Debunking the conventional wisdom of a delicious melting ice-cream, Japan has introduced a "not melting popsicles." In Japan's Kanazawa city, one shop is selling this not-so-conventional ice cream and it is selling like hot cakes. The shop, Kanazawa Ice located at Higashi-Chaya district, is getting popular among its tourist for its non-melting popsicles that can be taken out in the hot sun without getting messy.
A report on Asahi Shimbun revealed that the intriguing products are manufactured by Biotherapy Development Research Center Co. in Kanazawa. "The company began marketing the popsicles in April, also retailing them at outlets in Osaka and Tokyo," said the company's president, Takeshi Toyoda. He also claimed that the popsicles will not melt even if exposed to hot air from a dryer.
Tomihisa Ota, professor emeritus of pharmacy at Kanazawa University, is the man behind this miracle. He also revealed that the secret ingredient in their ice-cream is polyphenol liquid extracted from strawberries. "Polyphenol liquid has properties to make it difficult for water and oil to separate so that a popsicle containing it will be able to retain the original shape of the cream for a longer time than usual and be hard to melt," he explained to Asahi Shimbun.
However, the story behind the discovery of this revolutionary work seems to be an accident. It goes like this—post the 2011 Tsunami, farmers were apprehensive in growing strawberries and when they decided to experiment with the fruit again, it turned out to be in uneven shapes. Soon the Biotherapy Development Research Center stepped in and decided to make use of the fruit's polyphenol property. The Center asked its chef to come up with confectionery ideas but they ended up discovering its unique solidifying property when added to dairy products. This led Ota to introduce a popsicle that does not melt and he has succeeded.
