As of Sunday, October 1st, a local favourite and Fernwood staple, Cold Comfort Ice Cream’s organic dairy products will be disappearing from store shelves across 20+ locations.
Cold Comfort is known for their high-quality, small batch ice cream that’s made from scratch with fresh ingredients from trusted sources.
Due to the recent changes to the Milk Industry Act, organic dairy products that aren’t being sold for immediate consumption are no longer allowed to be sold wholesale.
So, anything from Cold Comfort’s pints to ice cream cakes can no longer be sold in grocery stores because they are technically stored for periods without consumption.
Autumn Maxwell, the founder of Cold Comfort, told Victoria Buzz that the changes were implemented in 2019 but were never widely discussed and the information available remains vague and unclear.
“I had no idea, and nobody told me,” Maxwell said.
“I’ve been doing this for many years with no food safety issues.”
Maxwell said the Island Health’s Environmental Health Officers only recently decided to start cracking down on the new rules, which is how she found out.
They informed her of the changes in the spring, but failed to provide any further information about when and why there was suddenly an enforcement of these rules and regulations despite never having had any issues with product recall.
Unsure of what to do, she continued to sell throughout the summer. They recently followed up, asking her when she was going to stop.
“They made me choose the date, so I picked October 1st,” Maxwell said.
While they haven’t asked Maxwell to remove any remaining stock, to comply with the Health Officers, she has stopped offering her dairy ice cream product for wholesales when the grocery stores run out.
“We’ll continue to stock them with dairy-free ice cream, because that’s pretty popular too, but we can’t offer dairy.”
Maxwell said customers have jumped to Cold Comfort’s defense and the community has been asking how they can help and how they can continue to support the businesses during this time of uncertainty.
To which Maxwell has said that everyone is welcome to come and visit her store in Fernwood. She also mentioned the Ministry of Agriculture might be a good person to write to as well as a local MLA.
“It’s hard to say how it’s going to affect us financially but we’re going to get a little more creative,” Maxwell said.
“It’s all about pivoting and adapting.”
She’s going to keep an eye on events she can attend as well as look into parking her ice cream truck in areas with high traffic.
In the meantime, Maxwell wishes to express her gratitude to the loyal customers who have been so supportive and are willing to help.
For information on the Milk Industry Act, you can read the full details here.
“While the rules around dairy processing have been in place for many years, I know that many people are big fans of small local ice cream shops. I am too,” Agriculture and Food Minister Pam Alexis told Victoria Buzz.
“We will be taking a look at those rules to see if there are opportunities to make things easier for small businesses while continuing to maintain the high standards of quality and safety people expect.”
In response to our inquiries regarding the rules and regulations, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food provided the following background information:
- An ice cream store making ice cream for wholesale has always been required to be a licensed dairy plant, and there have been no recent changes to legislation or regulations that changed this requirement.
- Businesses selling ice cream wholesale to grocery stores, must meet legislated food safety requirements and obtain a dairy plant license through the BC Centre of Disease Control.
They added that the 2019 Dairy Plant Exception Regulation was intended to make it easier for small businesses such as restaurants to make and serve small-batch dairy products, including ice cream.
It allows them to be exempted from the requirement to be licensed as a dairy plant if they made dairy products for immediate consumption or if they used dairy products from a licensed plant.
