Whether or not Bebop is plant-based has caused some confusion for some people. People would tell us they hear people share how it’s an amazing plant-based ice cream, yet when they search online, they find information about how it is made with milk, not cream. Naturally, people get confused. Actually, we’ve even gotten emails from someone confused, accusing us of lying to people about what our frozen treats are made of. Here is the story behind how Bebop went from dairy-based to plant-based.

The simplest one-sentence explanation is that Bebop started with a cream-less dairy base, and then became plant-based.

Now if you think that doesn’t make sense, let me explain. Our goal, has always been to create a frozen treat that was tasty and delicious, and at the same time, took less of a toll on our bodies, because we have always felt that was the one thing holding ice cream back. As much as everyone (regardless of age, race, or creed) loves ice cream, except for the negative effects on our body.

So in the beginning it was a creamy dairy base without cream, then as we started to develop our plant-based base, we saw how even though it looks and tastes like ice cream, the effect it has on our body, and our environment, was so much better compared with the dairy base, we started to shift where we think the future was for us.

Bebop’s Plant-based base consist a blend of almond, cashew, coconut oil, coconut milk, oat, soy, rice, adlay.

Now you may be thinking, why not just do what a lot of ice cream makers do, make both, and let the customer decide. For a time that was exactly what we thought! But during the time (in 2024) when we were building our food factory, we thought about the possibility of pivoting completely to make just plant-based frozen desserts in our plant. My core partners discussed it with me, and in the end, we decided to wholly focus on this as the way forward.

In case you are interested, here are the reasons why, and the story behind what finally helped me to make the decision. We knew even though it wasn’t mandatory by regulation, if we just made plant-based in our factory, there would be no chance of any cross-contamination, and managing inventory and product line would be more simple, all those were strong arguments, but in the end for me, it really came down to food safety. Removing the ingredients that came from animals, would reduce significantly the food safety risk in our product. No matter how careful we are with how we make our frozen desserts, we don’t make the milk or eggs that we would need for our dairy base.

Another thing that helped me to make the final decision, was a partner we were working with at the time. You see, during this time we were working with Tainan’s LIN HAO STORE, who wanted to use our ice cream, but wasn’t necessarily looking for a vegan or plant-based product. In the beginning they said they could feature some percentage of our plant-based flavors, they thought (rightfully so) having just plant-based might limit customer reach, but as they tasted more flavors they became more and more comfortable, up to the point where they said “Why don’t we just sell your plant-based base? We feel that it tastes really good, and can’t tell it is not made from dairy.” At that moment I knew we had reached a point of maturity with our plant-based base (even though to be honest, it has become even more sophisticated by now almost a year later).

Being able to persuade a (pretty sophisticated) customer/partner who was just looking for a tasty, flavorful ice cream (not necessarily plant-based) to choose our plant-based base made me feel comfortable that we can get more people to understand why plant-based is the answer for ice cream moving forward.

The Product collaboration that helped Bebop become plant-based.