Beau’s Origins: A Love Letter to the Isle of Wight
By Amber Fox-Eyre, Co-Founder of Beau’s
‘She thinks of nothing but the Isle of Wight,
and she calls it the island,
as if there were no other island in the world’
– Jane Austin, Mansfield Park
The Isle of Wight has a very special place in our hearts here at Beau’s. It is where I was born, where a lot of our family live, and where Joseph and I first lived when we started the business.
Moving down to the island from London gave us clarity of thought and mental spaciousness that we had been missing while living in the city. The fresh salty sea air. The relaxed and friendly island community. The beautiful landscape. When Dorothy said, ‘There’s no place like home!’, she was definitely on to something.
We had been thinking for years about doing something that aligned more closely with our values and, when we moved back, it gave us that energy and inspiration to actually go for it.
To get started, we rented out an old office space in Wootton and slowly began converting it into an ice cream manufacturing kitchen with the help of Joseph’s uncle, Chris. We ripped out carpets, laid down industrial flooring, put up walls, plastered, painted, plumbed and added electrical outlets specific for the machinery. Joseph even drove to Ireland to collect a second hand Carpigiani machine, after which we were off and running!
The island was a fantastic place to trial our ideas. With most place predominantly serving dairy ice cream, a vegan gelato was a new (and alien!) concept for retailers and tourist destinations. At the time, no other local ice cream makers making solely vegan products so it was very much a shot into the unknown as to how it would go down with customers and retailers alike. Yet, despite this uncertainty, we were blown away with the response.
The first place to take a punt and stock Beau’s was the Quay Arts in Newport; the Head Chef Dave Holley was incredibly supportive of our ideas and products, and the ice cream flew out the door! Following the successes we were seeing at Quay Arts, we then started working with other brilliant vendors such as Tapnell Farm, Bembridge Farm Shop, Michelangelo’s and The Quarr Abbey.
Establishing ourselves on the Isle of Wight was a really amazing experience but it wasn’t without its challenges. Being an island, distribution was constantly a major hurdle to be overcome. To service our vendors around the island, we would load up our portable freezer with as many tubs as we could get in and then we’d hit the road in our car. This had major limitations when it came to delivering volume and we were mindful that, emissions-wise, being on the road for that much time to get our orders out was costly and inefficient. Reaching a mainland distributor was proving to be cost prohibitive also, so we realized that relocating was a must if we were going to realise the vision we had created.
This led us to move the business to the North East of England, where we had a small investment opportunity that allowed us to begin building the business we had been dreaming of. Moving so far from home, we were inevitably nervous and sad to leave the warm-hearted island soul, but the North East is equally as extremely welcoming and friendly as a community and, happily, we’ve made it into a home away from home.
Whilst we have moved away from the Isle of Wight with Beau’s, the island will always be a foundational part of our soul and we continue to return often to visit the family and friends who helped us to bring the vision to life. To them, who helped us get this whole thing off the ground, we will be forever grateful.
