At 30, entrepreneur Aidan Ryan is co-founder of Ryan’s Farm artisan ice cream, a family venture that turns fresh milk straight from the farm into a range of small and large artisan ice cream tubs. Signature and seasonal flavours include vanilla, mint choc chip, cookies and cream, salted caramel brownie, and Irish cream liqueur.
Working alongside his sister Megan, Aidan has built a business that brings together two strands of his life: the family farm where he grew up and a career in pharmaceuticals. The road to becoming a business owner, however, began with a difficult period in his teens.
Around the age of 15, Aidan began to struggle with his mental health. He left school and stepped away from activities he had enjoyed, including hurling and football. “I would have suffered very badly with mental health issues,” he recalls.
For a time, he focused on farming alongside his father and brother, though he realised that farming alone was unlikely to be his long-term path. He returned to school and sat his Leaving Cert. Afterwards, he started a quantity surveying course before switching to biopharmaceutical processing. He has been working in pharmaceuticals now for seven years.
“Working shift work ties in well with the farming. I would have always been farming here on my days off, up until three years ago when we turned to robots and that’s when we started setting up the ice cream business,” says Aidan.
Farm diversification
The idea for Ryan’s Farm artisan ice cream grew from that farm connection and a curiosity about what else could be produced. Aidan had noticed that on-farm processing and farm shops seemed more developed in England and Scotland. Along with Megan, who studied nutritional health science, Aidan began discussing possible products they could make on the farm alongside their full-time jobs. They considered cheese and yogurt but needed something they could produce on weekends. Ice cream became the answer.
Starting out meant learning almost everything from scratch.
“Just knowing where to start was the problem. We reached out to the Department of Agriculture and got a lot of guidance that way. We would have also reached out to like-minded people, or people that are where we want to be. The Freezin’ Friesian’s is where we bought our first batch freezer and they answered all our questions,” says Aidan.
Recipe development began at home, with a small machine that made about a litre at a time.
“I’d say my mother was fit to kill me all right, because the kitchen was torn apart, and most of it was terrible. But you get a feel for it and once you get into the science of it, you’re able to balance it a bit more with the sugars, the fats, the solids and it starts getting a bit more consistent,” he says.
His pharmaceutical background may have contributed to a methodical approach, though he joked that the biggest challenge of working with family was “probably not killing each other”.
From farm to freezer
In a converted shipping container on the farm, they make small batches of ice cream from local ingredients. Before production begins, the machines are cleaned and sanitised, and the recipe is chosen so the ingredients can be weighed accurately.
The base includes milk, cream, egg yolks, sugars and other dry ingredients. Milk and cream go into a batch pasteuriser, with the remaining ingredients added as the mixture heats. The machine can “heat it to 65 degrees and hold it for a period of 30 minutes,” or use a higher temperature for a shorter time. Afterward, the mixture cools to a safe storage temperature. Depending on the recipe, flavours such as vanilla are added during this stage.
The finished ice cream can be stored in the freezer for about six months. The choice of recipe reflects Aidan’s commitment to an artisan product. Rather than use powdered mixes and extra stabilisers, he and his team make French-style custard-based ice cream with egg yolks and farm-fresh ingredients. As he puts it, “if you can’t pronounce it, then it probably shouldn’t be in the ice cream. But not only that, we are making farm-fresh ice cream, and we are probably going to have to charge a premium on that, because our processing costs are going to be so high, so we want to be able to stand behind it.”
The business has been officially operating for just over a year and a half. For now, Aidan is cautious about claiming that the business has transformed the farm’s finances.
The initial investment was substantial, and it is still early days. But making a product from the family’s own milk is meaningful to him, as is building something that involves the wider family. With the high temperatures this year, Ryan’s Farm artisan ice cream has had a very successful summer at agricultural shows and weddings and they are also supplying local hotels. As well as this, they have been shortlisted for three national awards.
Seasonal products have helped keep the business moving beyond the summer months. A pick-and-mix selection box introduced for the Late Late Toy Show proved popular enough to remain in demand until last Christmas. Aidan will be running these again this winter and the team is focused on tidying up production and preparing for the next busy season while working on a new flavour that he is keeping under wraps.
For anyone thinking about starting something of their own, Aidan’s advice is straightforward: “If you’re interested in doing something like this, just go for it. But do your homework and don’t jump into it. Take the advice from the people that are where you want to be.
“It would be nice if there was someone in school or some young adult struggling – who felt they couldn’t fit in or weren’t good enough – that they would read this and find a bit of inspiration.”
See instagram @ryans_farm_icecream
