January 03, 2012 at 2:15 PM

A multi-award winning Cornish ice cream manufacturer has secured significant investment to enable the founders to grow the business.

The investment in Looe firm Treleavens Luxury Cornish Ice Cream comes from successful businessman Richard Rowse, who ran his family business Rowse Honey from 1987 until its sale to a private equity group in 2006.

Mr Rowse has invested an undisclosed amount in Treleavens Ice Cream, taking the business from a partnership wholly owned by founders Andrew and Mandy Treleaven, to a limited company.

Andrew Treleaven said: “We are delighted to announce the investment from Richard Rowse. Rowse Honey started with Richard’s father filling honey pots in a shed in the garden – it was an artisan business and that is what we are, and our focus will continue to be on making the best quality artisan ice cream.

“We recognised the business was close to reaching capacity and realised that we needed to make the investment to maintain the quality of our products and service for our existing customers, while being able to meet the demand for our products from new customers.”

The investment will bring immediate benefits to the company and the Cornish community, with Treleavens now able to increase production space at their Looe premises by 50% and purchase new equipment.

Three new jobs will be created, bringing the total number of employees in the business to eight. The firm are currently recruiting a production supervisor and will shortly be looking to create a new administration post.

Eddie Lofthouse, a business associate of Mr Rowse, has joined the team in the new role of general manager and will be overseeing the day to day running of the business and continue to provide customers with a high standard of service.

Founder Andrew Treleaven will continue to head operations, whilst his wife Mandy will be concentrating on developing new flavours.

Richard Rowse said: “Treleavens has been established for 15 years and is historically a very profitable business with turnover trebling in the last ten years. They pride themselves on doing the ordinary extraordinarily well and have an extremely loyal customer base.

“We invested in the business because we liked the product and the handmade approach to creating high quality ice cream, and we will continue doing more of the same.”

Treleavens, who count Rick Stein’s establishments, Fifteen Cornwall and Paul Ainsworth’s Rojano’s in the Square amongst their restaurant customers, also supply 50 outlets in Cornwall including Looe Beach Café, The Polkadot Café at Polkerris Beach and Trevathan Farm, St Endellion as well as three franchises in Looe, Polperro and Tintagel.

Freshly made every day using artisan-based methods, Treleavens ice cream is hand made using traditional Italian techniques from locally-sourced milk and cream from Trewithen Dairy in Lostwithiel, fresh fruit, and natural flavourings.

This produces a much denser product with more substance on the palate, bringing out the intensity of flavours, which has won many awards – Treleavens is the only Cornish manufacturer ever to have won the treble gold award in the Great British Taste Awards, the highest standard in the competition which is the ‘Oscars‘ of the food industry.