From paw-shaped cold coffee sticks to cold chocolate fudge and Blueberry yoghurt jars, Emoi Artisinal Ice cream offers exciting new flavours

Emoi Artisanal Ice Cream founded by Anant Verma was created for the sole purpose of bringing ice cream lovers a sweet offering that gives them an ‘everyday excuse’ to enjoy their favourite dessert.

From cold chocolate fudge, Jamun sorbet that comes in jars to red velvet, cold coffee, cherry bubblegum, and double chocolate mousse sticks that come in visually appealing shapes like hearts, paws, smileys, and twisties, there is something for everyone.

Inspired by his travels abroad and his love for delicious ice cream, Anant wanted to bridge the gap in India, and create an artisanal ice cream brand that not only appealed to the Indian audience, through the use of locally sourced ingredients but was also packed with rich flavours.

As a result, Emoi was founded on May 14, 2017, in New Delhi.

Over the years, Emoi has been present in almost all food and cultural festivals in the city – such as Grub Fest, Jaipur Literature Festival, Comic-Con, Pet Fed and India Art Fair amongst others, to ensure that potential customers were made aware of their ice creams.

As a brand, it believes in doing what you love doing - and doing it well!

Being the first artisanal ice Cream brand in India to come up with unique shapes, another special aspect of Emoi is that their ice creams are transported in funky Tuk Tuk trucks, across malls and other outlets in the city.

In an exclusive interview with YS Weekender Anant Verma, Founder and CEO of Emoi Artisanal Ice Cream, talks about their unique flavours, their one-of-a-kind popsicle shapes, going vocal for local, and their signature Tuk Tuk trucks that carry and transfer ice creams to multiple locations…

Edited excerpts from the interview:

YSW: What motivated you to start Emoi, and launch an artisanal ice cream brand in India? 

AV: Being an epicure, I dig into exquisite flavours of ice cream as an indulgence and with the limitation in the existing offerings of artisanal ice cream offerings in India, I felt the need to bridge the gap with Emoi.

Also, my daughter has been fascinated with the ice cream shapes during our travels abroad and hence the need for a home-grown version of this ice cream.

YSW: Why the name Emoi? 

AV: Emoi means “emotion” in French, the name resonates with our target group. Since we cherish the moments created over ice creams this name clicked well.

For instance, the banter between BFFs, after-office gossip, spotting a familiar face in a new city... these are all the memories that are often sparked over ice cream shared among friends.

That’s where our story begins. Indulging you with rich, artisanal ice cream is how we tell it.

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YSW: Where are Emoi’s headquarters and how many members do you have in your core team? 

AV: We are based out of Delhi and there are three more members in our core team. All are my ex-colleagues and friends who are food enthusiasts and experts in their fields of branding, production and operations.

YSW: Tell us about how Emoi has gone vocal for local.

AV: We’ve been vocal for local in more ways than one - starting from our nostalgia-driven flavours in sticks and jars. And we’ve always put forward classic Indian flavours, like kulfi, turmeric and jamun.

Our ingredients are all locally sourced, and our Tuk-Tuk itself is a celebration of Indian auto-rickshaws!

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YSW: What are your best selling flavours at Emoi, and how many flavours do you have in total? 

AV: Double Chocolate Mousse and Red Velvet Cake are the bestsellers in our signature stick offerings.

We have introduced transparent jars of ice cream in which Cold Chocolate Fudge and Chocolate Fruit and Nut are the best gourmet delights.

We have around 25 flavours and we are also known for creating bespoke delights on special request for catering.

YSW: How do you come up with the names for your ice creams and their unique shapes? 

AV: Our brand mascot is a cool cat, Mr Slerp who is witty and fun.

The names of our flavours are an extension of the same – Coolfie (our take on Kulfi) and Pawfee (our take on cold coffee with a paw effect coming from the cat). 

Since our target group is the millennial who likes fancy things and loves to click and post pictures on Insta, so names like Vanillicious fit in well.

Honestly, presentation is the key when it comes to artisanal foods!

YSW: A personal favourite Emoi Ice cream of yours?

