After all, Perfect Robot is currently the flagship product for Perfect Day’s vegan milk protein. Although Perfect Day and Brave Robot (The Urgent Company) are separate entities, they were founded by the same people and it would make sense for their values to align. Here are a few thoughts before I get to the ethical rating for Brave Robot ice cream. Sustainability at Perfect Day and Brave Robot As they only produce the milk protein, it’s lactose-free. Perfect Day’s whey protein is produced in a genetically engineered fungus that’s grown in a fermentor, using technology similar to that for producing insulin or vegetarian rennet. Protein content is about the same as conventional dairy ice cream – 5 grams per serving – except that it’s protein that’s made in a fungus by Perfect Day. As mentioned on previous posts, vegan ice creams do have a key nutritional advantage over most conventional dairy ice creams (e.g., Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs) – no trans fats. So much saturated fat and sugar! It’s 24% sugar by weight, making it the sweetest vegan ice cream that I’ve come across.

Water, sugar, coconut oil, ground hazelnuts, sunflower oil, non-animal whey protein, contains less than 2% of maltodextrin, cocoa processed with alkali, natural flavor, calcium potassium phosphate citrate, salt, disodium phosphate, carob bean gum, mono and diglycerides, sunflower lecithin, cornstarch. My favorite of the three ice creams that I tried was Hazelnut Chocolate Chunk, so I’m going to show ingredients and nutritional info for that flavor.īrave Robot, Hazelnut Chocolate Chunk – Ingredients: Brave Robot ice cream – Ingredients and Nutrition Facts I’ll deal with the ethical evaluation soon – first let’s take a look at the ingredients. I hope so, as Perfect Day’s vegan milk protein offers some large advantages over dairy, from a sustainability perspective (and animal welfare too, of course). I expect that the formulation will evolve and future versions of Brave Robot will be better. Having said that, I’d recommend trying Brave Robot ice cream if you are a fan of conventional ice cream and looking to cut down on dairy and/or reduce your footprint. I would definitely repurchase Ripple ice cream over Brave Robot. Well, au contraire, Ryan – I found Ripple Foods’ chocolate ice cream (which is made from pea protein) to have a better texture than Brave Robot’s ice cream, so I’d disagree on this. Here’s what Ryan Pandya, CEO and co-founder of Perfect Day, said in a Medium article introducing The Urgent Company and Brave Robot:Ĭall me a cynic, but I don’t think the next pea-protein-slurry is going to suddenly deliver on the creaminess and delight of real dairy ice cream. I’m not the only one who thought this – friends who tried it picked up on the same thing. I couldn’t pin down what wasn’t quite right – it seemed to be a subtle issue with both taste and texture. It wasn’t terrible by any means – it’s actually pretty close to rich dairy ice cream – but there’s something about it that I didn’t love. I’ll cut to the chase – there was something about the ice cream that didn’t quite work for me. The flavors that I bought were Blueberry Pie, Vanilla N’ Cookies, and Hazelnut Chocolate Chunk – all of which sounded appealing. These days, you can buy Brave Robot ice cream for around $6 per pint (or $2 at the Grocery Outlet). Folks were surprised to see the ice cream at these prices – friends of mine (biotech enthusiasts) bought ice cream from Perfect Day when it was first released, at a cost of $60 for three pints.

I bought three different flavors of Brave Robot ice cream from the Grocery Outlet for $1.99 each. Note that Brave Robot and Modern Kitchen brands are both produced by The Urgent Company, which was created by Prefect Day but now runs as an independent company.Īnyway… on to the Brave Robot ice creams that I tried.

Graeter’s ice cream, made in Ohio, interesting flavors.

Nick’s ice cream, low carb and keto-friendly.

Smitten ice cream, which has several liquid nitrogen equipped stores around the Bay Area.

Modern Kitchen vegan cream cheese, which is not on supermarket shelves yet.

Brave Robot vegan ice cream, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Several companies are starting to use Perfect Day’s milk protein as an ingredient: So, Perfect Day are offering a vegan version of milk (basically) that’s much closer to cow’s milk than milk made from oats, almond, coconut, etc. The goal of Berkeley-based Perfect Day has been to replicate dairy by engineering a fungus to produce the proteins that are found in milk (casein and whey proteins, mainly). Brave Robot is the ice cream maker but the vegan milk protein is produced by another company, Perfect Day. Confused? Well, don’t be – it’ll all become clear in a moment. Brave Robot is a unique brand of ice cream in that it’s made using milk proteins that come from a fungus rather than a cow.

Brave robot ice cream