Ice cream like Grandpa made hits farmers markets on Milk + Honey pushcart

Trent Sanders’ eye-catching Milk + Honey Ice Cream pushcart had customers of all ages flocking to it on a sweltering day at Ebenezer Farmers Market on May 31.

Milk + Honey Ice Cream is new to the market. “I saw that people loved scooping ice cream, but there wasn’t really a locally made one,” said Sanders. “I set to work on a concept. I had only watched my grandpa do it on the Fourth of July; I had never made ice cream before.”

Previously, Sanders had operated Weekly Wagon with his business partner Phil Tatler. It’s a local service that sources regionally farmed and locally made goods, sells them online and assembles the orders for home delivery.

Then last summer Sanders transitioned to working for Sunrise Dairy, running their farmers market stand. Sanders was offering samples of his ice cream in September last year when a guy asked him if he had ever thought of opening a storefront.

After looking at local real estate, he took a tour of the planned mixed-use development in the former Kern's Bakery. “I had a deposit check and handed it to him at the end of the tour in early October,” said Sanders.

While an opening date is yet to be confirmed, Sanders started making ice cream commercially in April and needed a way to keep the Milk + Honey Ice Cream frozen for mobile vending at private events, local markets and festivals.

“I wanted to do something really fun and different,” said Sanders of his customized ice cream tricycle. “I found this pushcart made by a Queens-based company who have been in the business for more than 100 years.”

The Milk + Honey Ice Cream pushcart is available for event rental, especially weddings, and catering requests at www.milkhoneyicecream.com. This summer expect to see Milk + Honey at Ebenezer Farmers Market 3-6 p.m. on Tuesdays; New Harvest Farmers Market 3-6 p.m. on Thursdays and at the downtown Farmers Market on Saturdays and perhaps from 9 a.m. on Wednesdays at the downtown market.

Sanders said his ice cream has been wildly popular at this season’s One Knoxville soccer club games and he will be at the June 18 and 25 games as well as the Lavender Festival in Oak Ridge on June 18.

It is truly a busy time for the Fountain City resident, whose wife is expecting their third child this month, too.

“I make two kinds of ice cream: hard and Philadelphia-style,” said Sanders. “I called it Milk + Honey because honey is in most of my ice cream, and it is sweeter and binds better. I have interesting flavors that are a play off the classics.”

Milk + Honey Ice Cream is prepackaged in half- and full-pint cartons to enjoy on the spot or take home and stash in your freezer.

Available flavors are listed on a menu on the cart as “Today’s Licks.” At the Ebenezer Farmers Market on May 31, he had Mint Thin, Lemon Blueberry, Chocolate Orange, Sweet Cream ice creams and a honey orange dairy free sorbet.

The Mint Thin is a spin on the usual Oreo cookies-and-cream flavor. And “Hokey Pokey” is a vanilla ice cream with honeycomb flavor that will be released this summer.

Sanders has chosen to home in on six flavors until he opens Milk + Honey at the Kern’s Bakery. The dipping cabinet there will have crowd favorites, dairy free and eventually coconut milk options.

Milk + Honey Ice Cream flavors will transition with the seasons. Right now the focus is on fruity flavors, and in the fall there will be a Wassail and perhaps a maple, according to Sanders.

Sanders is purchasing a pasteurizer machine and is full of ideas to build out the “creamery” part of his business, eventually offering Greek, Icelandic, Balkan and even a drinkable yogurt, as well as a super-premium milk.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Milk + Honey ice cream hits farmers markets Kern's food hall