked in salt for at least three days to break down bitter flavors and are then folded into vanilla ice cream. In San Francisco, there's Roxie Road, which is made with leftover popcorn collected from the historic Mission District's Roxie Theater. The popcorn is churned into ice cream alongside caramel and a coffee-flour cookie crumble.
Tyler Malek, Salt & Straw's co-founder and head ice cream maker, said in a statement, "The fact that we waste 40 percent of our food in the United States while there are families and children not getting the food they need is a horrific reality and something that all of us in the food industry need to focus on changing. This ice cream menu is our little soapbox to talk about this issue and start showing creative ways to combat this problem."
Here are all the food waste-based flavors that Salt & Straw will be offering, by city.
Portland
Urban Gleaners’ Toasted Baguette PB&J
Celery Root & Strawberry Celery Leaf Jam
Ancient Heritage's Lemon Curd & Whey
Breakside Brewery’s Spent Grains & Bacon S'mores
Bourbon Distilled Cherries Ambrosia
Los Angeles
Food Forward's Top of the Beet
Whey-Preserved Strawberries
Salt-Cured Backyard Citrus Creamsicle
Three Weavers' Spent Grain With Blackberry Fig Jam
Greenbar Distillery Gin Spices & Tonic
San Francisco
Food Runners' Banana Bread Pudding
Roasted Sunchoke Mock Apple Pie
Imperfect Produce's Candied Citrus & Whey Caramel
Imperial Stout Wort and Peaberry Coffee Bark
The Roxie Road
If you don't live on the West Coast, this sustainable ice cream is not as far out of reach as it may seem. From June 2 through June 30, all the Portland flavors listed above will be available online on Salt & Straw's website for national shipping. A portion of the June Rescued Food Series' profits will go to the aforementioned nonprofit organizations.