Vegans rejoice as sweet treats hit the streets

A new dessert van offering waffles, ice cream and doughnuts will have vegans everywhere spoiled for choice as it hits Sunshine Coast streets and markets.

Rick Mair and his son Lachlan ready to hit the streets next year with their ice cream van.

A NEW dessert van offering waffles, ice cream and doughnuts will have vegans everywhere spoiled for choice.

Van V Ice Cream, set to hit the streets in January next year, will offer a range of dairy free, gluten free and vegan friendly sweat treats.

Owner Rick Mair started the small business with his wife Michele Mair and said the retro 1966 viscount food van aimed to fill a hole in the market.

"We are vegans ourselves but when you go out and about there are many options, you've got a few options with savoury products but there aren't many dessert things," he said.

Already business owners of Gecko Sticker Signage, the couple had always wanted to venture into the world of food.

"This is something different.

"We love mucking around with food and I think when you make that change to vegan you really have to experiment a lot more with foods and flavours."

With an ice cream blender there are sure to be plenty of crazy and wonderful flavours.

"We also have an ice cream blending machine which you can blend fresh fruit through vanilla ice cream or with Oreos through it and we are doing another one with a … cookie dough that will be blended through as well," he said.

"We are trialling a few different flavours and getting people's opinions."

The van will also offer nine ice cream flavours including black forest, strawberry hibiscus, vanilla and nutmeg, salted caramel, chocolate and vanilla.

Mr Mair said they experimented with numerous ice cream brands but settled with local vegan, paleo and ketogenic friendly ice cream COYO.

"We really experimented a lot with different vegan ice cream companies down in Byron Bay and Melbourne, we've tried quite a few of them and COYO have ticked all the boxes in being nice and creamy and tasting more like a traditional ice-cream," he said.

"We will try and support local first, all our ingredients and products are locally sourced up on the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane."

The Landsborough resident said the van gave the new venture the freedom they were looking for.

"Having the van, you're going to the events or markets and you're not locked into a restaurant … you're also not working much during the week because we run another business so we wanted to have options there that we could work around the both of them," he said.

The Sunshine Coast can expect to see the family business at local markets and events.

"We're looking at the Noosa Farmers Market and the Kawana Farmers Market … we might be also going up to Mill Street Night Markets and we want to try and do events as well," he said.

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