A “flavour guru” for Ben & Jerry’s, who spends her days taste-testing ice cream and inventing bold new flavours, has experimented with sweet, spicy, and even blue cheese creations.
Gabby Simmons, 33, has “always loved” food and science, so combining them in her dream job as a senior product developer for Ben & Jerry’s in 2020 felt like a recipe for success.
Gabby, who lives in Northamptonshire with her husband, Iain, 35, quickly discovered she needed to pace herself when it came to taste testing, sometimes even eating almost two pints of ice cream before 10am.
Since then, she has whipped up everything from crisp-studded chocolate ice cream to bold blue cheese experiments.
Developing a new flavour can take around a year, with Gabby making sure every swirl, crunch and chunk behaves exactly as it should in the freezer.
She has even toyed around with a sweet and spicy twist – such as chilli paired with strawberry – and is always on the lookout for the next unexpected scoop.
Speaking of her innovative blue cheese concoction, Gabby told PA Real Life: “I think it works, but everyone told me it didn’t – I really like putting cheese in ice cream. I love it.
“I still think it’s going to be a thing, I’m probably just too far into the future, but I think you should give it a try!”
Gabby has “always loved food” and grew up “enjoying baking” with her family.
As she got older, she continued to be “creative”, while also developing an interest in science at school.
To “combine” these passions, she studied food science and technology at the University of Lincoln from 2013 to 2018.
After graduating, she worked in food development for a company producing fresh fruit desserts.
Two years later, in 2020, she came across a job advert for a product developer at Ben & Jerry’s and was instantly “so excited about the opportunity”.
When she secured the role, she “could not believe it” and “could not wait to get stuck in”.
Day to day, Gabby creates new products and collaborates with marketing teams to understand current and future trends, as well as developing new flavours in the lab.
When she explains her job to strangers, she said most ask whether she eats ice cream all day and are “so intrigued and excited”.
Gabby said taste-testing is, indeed, a key part of the process – but, when she first started, she said that before she knew it she had eaten almost two pints of ice cream by 10am.
She has since “learned to eat as little as possible” when sampling the products, but admits that when “you first join it is hard to resist”.
She said: “Flavours start in so many different ways – we do try to tie things into trends, but you can get inspired when you go to a restaurant or just walking through the markets and you see something new, or something that really catches your eye or tastes amazing.
“You might just bring that back to the team.
“We make one or two pints of the ice cream we’re testing and keep making changes until we’re ready to take it to the next step.
“We then keep everything crossed that it’s all okay and gets approved to be a final product and reach the factory stage.”
For the end product, Gabby always aims to create “an experience”, with plenty of different textures within a single pint of ice cream.
She and the rest of the team ensure there are a “lot of inclusions” in each tub, such as brownie chunks or pieces of chocolate.
They experiment with different quantities of each element to create the “perfect” final product.
Gabby explained that the machines are programmed to “dose a certain amount of chunks”, such as the number of chocolate fish in Phish Food, with each batch weighed before being sent off.
She added: “There’s a lot of science behind it – if you want to have something crunchy, then we need to make sure that we develop that ingredient to last in ice cream for a long period of time and stay crunchy.
“It’s never as easy as just throwing something in.”
The process also involves rigorous checks for allergens and consumer safety, and it typically takes around a year to develop a new flavour.
Currently, she has been playing around with a sweet and spicy flavour combination, such as chilli added to strawberry, for fun, and she and the team are already forecasting trends for 2029.
“I went as far as putting blue cheese in pear ice cream when I was messing around in the lab trying to come up with new flavours,” Gabby laughed.
“I was going for a cheeseboard vibe – the majority of people said it wasn’t for them.
“It hurts me a bit but I didn’t take it too personally!”
One of the flavours she has worked on to date is ‘Chip Happens’, a chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks and a crunchy potato crisp swirl.
She said: “It was very controversial – you’re either a person that dips your chips into your chocolate milkshake or not!
“I honestly cannot put my finger on my favourite flavour – I’m very much a ‘variety is the spice of life’ kind of person, but I don’t think you can ever go wrong with chocolate fudge brownie.”
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