AV: I love our cold coffee which is a paw-shaped coffee ice cream with the richness of cocoa. It’s inspired by the college canteen set up of chatting with friends over cold coffee.

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YSW: What is your ice cream making process like?

AV: We are a pure dairy-based product and source fresh ingredients to make the base for our product.

We have also collaborated with fruit processing units which supply us with seasonal fruit pulp.

Our ice creams are made in small quantities in batch freezers and blast frozen before they are packed and dispatched to retail stores.

We ensure our ice cream has minimal overrun (aeration) to ensure the finest and richest produce.

YSW: What made you decide to go all-natural with your ingredients, and what does sustainable eating mean to you? 

AV: We understand that ice creams are pure indulgence and who wouldn’t want indulgence and health together.

With this thought in mind, we have recently introduced a range of shareable jars under Emoi Naturel- which is our version of clean label ice cream (no artificial colours and flavours). It’s going to be launched soon in Salted Caramel, Hazelnut Coffee , Mango Duet.

Sustainable eating is essentially a balance of being aware of what’s good for you, yet enjoying yourself within reasonable means. Hence our tagline, “Your everyday excuse” since we give you reasons to indulge in it every day!

YSW: Where can we order Emoi from and do you plan to sell pan India soon? 

AV: Our carts have resumed operations in some malls post lockdown. We are available in many Modern trade stores in Delhi NCR -24Seven, Le’ Marche, Modern Bazaar etc. We are also available online via Hoi Pure.

We will soon be available in many stores pan-India. Currently, we’re looking at other cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chandigarh to start with.

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YSW: Tell us about what inspired the Tuk Tuk that carries the Ice-creams around?

AV: Ice cream trucks are extremely popular in the west and all of us have grown up buying ice creams from pushcarts.

We wanted our stores to also evoke nostalgia and bring back our childhood memories, which is why instead of making static stores we locked in the format of Tuk-Tuks.

An additional advantage of these stores is that we can cover multiple locations with one Tuk-Tuk. They travel to birthday parties, weddings and food festivals to join in your celebrations.

YSW: A local or international ice cream brand you have thoroughly enjoyed in the past? 

AV: I travelled extensively to see what was happening in this space locally and also internationally before starting Emoi. I had Gelato at a place called Venchi in Florence (Italy), their dark chocolate was to die for! I also love Talenti ice cream from the US.

YSW: Tell us about some of the food festivals you have attended where Emoi was up for order. 

AV: We try to be a part of almost every food / Literature and Art festival in North India and people have loved us for our product and our colourful and quirky carts. We especially designed a cart for the India Art Fair, which was hand-painted by the students of an Art College.

We even custom-made Gin n Tonic and Baileys Irish cream popsicles which were a big hit at the Jaipur Literature Festival this year.

YSW: What according to you makes Emoi stand out from the crowd? 

AV: Our product and processes are very different from the traditional retail commercial ice cream brands. Each ice cream we make is handcrafted and made in small batches.

Even our packaging stands out as we are the only ice cream brand to have packed our ice creams in Reusable transparent Pet jars.

We’re super stoked to show off our ice creams, and this is the first time a customer can pick up a jar of ice cream from any retail store, and see what’s inside.

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YSW: Chefs, culinary personalities, and individuals you are inspired by? 

AV: I am truly inspired by Jamie Oliver, as he’s known for his simple yet full of heart food recipes using local and fresh produce.

YSW: What are your future plans for Emoi, are you coming up with any exciting new offers?

AV: Our plan is to build our retail portfolio in a manner that we are able to reach out to more and more people who love artisanal ice creams. We’re partnering with many popular food delivery platforms and online marketplaces like Big Basket to be readily available to our customers. And we would soon be open to order from our Instagram and website.

YSW: What do you enjoy doing most on the weekend during your free time, when not running Emoi, other hobbies/interests?

AV: I love going on a solo ride over the weekends on my Harley and like spending time with friends and family on our farm. I also enjoy trying out new dishes in my kitchen, and enjoying them with my loved ones gives me great pleasure.