Lucky Shrewsbury primary school pupils see ice cream dreams created for real by local business
Primary school pupils have seen their ice cream ideas turned into reality by a popular Shrewsbury business.
Earlier this year Coleham Primary School teamed up with nearby ice cream business Gelatistry to run a competition for pupils.
It came after the school partnered with the popular ice cream shop for careers week, in which members of its staff visited and told about how they had set up the business and lifted the lid on the art of making 'gelato' - the Italian name for ice cream.
The competition asked pupils to come up with their own flavour combinations, with the winners getting to see their idea created for real, and put on sale at the St Julian's Crescent business.
Gelatistry selected three entries from each school house, then narrowed down the efforts to two overall winners.
Last week pupils from the school got to enjoy a mouth-watering visit to the Gelatistry headquarters to see their creation on sale and try it for themselves.
The winning efforts came from Harmony Chappell and Florence Jennings.
Harmony's creation was a 'taro, white chocolate and coconut' flavour - taro being a purple sweet potato-like root vegetable intended to bring a "lilac flavour" to the ice cream.
Gaia Berni from Gelatistry, who had welcomed the pupils to the shop, said she was especially excited to see the unusual ingredient.
Harmony was given a chance to try her recipe and described it as "really tasty".
Gelatistry has experimented with sweet potato before, but couldn't get it right for production so was excited to perfect it for Harmony's dish.
Florence's idea was based on the title 'The Tiger that came to Coleham' - made up of an orange ice-cream with chocolate stripes and flake.
The youngster had taken inspiration from her favourite story The Tiger Who Came To Tea.
After sampling the finished product Florence said: "It tastes delicious."
Other flavours from runners-up included pecan pie, strawberry and elderflower, and gooseberry and meringue.
Gaia said: "They were all amazing, it was such a hard choice to decide the winner."
Coleham Primary's headteacher Tom Larkham said the competition had been great fun for pupils and had been a wonderful partnership with a local community business.
He said: "We love the strong ties we have with our local community, and the gelato flavour competition was a perfect example of that partnership in action.
"Our pupils came up with some brilliant and inventive creations and we’re thrilled Gelatistry scooped some real winners.
"Judging by the excitement at school, I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of parents walk the long way home!"
