I always find it humorous (read:annoying) the number of places that claim to be “all-natural”, especially in regard to ice cream and gelato.  Best I can see, they lay claim to this moniker because they use milk and sugar in their products and milk and sugar are, of course, all natural.  Some even go so far as to let us know where their milk comes which, if they are drawing attention to it, usually means that it’s local and free of unnecessary hormones and additives (all good things, mind you).  It begs the question though, what else goes into their ice cream and gelato?  There’s oh so much more to it.

Admittedly, I’m what many would call a food freak.  I homemade a goat milk formula for all my three babies, my first child had an apple juice sweetened cake for her first birthday and didn’t have the pleasure of her first taste of sugar until at least a few months after that (standards loosened considerably on the next two).  We stick to organic as much as is humanly (and financially) possible.  The bottom line for me is that we have control of what we put in our bodies and the choices we make from the very beginning affect the quality of our entire lives.  On the same token, I believe that food is one of the great pleasures of life and should be enjoyed abundantly with the ones you love.  Thus, The Red Trolley.  I wanted to enjoy a treat with my family every now and then, I did not want to compromise my standards to the point that many places were asking me to.

We made a commitment to some very specific things from the beginning.  We believed that specificity was the key to setting us apart from all the other “all natural” claims in the marketplace.  We would never carry a product that contained high fructose corn syrup, trans fats (hydrogenated oil) artificial color or artificial flavor.  Our commitment has broadened (while others narrows) since we opened in 2008.  No mono and diglycerides (next time you are in another ice cream shop ask them about mono and diglycerides in their base), no nitrates, no artificial sweeteners–really, no artificial anything.

Honestly, it hasn’t been easy.  Cost has been the greatest factor, turns out it’s much cheaper to serve your customers fake food.  We would love to be the cheapest scoop in town but, it seems that cheap and high quality cannot co-exist.  We have kept the cost to the consumer as low as possible (as evidenced to me every time I realize that we’re running a “non-profit” ) and we try to run traffic driving specials (root beer float happy hour, $2 t-dog Tuesdays) as much as possible.  We will, however, not make any compromises on our standards and I know there are plenty of people like me who would rather have a reasonably sized scoop of real ice cream than a mammoth scoop of manufactured mush.

We’re in the business of fun.  The Red Trolley should be a place where you come with all the best people in your life to enjoy some really delicious all natural treats and to make memories that will last forever.  We are proud of the fact that we can stand behind every product that we serve and that we have never made compromises to save a buck.  This means that you can always feel good about what you are enjoying in our store. 

Thanks and see you at The Trolley.   

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 6:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.